Swallows and seasons in Spanish and English versions of the proverb

Emanuel del Mar, Nuevo guía para la conversacion, en español é inglés (1839, via GBS):

Una golondrina no hace verano. One swallow does not make spring.

Both spring and summer are used in both languages, but you’d kind of expect northward migration to take swallows to Spain in spring and then England in summer. Perhaps we don’t really agree about when the seasons begin. As a child I always used to feel that summer started in April and autumn in August, while José in the Barcelona Green Book suggests dating the end of summer to the beginning of the fiesta of Our Lady of the Mercies (Mercedes in Spanish) on September 23.

Trevor @ 12 September 2007 3:49 PM

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