Review of Kingsbury, S. A., Kingsbury, M. E., and Mieder, W., 'Weather Wisdom: Proverbs, Superstitions and Signs', New York, Peter Lang, 1996, viii, 478pp., £33.00.

1997

Ryan, John S

Review

en

Publication

University of Sheffield, National Centre for English Cultural Tradition (NATCECT)

United Kingdom

une:11664

This fine and even sumptuous compilation of more than 4,400 largely proverbial weather sayings, mainly drawn from American and British sources and archival collections, is particularly a reflection of the habit of compiling such material in the latter parts of both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. The senior author - who died in 1994 before the book's publication - and his colleagues, had already issued 'A Dictionary of American Proverbs' (1992) and 'A Dictionary of Wellerisms' (1994). The third author was also responsible in 1990 for 'International Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography', Supplement 1 (1800-1981) issued by Garland. Their Preface now categorises these weather dicta as usually expressing either "folk wisdom in a metaphorical fashion" or "superstitions without any rational or scientific basis" (p. vii), and also stresses their folk transmission, over a considerable period of time, "the collective wisdom of generations of people who have depended on knowing at least to some degree of certainty what the weather might bring" (p. ix).

link

Lore and Language, 15(1-2), p. 204-205

0307-7144

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