WITCHES who are rife as we know at Hallowe'en are able to raise hail storms, conjure up tempests, and command thunder and lightning to appear at the merest twitch of a magic broomstick. In days gone by, indeed, they plied their trade commercially, selling favourable winds to sailors willing to part with the appropriate amount of silver.
On being paid, it seems, the witch would knit three magical knots in a length of string. When he untied the first knot, the buyer was assured of a strong favourable wind, with the second a good gale, and with the third a gentle breeze to bring him safely into harbour. The 17th century poet Michael Drayton describes the process in his poem Moon Calf the witch, it seems:
could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread
Which ever as the seafarer undid
They rose or scantled as his sails would drive
To the same port whereat he would arrive.
Of course you will not really meet a witch tonight, since the last known practitioner in these islands was hanged in 1722. Witchcraft ceased to be a crime when the Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil Spirits, enacted during the reign of James I, was repealed in 1736. But parts of the emancipating legislation have left some awkward loopholes that sometimes worry meteorologists. It reads as follows:
"And for the more effectual preventing and punishing of any pretences to such arts and powers, whereby ignorant persons are frequently deluded and defrauded, any person that shall pretend to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, inchantment or conjurations, or undertake to tell fortunes, shall for every offence suffer imprisonment for the space of one whole year without bail, and once every quarter of the said year shall stand openly in the pillory for the space of one hour."
Thus, by a strict construction of the law, it would seem, that weather forecasters might be risking prosecution as they ply their trade of predicting things to come. The lot of our British colleagues has been alleviated somewhat by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951, which excuses such activities "done solely for the purposes of entertainment". Here in Ireland, however, the 1736 enactment must be still presumed to stand, and meteorologists, forecasting even just for fun, live in constant danger of imminent arrest.