Dictionary of national biography Volume 55 Sir Leslie Stephen

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...appears in Jonson"s" Every Man out of his Humour" (1598, act. i. sc. i.) The storv that when the monks desired to translate the saint"s body into their church it rained so hard for forty days that they were unable to do so, and, believing that the rain was an evidence of the saint"s displeasure at their design, finally abandonod it, is an inversion of the contemporary record, which represents the saint as desiring translation, and cannot have arisen until the memory of the famous shrine had died out among the ignorant. No special incident need be sought for to account for the English superstition, for similar beliefs existed in other countries in connection with other saints, as in France in connection with the days of St. Medard (8 June) and of SS. Gervaise and Prothais (4 July), in Flanders with Ste Godelieve"s day (6 July), and in Germany with the day of the Seven Sleepers (27 June), and others (Notes and Queries, 1855, xii. 137, 258), though it is just possible that the words of William of Malmesbury, about the raindrops on St. Swithun"s grave, which seem to have been an addition to the original story, may have had something to do with the choice of his day rather than that of any other saint of about the same time of year. It has been proved by observations taken at Greenwich during a period of twenty years that "a dry St. Swithun" is not infrequently followed by more or less rain in the next few weeks (brnd). In some parishes, as at Kingston-on-Thames, church dues were gathered on St. Swithun"s day (ib.) Fortythree churches in England are dedicated to him. Swithin, as the saint"s name is sometimes written, is an incorrect spelling. Among the earliest hagiographical accounts of St. Swithun may be mentioned: (1) the history of the translation and miracl... Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Dictionary of national biography Volume 55 (Sir Leslie Stephen)