January 15 to 24 A very great fall of snow

via

Prisoners
of war in France from 1804 to 1814, being the adventures of John
Tregerthen Short and Thomas Williams of St. Ives, Cornwall

“Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that
For a’ that, an’ a’ that
It’s coming yet for a’ that
That Man to Man, the world o’er
Shall brothers be for a’ that”

January 25 is St. Paul’s day, a festival of the Roman and English churches in commemoration of St. Paul. This day is thought to be prophetic as to the weather of the year:

“If St. Paul’s day be fair and clear, It doth betide a happy year; If blustering winds do blow aloft. Then wars will trouble our realm full oft; And if it chance to snow or rain, Then will be dear all sorts of grain.”

In Germany when the day proved foul the common people used to drag the images of St. Paul and St. Urban in disgrace to duck them in the river.

• On the day of the conversion of St . Paul, (January 25th,) the four winds wrestle and the winner will blow most of the year. (Belgium.)
• If it rains on St. Paul’s day there will be plenty of mushrooms. (Bohemia.)

Make nests for the hens on St . Peter’s day, And many ‘s the egg that they will lay.

There are two feast days in the year which are dedicated to St Peter.
January 16, and June 29 (which is the feast of Saints Peter and Paul).
What follows is lore and superstition surrounding St Peter’s day:

• No building should ever be begun on St . Peter’s day. It will never prosper.
• The Wallachians say that on St. Peter’s day all roads are guarded by
  serpents, and whoever kills one on that day will be lucky all the year.
• If it rains on St. Peter and St. Paul, there will be plenty of mushrooms.
• If you set your hens to hatch on Peter’s and Paul’s day, they will become good layers.
• Make nests for the hens on St . Peter’s day, And many ‘s the egg that they will lay.

Collected from various sources

At first, it feels like an earthquake. Windows shatter in Penzance,
and oscillation disturbs mid-morning visitors to St John’s Hall. At St
Ives, shops lose their plate glass and roofs are damaged. The earth
rumbles; a “dull, hollow boom” is in the air. But then the rumours
start, helped on their way by the shrill voices of telegraph and
telephone, and all too soon they are confirmed. At the National
Explosive Works at Gwithian, the febrile product has done exactly what
it says on the tin. Over a mile away, out at sea, bits of lead tank and
machinery are beginning to fall from the sky.

Jan 20: Feast of Sebastian (c†288), soldier & martyr; shot with arrows & clubbed to death; widely venerated [V&A Museum No. M.27-2001]