Wrap up well for the borrowing days and the blackthorn winter

Several festivals throughout the year were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but Lady Day commemorated the Annunciation, which was the day Mary learned she was to be mother of the Messiah.

Conveniently nine months before Christmas, it has long been celebrated as a feast of the Catholic church, although its impact and importance has dwindled in recent years.

Lady Day was important from another point of view because, here in England, it was the beginning of the legal year, which meant all manner of official business was transacted on this day.

It was also one of the four quarter days when rents were due and this often coincided with a local fair. Tenants would trek to visit their landlord and pay their rents, then make the occasion as joyful as possible with a cheerful day at the fair.

On occasions, Easter Sunday can fall on Lady Day, but if this happens it is said the country will suffer a great mishap.

The famous Old Mother Shipton of Knaresborough, whose real name was Ursula Southeil, reminds everyone of this in one of her coded verses, which reads: "When My Lord falls in My Lady's lap, England must beware of some mishap."

Old Mother Shipton will be forever associated with the curious Petrifying Well in Knaresborough.

As we head towards the end of March, there is little doubt we will wonder what the spring weather has in store for us.

With that in mind, I am reminded that country people in both England and Scotland often thought that March borrowed its final three days from April, or alternatively that April borrowed its first three days from March.

Not surprisingly, those days became known as the borrowing days and they were usually stormy with strong winds, snow and rain. There used to be an old Yorkshire saying that "t'warst blast comes in t'borrowing days."

It seems this belief is not confined to our island because there is an old Spanish legend which seeks to explain the borrowing days.

The story goes that a shepherd was very concerned about the effect of bad weather upon his flock of sheep and discussed this with March. He promised March the gift of a lamb if he would ensure the weather was fair and the winds warm so that his flock would flourish.

March fulfilled this request with some very mild weather, but the shepherd then refused to hand over the lamb.

In revenge, March produced some ferocious weather on those final three days of the month, borrowing it from April.

Another weather feature around the end of March and the beginning of April is called the blackthorn winter. Blackthorn, the bush which produces those beautiful-looking, but bitter-tasting, wild plums called sloes, blossoms about this time of year, with its flowers appearing before the leaves.

Quite often, a spell of warm weather about this time opens the white flowers in a spectacular manner, but this can be followed by a severe cold and stormy spell, hence the term blackthorn winter.

With spring officially here and the nights getting lighter with the forthcoming alteration of our clocks (one hour forwards), we can expect the arrival of several regular summer visitors - but I am speaking of birds, not humans.

Among the first will be the wheatear, which comes from Africa and is about the size of a chaffinch, or slightly larger and a wee bit fatter than a house sparrow. In some ways, it has the shape and demeanour of the thrush family, of which it is a member.

It is a spectacular and colourful bird which loves our moors and fells, being happiest on the higher ground where it explores spaces and crevices among rocks and stones in its search for food.

It can often be seen dodging in and out of holes in our dry stone walls where it may use a dry place for its nest. It is just as likely to nest near ground level, however, if it can find a dry and secure place beneath a convenient stone or boulder.

Both the male and female are handsome birds with prominent markings. The male has a black line running from his beak and through the eye, black wings and a slate-blue or grey back. Very prominent, especially when in flight, is his white rump and tail, the end of which has a very distinctive T-shape in black. The underparts are off-white or buff.

The female has brownish upper parts and buff underparts, but she also has the distinctive tail pattern of her partner. If you are on the moors or fells, the first indication that a wheatear is present will be that flash of white as it flies low over the ground or settles on a wall.

Its name often attracts interest because there seems little to associate the wheatear either with ears of wheat or ears in general!

The answer is that there is no link with either. The names come from two old Anglo-Saxon words - hwit, which means white, and oers, which means rump. The latter is very similar in sound to another word meaning rear end!

As a child during the Easter holidays, I recall roaming the moors above my home in the depths of the North York Moors, when I could usually expect to see one or more wheatears among the rocks and heather. Quite often, I was directed towards the bird by its song, which is a type of warbling sound, but I did discover that, despite its vivid colouring, it is very capable of disappearing when alarmed.

From those childhood memories, I seem to recall that wheatears could vanish as if diving into the centre of the earth. They weren't doing that, of course, but they did make very good use of holes among the stones and in the walls.

There used to be about 30 inns in this region called The Durham Ox and I believe that number is now about 19.

Several are not in County Durham, so how did the name arise and why were so many hostelries named after that animal?

The beast in question was a shorthorn ox, renowned throughout the country due to its enormous size. It was born in 1796, the result of the cattle breeding expertise of two brothers, Charles and Robert Colling of Ketton Hall, Brafferton, near Darlington.

When it died aged 11, its weight was a colossal 189st which, if my arithmetic is correct, converts to 2,646lb, which is equal to 1,202.7kg, almost 1tons in metric weight. It is said that at one point it reached 270st in weight - by any standards, a lot of bull.

The Colling brothers were tutored by their father, who wished to improve the shorthorn breed, and Charles was sent to Leicestershire to study the techniques of a man called Robert Bakewell, an expert on longhorns. Unfortunately, Bakewell's system proved a failure due to inter-breeding and Charles returned to Ketton Hall determined to improve his own favourites, shorthorns.

He brought his brother Robert, who was then living at Barmpton Hall, into the enterprise. They embarked on a programme of cattle breeding, with shorthorns as their speciality, and the Durham Ox was one result of that.

As the animal matured, its huge size made it an attraction throughout the country. It was transported around England and Scotland to agricultural shows and fairs in a specially-designed wagon, travelling more than 3,000 miles in five years.

Such a demanding routine must have been fraught with difficulties because this was 20 years before the advent of the Stockton to Darlington railway and about ten years before MacAdam's introduction of the new road-surfacing material. The roads must have been terrible and there is little doubt this took its toll on both the breeders and their famous ox.

Sadly, the ox fell at Oxford in 1807 and fractured a hip. This meant it had to be destroyed, but its fame was assured and it continues to be remembered in those inn signs.

The Colling brothers reared another massive beast known as the White Heifer, which weighed 130st at the age of four, heavier than the Durham Ox at the same age. Perhaps there are some local inns called The White Heifer?