UPDATE ON HUGHIE, THE RAIN GOD

Following on from our earlier posts on weather lore, David Howard has an interesting variation of the origins of 'Hughey' (Huie, Hughie, etc):

Regarding the origins of the saying ‘send it down Hughey’. Years ago (and there are getting to be too many of them at my age) I think I was told and didn’t read it somewhere that - a farmer in the Victorian mallee had lost a son in WW 1. In the hope that the son, named Hugh, had gone to heaven on his demise, dad was influenced to ask his son up there to send ‘it’ - rain, down from wherever up there the rain comes. How the saying escaped to the outside world is not part of the story. 

HUEY, THE RAIN GOD

Near Young, NSW

Here’s a post from Rob about the drought devastating large parts of rural Australia, and a related project on the folklore of weather forecasting.

I live in Forbes, Central West NSW and we are really copping the drought. Over the years we have been collecting weather folklore for the NLA and I want to bring this all together and would love some help, please. Maybe we can work out a way to bring on some rain? I know that sailors reckon that whistling brings on a storm ....  everyone whistle, please. So, old sayings (Red sky at night...), songs, comparisons ('dry as a dead dingo's donger', etc), animal and bird habits, ANYTHING to do with weather. Send them to our Facebook page. We will whack them all together and put them up on our blogsite. Will also publish them locally and maybe take the farmers minds off their current circumstance.  

Thanks heaps.

Rob Willis