Today (18 October) is St Luke's Day and the saint has given his name to the old term, St Luke's summer, which we are more likely to call an Indian summer these days. It means a period of fine dry weather in late autumn, and, luckily, we are experiencing something of a St Luke's summer at the moment. It's sunny and there are blue skies this morning where I live.
Other terms for the same phenomenon are St Martin's summer and the now rare All-Hallown summer (mentioned in this old post).
In parts of central and eastern Europe Indian summer or St Luke's summer is called 'Old Woman's summer', eg Babye leto (Бабье лето) in Russia and Babie Lato in Poland. In German it is Altweibersommer. Alt means 'old' and Weib means 'woman', so it would appear that there is a connection here, too, but the Wikipedia page on the subject (in German) says that there was originally an etymological connection with webs and spiders spinning. Because of the similarity with the words, weib was taken to mean 'woman', not 'web'.
The fine delicate webs were often believed by ordinary folk to be threads spun by the Virgin Mary. Folk belief had it that if a young woman got one of these cobwebs in her hair as they were blown about in the wind, she would soon be married. As a result, St Luke is associated with husbands and marriage. In the 1892 book English Folk Rhymes by GF Northall (p 122) we are told that if you wish to see your future husband in your dreams, you are to appeal to St Luke with the words: St Luke, St Luke, be kind to me; In dreams let me my true-love see.
Comments