The days of the old woman

Seven days at the end of February and the start of March, when the embers fall, are called by the Arabs Sinn, Sinbar, Wubar, Amir, Mu'tamir, Mu'allal, and Mutfi' al-jamr (the extinguisher of embers). They are the last days of very great cold before the year turns with the sun's entry into Aries in the middle of March. ²

What is not recorded here needs a further source.

In the Islamic countries bordering on or near the Mediterranean, certain days of recurrent bad weather, generally towards the end of winter, are called "days of the old woman". The expression is old and survives in contemporary folklore. It refers to a period of one to ten days, most often one, five or seven days long, whose place in the year varies from country to country. It often covers the last four (or three) days of February and the first three (or four) days of March in the Julian calendar, as among the Turks, in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. ³

The seven days have special names, of which the seven above are the best known, and if there are five days the fourth, fifth and sixth names are omitted. The study of these names has still to be undertaken, and R. Basset offered one interpretation. In the West the seven days at the end of February and the start of March have another name, and the last day of January or the first of February is connected with the legends of the old woman. ⁴

The expression has many Arabic variants and, for the West, Berber ones: "days of the old women" or "cold of the old woman" (Turkey, Persia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt); "the old woman" (Berber Morocco); "the borrowed days" (Syria, Lebanon, Morocco); and "cold, bad weather or the period of the goat" (Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria). These are nearly always tied to a legend in which an old woman is the chief actor: an old woman dead from cold, an old woman predicting a cold spell, or, in the older texts, an old woman killed by the wind when the people of 'Ad were destroyed. In modern folklore the story is of the old woman and her calf, goat or flock, combined with the legend of the borrowed days, which explains why February has only 28 days. The article says the tradition seems to come from remote times, and should be linked with European traditions about certain meteorological days and place names. ⁵