mon·keyz wed·ding | /ˈməŋ-kēz ˈwe-diŋ/
If it starts to rain when the sun’s shining, my son declares “it’s a monkey’s wedding!”. With its roots in South Africa, the saying is generally believed to be a direct translation of the Zulu idiom umshado wezinkawu. Despite the apparent incongruity, sun showers are not actually that unusual – for most of the day the sun is not directly overhead, whereas rain clouds can be at any time.
Similar phrases involving animal weddings exist in languages across the globe. In countries as disparate as Finland in the west to Japan in the east, they say the foxes are getting married. In Arabic, it’s the rats, in Afrikaans and Hindi, it’s jackals, and in Korea, it’s tigers. In Bulgaria it’s bears, and in Greece, it’s Bulgarians! Go figure.
If it’s not down to marrying mammals, the devil is the likely culprit. In Turkey, the devils are getting married. In the north of England and the southern United States, the scoundrel’s beating his wife. In Hungary and Holland, he’s fighting with her.
Sometimes it’s witches who are behind this bizarre union. In Spain, they’re getting married. In Poland, absurdity gets hitched to obscurity with the fantastically surreal “when the sun is shining and the rain is raining, the witch is making butter”.
A monkey’s wedding is of course rainbow weather. As harbingers of good or ill fortune, rainbows were widely mythologised by pre-scientific cultures. Today, we understand that, rather than being bridges to the realm of the gods or great sky serpents, they are an effect of light being refracted through airborne water droplets. What is less well known is that rainbows are not arches but actually full circles – the arc we see is only the portion above the horizon. The higher you are, the more of the circle you will see.
Introduction Aeolian Alpenglow
Benthos Crepuscular Crispate Crown shyness
Desire lines Dreich Endragoned Edgelands
Frondescence Fumarole Gluggaveður Gossamer
Karst Komorebi Lawrence Long acre
Machair Monkey’s wedding Moonglade
Psithurism Quartz Rakuyou Roaring forties
Snag Soft estate Specular, diffuse and pellucid
Spoondrift Steam fog Swash zone Sylvan