Fowl or Fair: Thanksgiving Weather Magic

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. It's the holiday most closely associated with New England, having its origin in the old Puritan tradition of celebrating thanksgiving days. Many of the foods we associate with the holiday, like cranberries, pumpkins, and turkey, are also foods indigenous to New England. 

This is a New England-centric blog, and I like to post something about Thanksgiving each year. So here, from 19th century Massachusetts, are some ways to predict on Thanksgiving what the weather will be during the upcoming winter:

Method #1 - Examine the feathers of your chickens. Do they seem particularly thick? If so, a hard winter is on its way.

Method #2 - Examine the breastbones of your chickens (after you have cooked and eaten them, sadly). Do they seem particularly light in color? If so, you can expect a lot of snow. If they are dark, you won't get much snow at all.

Method #3 - Look at the breastbone of your goose (again, after you have cooked and eaten them). Is it particularly dark? Yes? You can expect more rain than snow.

James Audubon, Wild Turkey, 1825

On the surface, method #1 appears to be the most "scientific." It seems logical that chickens will grow heavier feathers if a cold winter is coming. But do chickens' bodies somehow intuit what the weather will be like in the future, and then grow extra feathers in response to it? Do they actually grow heavier feathers if the next few months will be cold? I don't know think that's true. Chickens do tend to molt in the fall, but I don't think their feathers grown back heavier if the future weather will be cold. 

Method #2 seems more magical, and relies on similarity in color:  white breastbone = white snow. Method #3 also relies on magical color similarity, but doesn't predict if heavy snow is coming, only the proportion of rain to snow. I guess this is because of the goose's affinity for water? I suppose eating both chicken and goose would give you the most accurate forecast, telling you if you'll get more snow than rain, and also how heavy the snow will be.  

I found these methods of predicting the weather in Clifton Johnson's 1897 book What They Say in New England. Interestingly, there's no weather prognostication centered on turkey bones. Turkeys have long been the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving feast, but the magic associated with turkeys is focused on the wishbone. 

There are other forms of folk magic based on fowl. For example, Fanny Bergren's 1896 book Current Superstitions contains this unusual piece of advice from Winn, Maine:

"Swallow a chicken's heart whole, and the first man you kiss afterwards will be your future husband." 

Chicken hearts apparently had a lot of magical power, because elsewhere in the book Bergren notes the following:

"Swallow a chicken's heart whole and make a wish. It will come true." 

I don't think people eat a lot of chicken hearts these days, and even if you do I don't recommend swallowing them whole. You won't get married and your wish won't come true if you choke to death on a chicken heart. Chew your food!

I'm vegetarian, so I'm not eating any of these birds next week. I couldn't find any weather magic involving pumpkins, potatoes or Tofurkey, so let know if you try any of these divinations. I want to be prepared for the winter weather! 

Drought, Snakes, and Rain Magic

I don't know about you, but I actually like a rainy day now and then. My favorite type of weather is a windy and cloudy day. So this long spate of clear, dry (and hot) weather has been nice enough but I am ready for a change.

Much of Massachusetts is in a drought situation, so I think everyone is ready for a change. We had a little rain recently but it hasn't helped. The grass in all the parks near my house yellow and crunchy, and a lot of the flowers that usually bloom this time of year just haven't appeared. I feel like I'm living in California instead of New England. Is this what climate change looks like?

Happily we are supposed to get some more rain this weekend but probably not enough to alleviate our drought. Perhaps a little rain magic is due?

When I was a child in the unenlightened 1970s I always associated rain magic with American Indians, since cartoons often showed them performing dances to bring rain. Some Native American groups do indeed perform rain dances, as do other groups around the world as well. I haven't seen any indication that rain dances were ever performed in this part of the country, though.

Rain magic can be found in New England folklore, but most of it involves predicting when and how long it will rain. There isn't a lot of magic to actually bring rain. I think that might be because this area is usually pretty wet. But perhaps rain magic might be in order if we continue to get more droughts like this one!

Clifton Johnson's book What They Say in New England (1896) contains two techniques to bring rain. Johnson collected his folklore among the farmers in western Massachusetts. I don't think those crusty old farmers used words like 'magic' or 'spell' to describe their practices. They were just things you did. However, they sound like magic spells to me.

They are both violent and I don't recommend them since they involve killing animals, which is not a good thing to do! DO NOT KILL ANIMALS TO BRING RAIN. Anyway, here are the rain spells folkloric weather techniques.

A garter snake in my front yard.

The first is just to kill a beetle. That's it. Just kill a beetle and it will make it rain.

The second is to kill a snake, and then hang up its body. This should produce rain. On the other hand, if you want the weather to be dry you should bury the snake's body.

I'm not sure what the connection is between these animals and rain. Certainly, serpents are associated with water in myths around the world. In China dragons often live in water, and in ancient Babylonian mythology the god Marduk creates the world by killing Tiamat, a primordial water-serpent goddess. In some Algonquian myths the thunderbird fights a watery horned serpent. But would any of these myths really make their way to Yankee farmers in Massachusetts? If you have any insight please share it.

So to wrap up: don't kill animals to make it rain, but maybe try some other magic if you know some. The drought will end at some point I'm sure. What's the old New England saying? "If you don't like the weather just wait a minute."

Some Weather Lore

I'm sitting here at my computer during Tropical Storm Irene. The weather's not as bad as some forecasters thought, but it's certainly not great. Pieces of my neighbor's roof blew into our driveway, and there are some random pieces of debris up and down the street.

In honor of Irene, here's some weather folklore from Maine. It's good for any time of year, not just hurricane season!

Rooster crowing on the fence, rain will go hence.
Rooster crowing on the ground, rain surely will come down.

I hope the rooster got paid extra for his weather predictions, because it sounds like people depended on him in pre-Internet days. Here's another rooster forecast:

If a rooster crows before going to bed
He will rise with a wet head.

The rooster doesn't have a monopoly in the bird world, though. Robins calling to each other, and loons crying are also signs of rain.

Animals other than birds can predict the weather as well. Want to know if a windstorm is coming? Check to see if your local spider is adding extra strands to his web, if the sea gulls have flown inland, or (if you're at sea) dolphins are playing around your ship.

Here's my favorite weather rhyme from Maine. Short and sweet, and a little spicey.

Sun sets Friday clear as a bell
Rain on Monday sure as hell.

This weather folklore is courtesy of Horace Beck's The Foklore of Maine.