Cristening the apples

St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain

St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.

I've been wittering for weeks about the lack of rain . . . at last, early this morning, we've had a decent shower of rain, in fact it's still raining lightly and the garden is looking thankful for it. It's 15th July, St Swithin's Day – if you're well versed in English proverbs you'll know the rhyme and will have heard it at many a Sport's Day or Fete held on that day whether the heavens opened or the sun shone.

St Swithin is a home-grown saint, the bishop of Winchester in Saxon times. He was a local boy who obviously loved the people and villages in his care, he built churches for them and planted apple trees. When he died in 862, his last request was granted and he was buried outside, where his grave would be trodden on and rained upon.

One hundred and nine years later the monks of Winchester decided to move Bishop Swithin's body to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral – I wonder if they'd heard of the popularity of St Jame's shrine at Santiago de Compostela and wanted to be part of the new fashion for pilgrimage? The body was dug up on 15 July 971 and during the great re-internment ceremony there was a huge storm . . . and it continued raining for forty days and forty nights!

Poor St Swithin, taken out of his dear Wessex soil to be venerated in a glitzy reliquary – the story has a recent parallel told in Gerontius, a moving play by Stephen Wyatt , it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last week with Derek Jacobi as Cardinal Newman. Newman died in 1890 and, at his request, was buried with his close friend in a quiet graveyard near the place in which they had lived and worked; but as plans for his beatification gathered pace the grave was opened in 2008 to move the body to a tomb befitting a saint. Except there were no remains – only compost broken down by the rich damp soil.

St Swithin's symbols are apples and raindrops,
they are beautifully depicted here in a stained glass window
at St Swithin's church in Frettenham, Norfolk.
(Photograph © Mike Dixon, Norfolk Stained Glass
who kindly allowed me to use it here)

If it rains on 15 July, St Swithin
is christening the apples.

My garden is thankful on this damp, breezy
and cool summer morning.