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Folklore, proverbs and wisdom Who goeth a borrowing goeth a sorrowing few lend (but fools) their working tools When the fern is as high as a spoon you may sleep an hour at noon when the fern is as high as a ladle you may sleep as long as you are able when the fern begins to look red then milk is good with brown bread. If Candlemas day be fair and bright winter will have another fight if on Candlemas day it be shower and rain winter is gone and will not come again. Penny and penny laid up will be many who will not keep a penny shall never have many. Good riding at two anchors men have told for if one should break the other will hold A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds The higher the plum tree the riper the plum the richer the cobbler the blacker his thumb Children pick up words as pigeons pease and utter them again as God should please. Our fathers who were wondrous wise did wash their throats before their eyes Make haste when you are purchasing a field but when you are to marry a wife be slow. Let every house sweep the dirt from its own doorstep and then the whole street will soon be clean. For there be those who wear the lords livery and do the devils work all day long. So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day then so many floods will be that winter Chelmsford Church and Writtle Steeple both fell down but killed no people Poor Robins Almanac in 1691 provided guidance for most months January Roast beef, strong ale, good fires are now three things which this cold season much contentment brings. February The four and twentieth day the stars foretell of pancakes and of fritters a great smell and many hundred cocks their death shall meet by boys throwing cudgels at them in the street March Now doth the spring put on her new apparel and the kind butler broaches a fresh barrel the days and nights are even without a quarrel when summer comes winter must take its farewell April Now lasses into groves and meadows gets to gather primroses and violets but let them heed they do not too far stray lest their maiden heads do lose that way. June Now Phoebus he his greatest strength forth yields and beggars scorn the barns and lie in fields if laziness do in some people lurk a whip laid on their backs will make them work. August Now Virgo rules, the maid by whom is born in her fair hands the ripened ears of corn. September This month having an R in't , is the reason that oysters they do come again in season October Fair summer's pride begins to fade away and night encroach upon the hours of day the winged choristers do cease their notes and stately forests don their yellow coats December Now stormy blasts enforce the quaking trees to wrap their trembling limbs in mossy frieze roast beef, minced pies are good to those that try them but the worst of it is how to come to them.
