Swithin, or SWITHUN, St, Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. The 11th century Life attributed to Gotzelin may contain elements of historical truth, and according to it he was tutor to Egbert's son Ethelwulf, under whom he was made bishop. He was a devoted builder of churches, and a man of unusual piety and humility. He built a bridge at the east side of the city, and here he used to sit and watch his workmen. One day some of them broke an old woman's basket of eggs, whereupon the bishop miraculously restored them. He died in 862 and was buried in the churchyard of Winchester, having asked, says William of Malmesbury, to be laid where 'passers by might tread on his grave, and where the rain from the eaves might fall on it.' A century later he was canonised, and the monks exhumed his body to deposit it in the cathedral; but this translation, which was to have taken place on the 15th July, is said, though unfortunately not by contemporary chroniclers, to have been delayed in consequence of violent rains. Hence the still current belief that if rain fall on the 15th July it will continue to rain for forty days. Unhappily Professor Earle has exploded the ingenious legend about the saint's displeasure, and shown that a much more probable origin is to be found in some primeval pagan belief regarding the meteorologically prophetic character of some day about the same period of the year as St Swithin's. In France the watery saints' days are those of St Médard (8th June), and St Gervais and St Protais (19th June). The rainy saint in Flanders is St Godelieve (6th July), and in Germany among the saints' days to which this belief attaches is that of the Seven Sleepers (27th June).
