Mrs. Wilsons True Tales Retold

(corresponding to “Southwest Wind...”) Wind is a word we took from Norsemen when they invaded England in the ninth century.Window is another word that we took from these Norse invaders, and which contains the word wind, and is related to it. Window is a word in two parts – wind and o – meaning literally the “wind eye.” The prevailing winds of our ancestral Britain and our North America, or for that matter any place that is north of the 35th parallel latitude, are the southwest winds. Notoriously these are winds of our spring and our fall. This is the western wind of Shelley’s Ode. O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being    Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead  Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,      Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,  Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou          Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed    The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,    Each like a corpse within its grave, until  Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow