Digging Deep Into Groundhog Day

So many of us have observed Groundhog Day since we were children, but how many of you know when and where this odd celebration originated? The first official Groundhog Day celebration in the United States took place on February 2, 1887, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The annual ritual was brought to the U.S. by German immigrants, but Groundhog Day goes much deeper than its 19th-century German roots. To find the true beginnings of Groundhog Day, you must travel a thousand years or more back in time to Scotland.

In the time before time, in the darkness and in the silence, the Cailleach came. She came from the north atop a throne of storms. Her skin was a pale blue, and her eyes were as white as the drifting snow, her breath so cold that it shattered stars. The Cailleach was looking for a new home. She spotted a mass of rock beneath her. The rock had no shape, no peaks, no valleys, nor trees. There were no rivers, no birds, and no four-legged animals. The rock called to her, “Make your home here, sink your hands into me, make me anew.” The old woman of winter sat down on the rock, making the whole world shake. Amid the swirling storms, she set to work forming the land, but that story is for another time.

After all the work the Caileach had done in the land, she became tired and lay down to sleep, and like all of us, she began to dream. The old winter woman dreamed that she was something much different; she dreamed that she was a young maiden with golden hair and with sun-kissed skin, and she danced upon the shores of a loch. Beneath her bare feet bloomed snowdrops and violets, foxgloves and daffodils. The Cailleach dreamed of Brighde, Maiden of Summer.

When the Cailleach awoke, she saw, to her horror, that green grass had broken the ice in the valleys, and summer birds were everywhere, singing in praise of Brighde. The Cailleach took her Holly wand and brought it crashing down on the landscape. Ice shot outwards from it in every direction, cloaking the land in winter again. Yet still the Caileach dreamed of Summer. When she next awoke, she felt her face and found it smooth, and strands of gold shone in her hair. The Cailleach howled in fury, but in her heart, Brighde laughed and sang. Winter marks the time when the Cailleach is strong, and summer is when the Cailleach has weakened, and Brighde reigns over the land. And so it is during the time when winter gives way to summer and summer to winter, there are storms across the land in the struggle for power between the Caileach and Brighde. It is said that on the first day of spring, the Cailleach comes out from her slumber in her cave to gather more firewood. If the day is sunny and clear, she will gather up more firewood, and there will be six more weeks of winter, but if the day is cloudy and cold, she will go back into her cave, and summer will come early.

Falling midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, February 2nd is a significant day to the Celts, it is Imbolc, a festival marking the beginning of spring. As Christianity spread across Europe, the timing and themes of Imbolc coincided with Candlemas, a feast commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem. In certain parts of Europe, Christians believed that a sunny Candlemas meant another 40 days of cold and snow. Germans developed their own take on the legend, pronouncing the day sunny only if badgers glimpsed their own shadows. When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 19th century, they brought the custom with them, choosing the native groundhog as the annual forecaster.