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If you hear mention of Groundhog Day, chances are you think of the famous weather-predicting rodent from Pennsylvania. This Groundhog is the only mammal to have a day named in its honor. How did this happen?

According to legend, if the Groundhog (also known as a woodchuck, a kind of marmot) sees its shadow on February 2nd when it leaves its burrow after hibernation, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. He will be afraid of his shadow and return to his burrow to wait for warmer weather. But, if he does not see his shadow, there is a good chance that spring is on its way.

This folkloric tradition goes back many centuries to the distant past when nature and the seasons had a bigger influence on people's lives. These traditions guided ordinary folk, such as helping farmers know when they should plant their crops. The tradition behind Groundhog Day stems from similar beliefs associated with pagan Candlemas Day, or Festival of Lights, which falls in the mid point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The Roman legions carried this tradition to the north in Europe, to the Teutons (or Germans) and to the English. The early Christians in Europe took the symbolism of the pagan tradition of lights and used the day as the time to bless all the candles that would be used in the coming liturgical year and to distribute candles to people in the dark winter. For them, the weather on that day was also important; if the sun came out, it meant six more weeks of winter. The Catholic Church also called this day the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Nowadays, this day is mostly connected to weather lore.

An old English Candlemas song goes like this:

If Candlemas be sunny and bright,

winter again will show its might.

If Candlemas day be cloudy and grey

winter soon will pass away.

This tradition of weather prediction was brought to the USA in the 1700s and 1800s by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. In Germany they used the badger (or some say, the hedgehog) as their predicting animal, but the new immigrants could not find badgers in Pennsylvania, so they adopted the groundhog. The tradition with the groundhog started in the town of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania, where the earliest American reference to Groundhog Day is February 4th, 1841 (in the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center). The Delaware Indians had settled in Punxsutawney in the early 1700s and they considered groundhogs as honorable ancestors. Pennsylvania's official celebration

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