Swithin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The ninth-century Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester who is venerated as Saint Swithun, whose feast day on July 15 is linked to weather lore
2. Saint Swithun, an Anglo-Saxon churchman of Winchester in the 800s, remembered mainly through the folk belief about rain on his feast day in July
3. A medieval English bishop of Winchester honored as a saint, whose July 15 feast is tied to the old saying about whether the weather will hold

Etymology: Saint Swithun (also spelled Swithin) was a ninth-century bishop of Winchester, and his name survives in the old English weather rhyme about St Swithin's Day, 15 July. The name comes from Old English "Swīþhūn", a compound of "swīþ", meaning strong or powerful, and "hūn", a word of uncertain meaning that may relate to a term for a young animal or a person of low standing. The name was therefore a personal name before it was ever a place or a saying. Swithun is credited with an unusually humble wish. According to later medieval accounts, he asked to be buried not inside the church but in the churchyard, where rain and passing feet would fall on his grave. When the monks tried to move his remains into a shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July, a storm of rain is said to have prevented them, and the rain reportedly continued for forty days. This legend, not any meteorological rule, is what gave rise to the belief that rain on that day predicts a wet spell of weeks.