One for Sorrow (15 page)

Bees have fascinated mankind for centuries, and a belief that they can predict rain dates back to the ancient Greeks, who were the first to practise bee keeping. They noticed that bees stayed close to the hive when a storm was imminent and flew further afield on clear days. North African folklore also featured bees as weather forecasters, there people believed the tone and pitch of their hum foretold whether the day would be wet or dry.
    The behaviour of insects was often studied carefully for hints about alterations in the weather and we now know that the drop in atmospheric pressure that precedes a storm is the trigger for the changes that can be observed in flying insects. Low air pressure makes it more difficult for both birds and insects to fly, so they tend to fly closer to the ground before a storm (see also
‘If birds fly low, then rain we shall know'
). Bees have an added incentive to stay close to home if heavy rain threatens because they are likely to perish in a downpour, so while beekeepers often observe bees flying out in light drizzle, which is actually beneficial for the collection of nectar, they rarely see them going far if there are heavy clouds. Modern science had an additional theory about this – that bees need some clear sky to help them navigate on long journeys. In cloudy conditions it is suggested that they have a much poorer chance of finding their way home.

   

This commonly used saying originates in the flour mills of medieval England. It has been in use since at least the sixteenth century, when a similar phrase ‘bring grist to the mill' was used idiomatically to mean to turn something to your advantage. The original wording of the proverb was ‘All is grist that comes to the mill' and the phrase had faintly negative undertones, suggesting that someone was taking advantage, perhaps as a result of its roots in feudal society.
    In early medieval England, each family took their grain (known as grist) to be ground at a communal mill attached to each manor. The miller was employed by the lord and charged a fee for grinding the villagers' grain. Money was scarce so this usually took the form of a share of the grain, which in lean years would have cost a poor family dearly. In this way a miller could make a profit for the lord of the manor at the expense of the peasants, with whatever grain came to the mill, regardless of its quality.
    The phrase was used metaphorically from the outset to show that all experience, both good and bad, can be useful. Over time, the positive aspects of this have largely superseded its links to feudal injustice and it now often means simply that every little helps. Though it is sometimes used to describe factors that seem to add weight to an opponent's argument even though we might believe those factors to be worthless.

   

This saying comes from the Gospel of Matthew and appeared in Middle English for the first time in the earliest English translation of the Bible, that of Myles Coverdale in 1535. It is taken from the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is often interpreted as a depiction of what will happen on Judgement Day. In the King James Bible, the section from which the phrase comes (Matthew 25:32–3) reads:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

In Christian minds, sheep were associated with meekness and goodness, congregations were often referred to as a flock, Jesus was known as the Lamb of God and also as the Good Shepherd. Goats meanwhile, were giddy and fickle with eyes and horns like the devil's.
    The parable goes on to explain how the ‘sheep', who are righteous in the eyes of the lord because they have shown kindness and charity towards the sick and needy, personified by Jesus, will be welcomed into heaven, while the goats, who have failed to help Jesus, will be cast into hell.
    The phrase retained a strictly religious meaning until the nineteenth century, when it began to be used more broadly to describe other opposites in quality. Now we use it in the workplace when we think a certain challenge will sort those who take part into high and low performers. Other versions of the phrase have also developed, such as ‘Separate the wheat from the chaff' and the more recent marketing slogan for a flu remedy: ‘Sorts the men from the boys.'

If the cock goes crowing to bed,

He'll certainly rise with a watery

head.

