There is naturally much in the life-history of St. Swithun that is incapable of proof.  He was possibly born in the neighbourhood of Winchester about the year 800.  He became a monk of the old abbey, and rose to be head of the community, when he gained the favour of King Egbert, who entrusted him with the education of his son Ethelwolf.  There is an authentic charter granted by Egbert in 838, and bearing the signatures of Elmstan, episcopus, and Swithunus, diaconus.  On the death of Elmstan, in 852, Swithun was appointed his successor in the see, when, in addition to erecting several churches, and building a stone bridge over the Itchen, he appears to have enlarged and beautified the Saxon cathedral built by Kynewalch when Winchester became the seat of a bishopric in 679.  The site of this Saxon church is considered to have been a little to the north of the present cathedral, which is a Norman building commenced by Walkelin a few years after the Conquest.

St. Swithun is best known to-day in his capacity of weather prophet.  In his humility he is said to have desired to be buried outside the church, so that the foot of the passer-by, and the rainwater from the eaves, could fall upon his grave; and here his body lay for more than a century.  When his remains were eventually translated, a chapel was erected over the site of his grave at the north-east corner of the church, and faint traces of this building may still be seen.  King Edgar provided the richly jewelled shrine into which the relics of the saint were translated by St. Ethelwold, on July 15, 980, when the relics of Birinus were enshrined at the same time, although these had already been translated from Dorchester to Winchester by Bishop Hedda as early as the seventh century.  The shrine attracted an immense number of pilgrims until that of Becket at Canterbury rose into prominence.  The skull of St. Swithun is said to have been taken to Canterbury by St. Elphege in the eleventh century, and an arm of this patron saint of Winchester was one of the most treasured possessions of Peterborough.  What remained of these much-disturbed relics were re-translated by Bishop Walkelin from the old to the new cathedral, but in 1241 the shrine was broken by the vane of the tower falling through the roof.

At the Reformation the shrine was destroyed, as is recorded in the commissioners’ letter, dated September 21, 1538:—­

“About three o’clock this Saturday morning, we made an end of the shrine here at Winchester.  There was no gold, nor ring, nor true stone about it, but all great counterfeits; but the silver alone will amount to 2000 marks.”

The popular tradition regarding St. Swithun’s Day, July 15, is to the effect that, as it rains or is fair on this day, the ensuing forty days will be either wet or dry.

     “St. Swithun’s Day, if thou dost rain,
     For forty days it will remain: 
     St. Swithun’s Day, if thou be fair,
     For forty days ’t will rain nae mair.”