When Our LADY shall have a new son

Insights

Impossibility

This proverb conveys the utter unlikelihood of an event, using a theological impossibility to symbolize something that will simply never occur.

Deliberate Delay or Dismissal

May also function as a dismissive response to unreasonable hopes or expectations, indicating that one should not count on something happening.

Hyperbolic Timeframe

Represents a figurative use of eternal or mythical time to communicate the absurdity or remoteness of a proposed idea or condition.

Religious Symbolism and Irony

The proverb draws on the sacred uniqueness of Christ’s birth to create a rhetorical impossibility—emphasizing that some things, like a second son of the Virgin, defy not just likelihood but doctrine itself.

Subtle Blasphemous Humor

While not overtly disrespectful, the proverb toes a line between sacred reference and secular cynicism, employing a mildly ironic tone that could suggest cultural tensions between piety and skepticism.

Parallel to Other ‘Never’ Sayings

Like ‘when two Sundays come together,’ this saying relies on a poetic impossibility, illustrating a broader cultural tendency to use religious or temporal absolutes to measure futility or unreality.

Folkloric Reworking of Doctrine

This folk usage of ‘Our Lady’ reflects how theological figures entered everyday speech not just as objects of veneration, but as accessible symbols within vernacular idiom and humor.

Rhetorical Devices

Religious Allusion

References the Virgin Mary (Our Lady), whose singular role as mother of Christ provides a sacred absolute that anchors the proverb’s forceful negation.

Hyperbole

The statement exaggerates temporal improbability to an impossible degree, heightening its rhetorical effect through sacred impossibility.

Irony

The implied certainty (‘never’) contrasts with the soft tone of the phrase, yielding an understated but sharp irony that subtly mocks unrealistic hopes.