All of us forget more than we remember, and therefore it has been my constant Custom to note down and record whatever I thought of myself, or received from Men, or Books, worth preserving…
— from ‘Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British’, published in 1732.
About 300 years ago, Thomas Fuller MD — having come to the conclusion that all of us forget more than we remember — published a book of wise and witty saying (foreign and British) so that readers of his book could enjoy the platitudes he would otherwise have forgotten. He collected 6496 maxims… and number 6475 was:
March… Comes in like a Lion, goes out like a Lamb.
A reference to the weather, as it typically presented itself where he lived, in Great Britain.
Obviously, he was not thinking about the month of March in Pagosa Springs. This year, the First of March here in Pagosa was unseasonably warm, with bluebird skies. Docile as a lamb, in my humble opinion.
But not nearly as white as a lamb.
We have to wonder where the lions are. Like many of us, I expected the First of March to be a little more… you know… “fierce”? A nice, rousing blizzard, for example? Cars sliding into the ditch, and so forth?
I know very little about the science of animal husbandry — other than whatever credentials I may have earned from living with my cat, Roscoe — so I can’t say from firsthand experience that lambs are docile, or that lions are fierce. I’ve seen many photographs of lions lying around in the grass, looking as contented as my cat after a bowl of Purina Fancy Feast.
I’ve also seen photographs of lions chasing zebras and gazelles, but I hoped that the prey escaped unharmed. That doesn’t always happen, but one can always hope.
Anyway, March did not come in like a lion this year, regardless of Dr. Fuller’s never-to-be-forgotten sayings. So we might claim we’ve escaped unharmed… and also, that proverbs from 1732 ought to be taken with a grain of salt.
Harm, however, comes in various disguises. We know about the ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. What we seem to be dealing with at the moment is a lamb in lion’s clothing. The March landscape, that ought to be white as a baby lamb, is as brown as a lion’s mane.
And speaking of colors, Thomas Fuller MD included this proverb in his book:
A black hen will lay a white egg.
That doesn’t have anything to do with March weather, but I found it interesting nevertheless.
As mentioned, Dr. Fuller collected 6946 maxims (foreign and British) but had relatively little to say about lambs and lions. I found only a few references to lambs, for example.
A Lamb is as dear to a poor Man, as an Ox to the rich.
As good be hang’d for a Sheep as a Lamb.
It is an ill Sign, to see a Fox lick a Lamb.
I’m not sure what kind of Sign it might be, if someone saw a Lion lick a Lamb. Dr. Fuller doesn’t tell us.
But that day might come eventually, if the prophet Isaiah has anything to say about it.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox…
Until then, however, we can pray for snow.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.