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.

We used to say it

[plaidder.livejournal.com]

(in the "come again another day" version) when I was a kid, in the 1970s.

Did the floods get you? Are you OK?

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[super-renny.livejournal.com]

I was born in 1987 and I remember singing it my whole childhood (the another day version)
Everyone knew it and I have worked with a lot of children and they know it!
I think it is safe to say that this rhyme is gonna be sticking around. unless people stop going outside...

we also had "It's raining, it's pouring,/ the old man is snoring./ He bumped his head on the foot of the bed / and won't wake up till morning."

this always confused me. what does a clumsy old man with a concussion have to do with rain?