Introducing The Weather Cock

The idea that the weathercock typified, not merely clerical vigilance, as is often stated, but the priestly office in general is curiously developed in a well-known Latin hymn, "Multi sunt Presbyteri," etc., said to have been written in or before 1420. A translation is included in John Mason Neale's Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences: Many are the Presbyters Lacking information Why the Cock on each church tow'r Meetly finds his station; Therefore I will now hereof Tell the cause and reason, If ye lend me patient ears For a little season. Cock, he is a marvelous Bird of God's creating, Faithfully the Priestly life In his ways relating; Such a life as he must lead Who a parish tendeth, And his flock from jeopardy Evermore defendeth…

And so on, through fifteen stanzas, drawing almost every imaginable parallel between cleric and Chanticleer, even to the resemblance between the cock's bald pate and the tonsure! However, many other forms of vane have been used on churches, and nowadays the weathercock is hardly more common in this situation than arrows, fishes, and the like. In the Old World symbols of the various saints are found on churches dedicated to them; as in the case of the Key on St. Peter's, Cornhill, and the Gridiron, on St. Lawrence's, Jewry, both in London. Human figures have also been used. Perhaps the most famous weather vane in the world is the "giraldillo" on the Giralda at Seville—a bronze female figure thirteen feet high representing Faith, which weighs a ton and a quarter, but turns easily in the wind. Banner-shaped vanes were once the exclusive prerogative of aristocratic castles and manors. In mediaeval France the shape of the banner-vane denoted the owner's rank, and the lower orders of society were prohibited by law from using vanes of any kind.

Besides vanes artistic, symbolic and scientific, there are various rough-and-ready devices for finding out which way the wind blows. The dog-vane, used on shipboard, is usually a simple ribbon of bunting attached to a weather shroud. Sometimes it consists of thin slips of cork, stuck round with feathers, and strung on a piece of twine; or again it is a funnel-shaped contrivance, made of bunting, quite similar to the wind cone of the aviator. All out-of-door folk, whether by land or sea, are familiar with the expedient of wetting a finger and holding it up to determine how the wind blows. The wet skin, when turned to the wind, is, of course, cooled by evaporation. The smoke from chimneys is one of the best of makeshift vanes. Sailors sometimes throw a piece of live coal into the sea and notice which way the steam inclines. The kingfisher is called “the natural weathercock,” and thereby hangs two tales. One, possibly true, is that, if the dead bird be properly suspended outdoors, its breast will always turn to the wind. The other, obviously nonsensical, is that the same procedure will work indoors.