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Or have we done this column
before?
We return (not surprisingly)
to the ancient Celts, whose Samhain traditions gave us the modern
Halloween, who designated the day at the very center of our modern
Winter (February 2), as the feast of Imbolc. It was a fertility
celebration, though as Celtic Europe became more and more "Romanized"
the festival began to be jointly celebrated with the Roman feast
of Febru—a purification celebration (and, as you will have
surmised, the origin of the month's very name).
As with Halloween and the Winter
Solstice (which eventually evolved into the modern Christmas),
these festivals were considered magic times, and hence very good
times to fortell the future. However, whereas the holidays of
fall concerned themselves more with fortelling one's future mate,
the February holiday, due in no small part to its place at the
very epicenter of the Winter season, was all about fortelling
the weather.
As the Catholic Church did
with so many other "pagan" feast days, February 2nd's
"Imbolic" became the Christian feast day of Candlemas.
As with all the other ancient Festival Days, the old rites and
rituals survived, so that an early Candlemas songs went:
"If Candlemas
be fair and bright
Come winter—have another flight
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain
Go winter and come not again" |
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The original animal used by the Europeans to divine the weather's
future was, Europe being Europe, the hedgehog. However, early
German settlers to the New World found the native woodchuck,
or groundhog, a passable substitute.
It thus became the groundhog's
lot to fortell the season's immediate meteorological future—if
the weather were "fair and bright," the animal would
see its shadow, and disappear for six weeks. If, however, there
were "clouds and rain," the groundhog would emerge
from its hole, signaling a quick end to the storms of Grim Winter.
And yes—it was indeed
in Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania (a region founded by a whole mess
of Early German Settlers) that the first official Groundhog Day
festival was held, back in the late 1800's, which led to the
modern folklore associated with both the day and the animal,
and took us finally from ancient Celtic fertility rites to the
modern celebration known as...
Groundhog Day.
Or have we done this column
before?
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