St Swithuns Day

On July 15, 2009 / By maggi dawn / Reply

According to tradition, if it rains today, it will do so for the next 40 days. 

The historical record on St Swithun (or Swithin) is slender: we know that he was the Bishop of Winchester and died in 862 because his death is entered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 861. We also know that he was the patron saint of Winchester Cathedral from the 10th to the 16th century. His signature appears on several charters in Kembles Codex diplomaticus, but little else remains as a reliable record of him.

The legend, however, is much more fun, and runs something like this. Bishop Swithin was a saintly man, and evidently he liked the rain, since at his own request he was buried outside under the "sweet rain from heaven". A little over a century later, however, the monks at Winchester felt it inappropriate that he was buried out of doors, and took it upon themselves to move his body inside the Cathedral. This they did on July 15th, 971.

As they set about exhuming the body, it started to rain. Nothing unusual about that in an English summer of course, except that on this occasion it continued to rain in biblical proportions for forty days and forty nights.  The legend then attached itself that the monks had displeased St Swithin (who, after all, liked the rain and the big outdoors) and the incessant rain was a judgement on them.  Hence the saying, "If on St. Swithins Day comes the rain, for forty days it will remain. "

Today it has rained several times already, but I am confident that it will not be incessant for the next 40 days, especially as I live in East Anglia in the driest area in the UK. 

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Comments

  1. Caroline Too
    On May 27, 2009 at 11:37 am

    I guess that I’m not a great fan of ‘magic numbers’ {7 for wholeness, 40 for… etc.} but what you say about waiting has become so important (and difficult) to me.
    I try to head off on retreat a couple of times a year and I always seem to make the same mistake:
    I try and try to hear what God’s saying, I focus hard, I pray hard, I lay ideas out and journal hard… and then I give up (quite possibly sulking that this God of mine never seems to speak to me…)
    then it’s almost as if I hear God sigh and say “at last I can get a word in edgeways…
    you’d have thought I would have learned by now to WAIT

  2. Lisa Watkinson
    On May 27, 2009 at 11:53 am

    Thank you for this post Maggi, it really made me think and question myself on what I reallt mean when I say ‘I am waiting on God, I think sometimes I just carrying on as normal and wait without thought, expecting God to just interupt. I need to find that quiet time to watch and wait.
    I found this quote, which kind of spoke to me also.
    I had tended to view waiting as mere passivity. When I looked it up in my dictionary however, I found that the words passive and passion come from the same Latin root, pati, which means “to endure.” Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It’s a vibrant, contemplative work. It means descending into self, into God, into the deeper labyrinths of prayer. It involves listening to disinherited voices within, facing the wounded holes in the soul, the denied and undiscovered, the places one lives falsely. It means struggling with the vision of who we really are in God and molding the courage to live that vision.
    SUE MONK KIDD, When the Heart Waits

  3. Adam
    On May 27, 2009 at 5:26 pm

    I would like to get in touch with Maggi Dawn. My name is Adam Butlein.
    My partners and I are starting a company that gives poor women in Liberia, Africa jobs, training, and healthcare.
    We run a sweatshop-free garment manufacturing business that is owned by its workers.
    The factory outputs organic t-shirts and is striving to be powered on renewable-green energy in the near future.
    All that being said, we are a small company with very limited funding as we give as much money to the women as possible.
    Our current site, http://www.madeinliberia.com tells a bit of our story, but it is currently being redesigned.
    On one of the shirts that we output we have discussed printing a prayer on the inside. I have found one that appeals very much to me and I believe tells the women’s storys’ very well.
    Can you please contact me at:
    abutlein@madeinliberia.com as soon as possible to discuss further. It is the prayer for women:
    http://maggidawn.typepad.com/maggidawn/2006/01/a_prayer_for_wo.html
    Kind regards,
    Adam
    Adam Butlein
    The Liberian Women’s Sewing Project
    41 Sutter Street, Box 1788
    San Francisco, CA 94104
    Voice – 415-889-7100
    U.S. Mobile- 414-477-7772
    Liberia Mobile – 231 6 378 980
    Fax – 415-651-8858
    http://www.madeinliberia.com

  4. Laurel Massé
    On May 27, 2009 at 8:27 pm

    It is so hard to wait and ONLY wait, and not to listen to music while waiting, have tea while waiting, chat on the phone while waiting, wash up the dishes, try on the dress, shop, shower, check emails, even read a book about waiting while waiting… so hard to trust that one is waiting for something that is going to come. The trust is the hardest part for me. And the being quiet, of course.
    Thank you for your blog.

  5. Graham
    On May 28, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Thank you. I have just been reading Stephen Cottrell’s ‘Hit the ground kneeling’- he talks about a day of being away, of doing nothing- sleeping, reading the paper and perhaps jotting some stuff down and maybe that leading into prayer.
    I seem to be like Caroline- if I do take time out I over focus (and give up)- but I don’t seem to have her (or your) wisdom about it.
    Thank you!

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