Dry Marches
May. 27th, 2016 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholm"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote..."
Okay, we all know about April showers, but what about the drought of March? March certainly isn't a month that feels particularly dry, and in recent decades Met Office data confirms that in London it has been, if anything, rather wetter than April.
Of course, poetic licence and all that, but surely the lines wouldn't have been so successful if Chaucer had been saying something palpably untrue?
Well, the climate was probably a bit different: Chaucer was living through the early years of the little ice age, after all, and perhaps dry Marches go with that territory - but I don't remember anyone else mentioning them, ever.
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote..."
Okay, we all know about April showers, but what about the drought of March? March certainly isn't a month that feels particularly dry, and in recent decades Met Office data confirms that in London it has been, if anything, rather wetter than April.
Of course, poetic licence and all that, but surely the lines wouldn't have been so successful if Chaucer had been saying something palpably untrue?
Well, the climate was probably a bit different: Chaucer was living through the early years of the little ice age, after all, and perhaps dry Marches go with that territory - but I don't remember anyone else mentioning them, ever.