The ox moos for a hundred hills. Animal motifs in Polish folk meteorology

Good weather is a prerequisite for good harvest and wealth, therefore it enjoys a privileged position in farmers’ observations. A special place in folk meteorology is occupied by animals: it is assumed that they sense changes in weather but also that weather influences the animal world. As a result, meteorological phenomena are conceptualized in terms of animals.

Ad. 1. Weather is forecast from animal behaviour: it is going to be frosty when the cat turns its tails towards the fire or lies on the stove in winter; it is going to snow when the cattle eat fodder eagerly, when the cat licks its paws and when crows sit on tree tops; it is going to hail in the summer if bees swarm in October; when the cock crows, the weather is going to change from sunny to rainy or the reverse. It is also believed that animals and birds actually influence weather: the stork protects the house from lightning; a killed snake, left to lie in the sun, leads to a blood-red sunset, to hail and rain (SSSL 1996-2012, vol. I/1: 126).
    On the basis of meteorological phenomena, conclusions are drawn about animals, e.g. with regard to the milk production levels in cows or egg production levels in hens: If it rains on St, Wojciech’s day (April 23), the cows will give a lot of milk; If the Christmas Eve night is a starry one, hens will give a lot of eggs. In folk beliefs, meteorological phenomena influence the animal world; therefore, icicles hanging from roofs were not torn down, so that cows and rams wouldn’t spoil their horns; sheep were not allowed to lie on cold dew for fear of their milk turning bad. Cows were also thought to graze well on dewy grass (so they would stay healthy and produce a lot of milk), and dew was not supposed to be collected from meadows, as this might deprive cows of their milk.

Ad. 2. The conceptualization of meteorological phenomena in terms of animals is especially manifested in folk and colloquial nomination, phraseology, certain folk genres (especially in riddles), or in beliefs and practices.
    THUNDER and LIGHTNING are represented in folk riddles as a big and strong animal, whose mooing can be heard from a distance. It may be an ox (The ox moos for a hundred hills and the whole world can hear it; The ox moos for a hundred hills, and a million can hear it); a bull (When the bull moos, a hundred hills can hear it); a lion (The lion roars from behind a hundred hills).
The RAINBOW in Polish folk beliefs is portrayed as a dragon that drinks water and/or kidnaps people and animals. The dragon, “clad in colourful stripes”, sucks water from the earth to the sky, so one mustn’t come close to the place where it touches the ground because it would pull up a person, too (from the Chełm region).
FROST, in accordance with the animistic picture of atmospheric creatures preserved in the oldest folk genres, is portrayed as an animal with horns and the nape, an animal that bites though it has no teeth. In riddles, its image is that of a big, grey animal: an ox (A grey ox drank a ditchful of water; A grey ox shat into a ditch, a calf (= snow) saw it and shat more); a young bull (A young bull drank a bucketful of water); a mare (A grey mare drank a bowlful of water). In old Kashubian beliefs, frost is a grey bull with long horns, tied on a strong rope somewhere in the depths of Ruthenia. Sometimes it tears off the rope and runs away (cf. frost has torn off its rope), the cold from its mouth hardens lakes and streams, makes candles (icicles) from the drops that fall from the roof. Everybody runs away from the bull to the houses so that they won’t be pierced with its horns or licked on their faces and naked hands with its tongue.
CLOUDS in the folk conceptualization of the world are cows (cf. stado chmur ‘a herd of clouds’) and a rain cloud is a black cow: The black cow is running under the sky. In a riddle from the Kraków region, a cloud is analogized to the cow’s udder: Four clouds pour into one sea (i.e., Udders and a bucket). A cloud that does not bring rain is compared to a cow that does not give milk: it is said to be barren. Clouds that do bring rain are conceptualized as dogs or wolves: Dogs are running about the sky, when they begin to fight, we will be bitten; Dogs are going to piss soon. Big, dark, rainy clouds are wolfish clouds; a wolfish head or a wolfish coat is a cloud that brings rain when the sun is shining; cf. also the forecast: When wolves eat sheep, it will rain heavily. (Kiej wilki zeżgrzą owieczki, tej to mocno padô).
    The Polish OBŁOKI, light, feathery clouds in the sky on a clear and sunny day, are in colloquial and folk Polish conceptualized as rams, little rams, lambs of God, ram-like clouds, sheep, sheep-like clouds, weasels. In Kashubian dialects, small white clouds are conceptualized as fleece and small clouds that foretell rain are sheep. In folk beliefs, OBŁOKI are sheep that graze under the sun’s eye.
Thick and impenetrable autumn FOG is called in Kashubia a wolfish covering (wilcza daka, from the German die Decke). A foggy air that allows wolves to approach farms and attack livestock in autumn is called wolfish weather (cf. the Lenten proverb: Where there are many wolves and a lot of fog, no use is made of the pitchfork and dogs).
RAINY WEATHER is called in standard Polish dog’s weather, which is probably connected with cloud naming. When the sun began to shine after rain, in the Poznań region poeple said that a wolf was laughing. In Kashubia, it was believed that when the sun is shining and it is raining at the same time, there appears a wolf (or a fox) whose tail or belly is aching or which has fever.

3. Conclusions. The Polish folk conceptualization of meteorological phenomena is based on observation and experience, as well as – to a large extent – on the inherited Proto-Slavic and Indo-European animistic, mythological thinking. Its reflex is a conceptualization of meteorological phenomena in terms of animals. A special role in the animistic portrayals of weather is played by the images of the bull/ox, representing strength and vitality, and the cow, associated with fertility and the life-giving milk.

References:

SSSL. 1996-2012. Słownik stereotypów i symboli ludowych. [Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols] Ed. Jerzy Bartmiński and Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska. Vol. I, Part 1 (1996), Part 2 (1999), Part 3 (2012), Part 4 (2012). Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS.