Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1906 — THUNDER LORE. [ARTICLE]

THUNDER LORE.

Ancient Beliefs as to the Meaning of Noises of the Sky. Thunder, just because it is a noise for which there is no visible cause, has always excited the imagination of the unscientific; so it is natural, says the London Chronicle, that the most out rageous superstitions about storms should date back to the time when everybody, more or less, was unscien"tTHc. One old writer explains the bellaf of his day—that a “storm is said to follow presently when a company of hogges runne crying home,” on the ground that "a bogge Is most dull and of a melancholy nature, and so by reason doth foresee the ralne that cometb.” Leonard Digges, In bls “Prognostication Everlasting” (1556) mentions that “thunder in the morning signifies wind; about noon, rain, and in the evening a great tempest.” The same writer goes on to say: "Some write (but their ground I see not) that Sunday’s thunder should bring the death of learned men, judges and others; Mondays, the death of women; Tuesday’s, plenty of grain; Wednesday’s, bloodshed; Thursday’s, plnty of sheep and corn; Friday’s, the slaughter of a great man and other horrible murders; Saturday’s, a general pestilent plague and great dearth.” After this the gay and lightsome manner shown by Lord Northampton toward these grave matters In his “De/ensatlT*" la moat cheering. “It

chaunceth sometimes,” he writes, “to thunder about that time and season of the yeare when swannes hatch their young, and yet no doubt it is a paradox of simple men to think that a swanne can not hatch without a cracke of thunder.”