page_title: Groundhog Day
section_title: British and Gaelic calendars
hierarchical_section_title: Groundhog Day / History / Origins / British and Gaelic calendars
caption_attribution_description: Replaces en:Image:Groundhog Standing1.jpg, which, although of a higher resolution, is at a much poorer en:angle. Shot near the en:Mississippi River, in en:Minneapolis, en:Minnesota. Copyright © 2004 by April King, aka Marumari, donated to Wikipedia under the GFDL. Original gallery shot available here: Groundhog Standing.
context_page_description: Groundhog Day is a popular American tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks; but if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
  While the tradition remains popular in modern times, studies have found no consistent correlation between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather.
  The weather lore was brought from German-speaking areas where the badger is the forecasting animal. This appears to be an enhanced version of the lore that clear weather on the Christian Holy Day of Candlemas forebodes a prolonged winter.
  The Groundhog Day ceremony held at Punxsutawney in western Pennsylvania, centering around a semi-mythical groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, has become the most attended. Grundsow Lodges in Pennsylvania Dutch Country in the southeastern part of the state celebrate them as well. Other cities in the United States and Canada have also adopted the event.
context_section_description: Scholar Rhys Carpenter in 1946 emphasized that the Badger Day tradition was strong in Germany, but absent in the British Isles, and he referred to this as a reason that the U.S. Groundhog Day was not brought by immigrants from these places.
  There did exist a belief among Roman Catholics in Britain that the hedgehog predicted the length of winter, or so it has been claimed, but without demonstration of its age, in a publication by the Scotland-born American journalist Thomas C. MacMillan in 1886, and American writer/journalist Samuel Adams Drake's book published in 1900.
  In the Gaelic calendar of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, Brigid's Day (February 1) is a day for predicting the weather. While in Scotland the animal that heralds spring on this day is a snake, and on the Isle of Man a large bird, in Ireland folklorist Kevin Danaher records lore of hedgehogs being observed for this omen:
  In Irish folk tradition St. Brighid's Day, 1 February, is the first day of Spring, and thus of the farmer's year. ... To see a hedgehog was a good weather sign, for the hedgehog comes come out of the hole in which he has spent the winter, looks about to judge the weather, and returns to his burrow if bad weather is going to continue. If he stays out, it means that he knows the mild weather is coming.
caption: The groundhog (Marmota monax) is a hibernating rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels.
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