Today is Candlemas Day. In liturgical circles, it is noteworthy for the traditional ceremony from which it takes its name, a ceremony in which a large consignment of candles is blessed for daily use in the church throughout the year.
It is also a pivotal date in weather lore; our ancestors believed that by watching the weather on Candlemas Day, you could establish without doubt either that winter was finally over or that the worst was yet to come - the "Second Winter".
A sunny Candlemas was bad. In Scotland, for example, the message was:
If Candlemas Day be fair and clear There'll be twa winters in the year.
In England they had much the same idea, but expressed it at somewhat greater length:
If Candlemas Day be fair and bright Winter will have another fight; But if Candlemas brings clouds and rain Winter is gone and won't come again.
The Germans, on the other hand, were more practical, and added a dash of Beatrix Potter to the story.
Their legend has it that the hibernating hedgehog creeps from his den at noon on Candlemas to see if he can find his shadow; if there is no shadow, he stays out, but if the sun is shining, the hedgehog returns to his den and remains there for six weeks until the inevitably imminent spell of cold, wintry weather has passed away.
In due course, German emigrants to the New World brought Candlemas to Pennsylvania, but the hedgehog tradition was transposed to the behaviour of a large, and apparently edible, rodent called the groundhog.
The groundhog also hibernates and, on February 2nd each year, allegedly emerges from its burrow to see if it can see its shadow; if the sun is shining it slinks back into its den immediately and stays there until the ice and snow have come and gone.
The citizens of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, have made their own of the prognostic skills of the groundhog, or of "Punxsutawney Phil", as they like to call him locally.
It began on February 2nd, 1887, when seven Punxsutawney men formed themselves into the Groundhog Club, and retired to Gobbler's Knob, a hill outside the town, to drink copious draughts of beer and watch for groundhogs.
Their excursion was duly reported in the local newspaper, thePunxsutawney Spirit, , and became an annual event, described in the paper in more extravagant terms each year.
In the end, the entire town of Punxsutawney adopted the talented rodent; it is now the soi- disant "Weather Capital of the World" every February 2nd, and "Groundhog Day" is marked by great festivities and celebration.