Weather is one aspect of folklore from which modern life has become particularly detached. Inside the technological microcosm of the home, heating, artificial light and air conditioning allow us to reshape our immediate climate almost at will. In the past, however, weather could determine whether a community survived. Today, except when it reveals its power through droughts, floods and other extreme events, it has largely become a matter of convenience, tourism and concern for those who still depend directly upon the land, such as shepherds and farmers.

Yet rain, storms, fog, hail and drought do not merely appear in tales, sayings and customs. They have also been personified, given names and personalities of their own, or associated with witches, spirits of the air and demons. Few things mattered more to traditional agrarian societies rooted in particular landscapes than the weather, and that importance naturally survives in folklore, custom and orally transmitted song.