May you be spared all but the most benign of wind-borne portents. Here a northern image of skaters scattered as a gust of icy wind sweeps through the canals, diverting their blade-carved trajectories.
‘For soon the skaters on the canals, veiled hitherto by the snowfall, were suddenly scattered as a wind-borne portent came whirling out of the distance and tore through their midst like a winged dragon.’
Source: Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts (London: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 34
