Blackbird days 2023 are really cold

The days of the blackbird have arrived 2023. It’s not always true that the cold increases on January 29, 30 and 31 (this year Sunday, Monday and Tuesday), indeed the statistics say the opposite. The popular adage that identifies the last days of January, the blackbird days, as the coldest three days of winter and therefore of the year, is often ignored. This year, on the other hand, they will be really cold, at least according to forecasts.

The said it is ancient and the tradition of looking at the days between the end of January and the beginning of February as those that establish the end of the coldest days of winter is international. The origin of the definition of “days of the blackbird” is not clear, it is certainly ancient and not unique.

The cannon

It was said that there was a cannon to pass over the Po. Sebastiano Pauli told it in 1740. He was very big and they had called him Merla. They waited for the last days of January for him to pass on the ice of the frozen river since these were the coldest days.

The marriage

A noble lady of Caravaggio, who was called de Merli, had to cross the river Po to get married. She could only do it in these days when the river was frozen.

The blackbirds

A tradition says that the playful month of January annoyed a white blackbird making it cold every time the bird went out to retrieve food. The blackbird asked him to be shorter (January had 28 days at the time), but he didn’t convince him. The following year he stocked up on food and stayed in the nest the whole time and on the 28th day he mocked January. This, in revenge, asked for three days in February and unleashed a storm. The blackbird hid in a chimney, was saved, but its feathers became black as they are today. Similar to the one that tells of an entire family of blackbirds forced to take shelter near a chimney.

The Cremona version

In the province of Cremona the days of the blackbird are on 30 and 31 January and 1 February. When the blackbirds were still white there was a particularly mild January. The birds teased him about the lack of frost, the month got angry and brought freezing cold even for the first day of February. The blackbirds turned black because they were forced to take shelter in the chimneys.

Sardinian tradition

Sas dies improstadas, means borrowed days and are the coldest days of the year, January 30th and 31st. Legend has it that a shepherd boasted of the success of his grazing in a mild January, now reached the 29th, the end of the month. The angry month of January asked February for two days on loan due to the frost. They were so cold that all but one of the shepherd’s sheep died. Since then the month of January has 31 days, February has only 28 days left.

Traditions

In Lodi, in the days of the blackbird, choirs call each other from the opposite sides of the river Adda. There is the custom of bonfires in the Cremona area, always with traditional songs. The themes are those of winter and love with the contrast between men and women.

Forecasts

The legend still says that if the blackbird’s days are cold, spring will be beautiful; if they are warm, spring will come late. A bit like the American tradition of Groundhog Day. Depending on the marmot’s decision to show itself or not on the day of February 2, it is established whether the winter will still last or not.

Friulian forecasts

On the weather for the three days in Friuli they made forecasts until March. A very cold and sunny 29th recalled a similar January, rain on the 30th brought it throughout the month of February.

– Blackbird days soup

– Feathers, cannons and predictions: the legends of the days of the blackbird