March
13
Posted on 13-03-2008
Filed Under (Environment, History) by amy

 Eskimo the cat

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…!

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Comments

Sarah on 14 March, 2008 at 11:29 am #

The best one I remember hearing somewhere is about galahs. Whether it’s a pink galah or a sulphur-crested cockatoo, if you see them down on the ground, eating the grass seeds, rain is on the way. I used to see it all the time down in Kingy and up here… well, it’s got about a 95-98% strike rate. :D


amy on 14 March, 2008 at 11:44 am #

Only problem with that is with the park next door to our house we have them there eating just about all the time!!


Rachel on 14 March, 2008 at 12:02 pm #

I am a lover of superstitions as well :) Thank you SO much for the links, I dont know whether it is my obsessive compulsive tendencies or my belief of old wives tales, but I’ll be reading those websites and keeping my eye out ;)

I’ll let you know if I get any interesting results


amy on 14 March, 2008 at 12:56 pm #

lol - Rachel, promise me you won’t go around looking for white lambs or cows laying on their right-hand sides ;)


sherxr on 15 March, 2008 at 1:14 am #

Hi! Ants can predict the coming of rain. It’s true! I always see the ants in my flat moving to a new location each a storm is coming. Believe it or not?!
Oh and my knees can predict weather too. I hate cold weather. Ouch!


Davo on 15 March, 2008 at 9:54 am #

Dogs and elephants can predict earthquakes .. something to do with sub-sonics.


amy on 15 March, 2008 at 10:38 am #

Sherxr - I’m convinced about the ants, whenever we see them inside we know there’s weather coming. The other thing we’ve noticed is when they build their nests up really high you can usually tell there’s rain on the way.

Davo - I’ve heard about that but haven’t read much into it. If I recall, people say that the birds suddenly go quiet before hand too, don’t they? You’ve made me curious now, I’ll have to read some more!!