Does weather ever inspire you into a mood? It is absolutely scouring out, blowing a storm out and another system in, and it’s crystal blue freezing and ragged clouds are everywhere and there’s leftover rain spattering… and it reminds me of the UK, so I’ve been listening to Howard Gooddall’s 23rd Psalm on repeat, because… it goes with the weather? I don’t know. At the very least, the wind blew today’s proverb into my mind, one of those odd ones with which I’m less familiar.
First recorded in John Heywood’s Dialogue in 1546, it was part of a clever poem that implied that a day that boded ill for one person would undoubtedly bring good fortune to someone else. He said:
“As you be muche the worse. and I cast awaie.
An yll wynde, that blowth no man to good, men saie.
Wel (quoth he) euery wind blowth not down the corn
I hope (I saie) good hap [luck] be not all out worn.”
The same phrase later took on a subtly different meaning as seen in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy, that it is indeed an awful wind that blows no one any good.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.”
Spring Scour
Look what’s blowin in –
the rising wind still whistles
shrilling calls to heel
a piper skirling dances
whirling petals down the street
When I was first dating Himself, he tended to call my attention – generally across campus or a crowded store – by sticking his fingers in his mouth and blowing a shrill whistle. I kind of hated it… it caught everyone’s attention, and I dislike that kind of profile. Also, it sounded to me like he was calling his dog. Objections were met with blank confusion, to him it was just getting my attention. Perceptions are always so different…