The farmyard cockerel makes his presence known every morning when he crows to herald the dawn, and his forceful cry has earned him a place at the heart of English folklore. He was credited with the magical ability to scare off the spirits of darkness with his call, leaving the farmer and his family safe to get up when they heard it. West Country wisdom said that the cockerel could frighten away even the Devil himself, while in Celtic and Welsh mythology a cockerel crowing three times around midnight was believed to foretell a death.
    The idea that an evening rendition of cock-a-doodle-doo would mean the bird would wake up wet comes from the belief, prevalent in rural communities, that a cock crowing in the evening signalled that there would be rain by the morning. While cockerels usually reserve their call for first light, they do also crow if there's a disturbance nearby and if they sense that rain is on the way. While traditional beliefs state that the cockerel's premonition of rain was linked to its magical powers, we now know that birds are particularly sensitive to changes in air pressure, and that cockerels crow when atmospheric pressure drops in advance of a rain storm, either as an expression of discomfort at the change or as a warning to its hens to gather together to shelter from the forthcoming showers.

   

The ancient Egyptians were the first to discover the delights of honey and records of beekeeping date the practice back to 13,000
bc
. In medieval England honey was the main source of sweetness in cooking and was believed to have magical healing powers derived from the flowers whose nectar was used to make it. In rural communities it was thought to cure everything from digestive problems to coughs and colds, and it was even taken to counter the effects of opium and was used to embalm bodies, so it was one of the most valuable commodities of the time.
    Unlike today's beekeepers, peasants in the Middle Ages collected their honey from natural hives, which they often transferred into homemade beehives called skeps made from coiled and woven straw. These containers couldn't be opened and closed again as modern containers can, so when the time came for collecting the honey in September the hive was destroyed and the bees died. Every year the beekeeper would have to find a new swarm; if he was lucky and found one, he'd have enough honey to last the year, which, as this sixteenth-century proverb shows, was at least equal in worth to his hay harvest.
    But the window of opportunity for settling a new swarm was short as the full verse explains:

A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly.

This instructive saying has been used since the sixteenth century to encourage people to live within their means, and was already listed as a proverb in John Heywood's 1546 collection of proverbs. It refers specifically to the cutting of fabric by tailors or housewives and some interpretations of the phrase take it as a straightforward example of limiting yourself to what you have at your disposal.
    Others cite another possible source: the strict laws that governed who wore what in Elizabethan England. In around 1574 Elizabeth I passed several ‘sumptuary' laws (named after the Latin word for expenditure) called ‘statutes of apparel, which dictated with astonishing detail the colours, cuts and fabrics that could be worn by people of each social class. Laws preventing overspending on frivolities, food and entertainment had been a feature of Roman courts and in Tudor times they were justified as a means of preventing people from getting into debt, but the rules were as much about emphasizing class divisions as they were about protecting the well-to-do from overspending.
    They decreed that purple must only be worn by royalty and that silk be reserved for only those of knightly status or above and lower-class women must limit themselves to wool, linen or sheepskin in orange, beige or yellow.
    The cloth you cut your coat from might therefore have been determined not only by what you could afford, but by what your social status allowed you, so the phrase was a reminder to know your place as well as to spend only what you could afford. These days the snob factor is absent from the phrase's meaning but we still use it to warn big spenders against overloading the credit card.

Society in the Middle Ages was religious in a way that is difficult to grasp in our secular age. Right and wrong was determined by the Bible, thanks were given to God for good fortune and whenever anything bad happened it was attributed to the Devil. Hell was a very real and terrifying place in medieval minds and it was against demonic forces, rather than plain old adversity, that people battled on a daily basis. It was also widely recognized that poverty made people vulnerable to the influence of the Devil, who was always looking for signs of weakness that he could capitalize on in his efforts to turn man away from God. The ever-present threat he posed means that the Devil looms large in English folklore.
    The original wording of this saying appears in John Lydgate's
The Assembly of the Gods
, published around 1420: ‘Hit ys oft seyde by hem that yet lyues, He must nedys go that the deuell dryues.'
    In this form the phrase uses the familiarity of a harnessed animal being driven onwards to convey the impossibility of man resisting the Devil when he has the reins. Over the centuries the phrase has been gradually shortened so that the version we use today makes no mention of the Devil at all. ‘Needs must,' we sigh as we're grudgingly forced by circumstance to do something we'd rather avoid.