I’m fascinated by old wives’ tales and superstitions, to the point that I guess you could say I collect them mentally whenever I hear a good one.  I’m actually thinking about writing a book about them, their historical origins, and their grounding in fact - in part because it would really annoy Rob the Realist, and in part because I’d really enjoy it.

One old wives’ tale that I live by is that cats can forecast rain.  My mother told me this when I was very young, just as she had been told by her mother, and so forth.  The theory is that when cats clean behind their ears, which they don’t do often, rain is on the way.  Living in a drought inflicted area must thereby mean that our cats have very dirty ears!

I was watching Eskimo the cat clean behind her ears this morning and I got to thinking about other weather predicting superstitions.  Aside from the ‘Red sky at night is a shepard’s delight, red sky in the morning is a shepard’s warning’ saying, and the theory that seeing a dragon-fly means there won’t be any rain for 48 hours, I couldn’t think of any.  So I hit Google.

The Old Farmers’ Almanac makes reference to the belief that if cows laid down in a field on their right sides rain would inevitably be on the way.  It also mentions that dragonflies are said to be an indicator of a cold snap within the next few days, which - in Australia at least - doesn’t make a huge deal of sense considering dragonflies are around in summer as well as winter.

Whimsy.org.uk has a great collection of superstitions and old wives’ tales, including a section on animals.  They mention another belief (which I thought was common knowledge) that agitated ants or large swarms of ants foretold coming rain and bad weather.  Another interesting one that comes from Icelandic folklore is that the year will be one of bad weather if the first calf born is white.

Another one I found interesting, from an article in the Independent, is that people with rheumatism or arthritis can forecast weather changes.  I have always maintained that I can tell when a bad storm is on the way if my knees and ankles ache.  According to the article, a study undertaken by Instituto Poal de Reumatologia (in Barcelona) showed that arthritic patients had increased joint pain when there was a drop in atmospheric pressure.

I can tell I’m going to have to conduct a scientific analysis of Eskimo the cat’s forecasting abilities, even if it is just to shut up all the non-believers.  And why am I so confident of my cat’s success?  I guess you could say that I feel it in my bones…!