A charm against rain

[wolfinthewood]

Little children have a custome, when it raines to sing, or charme away the Raine: thus, they all joine in a Chorus, and sing thus. viz

Raine, raine, goe away,
Come again a Saterday.

I have a conceit, that this childish Custome is of great antiquity: and that it is derived from the Gentiles.*

*Gentiles: the ancient pagans

John Aubrey (1626–1697)

from Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (1688)


The rhyme was ‘Rain, rain, go away, / Come again another day’ in the fifties and early sixties when I was a child. At that point the custom was well over three centuries old, since Aubrey’s note implies, I think, that he remembered it from his own childhood, in the 1620s and 1630s. How old it already was by that time, who can tell? I wonder if children still say it. I haven’t heard it for years, but then I don’t have much to do with small kids these days.


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Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Dropping in via friends friends to say that I was born in 1976, and certainly was singing it (your version) in the early 80s. I had no idea before reading this that it was of any antiquity.

We also had a charm to make it rain; singing "When I needed a neighbour" in Assembly meant it would probably rain, but this could be guaranteed by someone tidying the classroom money tray during the morning.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I had no idea before reading this that it was of any antiquity.

Nor had I, till I stumbled across the passage in Aubrey, some years back. I was rather amazed.

We also had a charm to make it rain

I love this! Why did you want to make it rain? So you could all stay in at break?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

So you could all stay in at break?

Got it in one. Once we were out at playtime (especially at lunchtime, which was then, of course, dinnertime) the weather had to be really pretty unpleasant before we were allowed back in, and there was no cover at all. Staying in from the beginning was much to be preferred in bad weather, and also a rare extra chance for "activities". Maybe it was psychologically more difficult to throw 4 - 9 year olds out into the pouring rain, than not to let them in if it started falling!