Is welcome and is dear to me.
John Clare._




WEATHER AND FOLK LORE OF PETERBOROUGH AND DISTRICT.

(Second Series).


This is a continuation of a Paper on the "Survival of Old Customs" in
Peterborough and the neighbourhood which was read at the Royal
Archæological Society's meeting in 1898, with an addition of a few more
old customs, and more particulars of others, to which I have also added
a collection of the quaint Weather and Folk Lore of this district. Being
at a point where four counties are almost within a stone's throw,
Peterborough possesses the traditions of the Counties of Huntingdon,
Cambridge, and Lincoln, as well as Northampton. It is rather difficult
to locate these sayings to one particular County, so I have taken those
current within a radius of about fifteen miles.

Most of them have been repeated to me personally and only in a very few
cases have I copied any which have been printed and then only to make
the collection more complete.

The two Northamptonshire Poets, Dryden and John Clare, often notice the
phases of the Weather, and John Clare, especially, describes the Rural
Customs and weather Lore of this district with a true Poets feeling and
amongst his M.S.S., now the property of the Peterborough Museum, are