NOLO EPISCOPARI, as some diffident cleric once remarked, sed non erulesco evangelium: "I have no wish to pontificate, but I do not blush for what I have proclaimed." None the less Mr Walker, late of the Letters Page on Saturday, deserves an enclairissment on the official policy of Weather Eye on Noah's Flood.
Attitudes to the Deluge, as indeed to many other biblical events, fall into three main categories: the literalists have no doubts whatever that the events took place exactly in the way described the miscredente, the unbelievers, consider the stories to be silly cocktails comprising balder mixed with dash; and Tadghs an da thaobh do not accept the stories literally, but concede that some may well be based on real historical events. Weather Eye is an unequivocal Tadh an da thaobh - if such a feat is possible.
As Mr Walker rightly tells us, in 1927 a British archaeologist called Leonard Woolley excavated the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, the legendary home of Abraham which lies near the Euphrates River in present day Iraq. There he found geological evidence of a great flood about 4,000 years ago which may have extended over almost the entire catchment area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Now, some authorities doubt that "the rain fell upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and overflowed exceedngly". They believe an earthquake caused a landslide which blocked for a time the upper reaches of the Euphrates, and that when this temporary dam was ultimately breached, there was a massive flood in an area stretching roughly from Baghdad south eastwards to the Persian Gulf.
Whatever the cause, it may well be that to those who lived in this inundated valley, the world appeared to have been covered by the risen waters but there is no geological or other scientific evidence of a really global flood around this time.
As it happens, the ancient Bablonians had their own version the Deluge, a story which closely resembles the Old Testament account with Utnapishtim in the part of Noah.
Moreover, most European countries have their local Swithins, saints like Benedict in France, Godelieve in Belgium and Bartholomew in Italy, rain on whose feastdays augurs ill for the weather in succeeding weeks.
The interesting thing about all these latter superstitions is that while the supposed dates of commencement may differ, the period of influence is consistently 40 days, a suggestion that all these ancient fancies had a common origin in the worldwide tradition of Noah's or Utnapishtim's Deluge, and perhaps, in turn, on the authenticated flood of Ur.