For Song of the Sky (1954), Guy Murchie collected the names of winds around the world — he calls them “among the least known and most beautiful of words”:
Leste — warm easterly wind of January in the Madeiras
Naalehu — of Hawaii, blowing from the arid interior areas
Soo-oop-wa — bitter sand-laden wind of Southwest Africa
Steppenwind — of Germany blowing from the steppes
Bise — cold wind of France
Southerly burster — of Australia, preceded by an eerie lull
Tramontana — Alpine blast of the Italian east coast
Etesian — of cool summer afternoons in Greece and Levant
Siffanto — up from the hot heel of Italy
Kai — balmy south wind of China
Yamo oroshi — foehn of the steep valleys of Japan
Klod — Balinese wind that blows “downwards to the sea”
Reshabar — lusty and black, out of the high Caucasus
Mistral — down from the Cevennes to the Riviera
Ghost of Gouda — local gust on a calm night, South Africa
Vinds-gnyr — ancient blustery wind of Iceland
Wisper — whistling through narrow Rhine valleys
Imbat — refreshing North African shores
Virazon — cooling Montevideo on summer afternoons
Sz — first faint breeze of the Chinese autumn
Elephanta — of the Malabar coast
“Herodotus tells of the ancient people of Psylli (Tripoli) who became so hysterical when their wells dried up that they actually dclared war on the simoom and marched into the Sahara with clashing cymbals and beating drums until they disappeared forever into a red cloud of whirling sand.”
