The next time you take part in Groundhog Day festivities, or just watch Punxsutawney Phil indicate his predictions for the coming of spring by emerging (or not) from his burrow, consider the long tradition that the observance belongs to — very long, in fact, back to the pagan times. In Gaelic Ireland, sometime around the twelfth century, a popular story formed of Cailleach, a wizened old woman living in a burrow underground, who controlled the weather. On the second of February (or the 12th on the old calendar) she would decide if she would make the winter last longer — in which case she would make the day sunny and mild, so she could gather more firewood. Although no committees formed to detect her, from that folklore came the tradition of using February 2nd as a kind of season forecast.

On this day, February 2nd, in 1887, the first Groundhog day celebration — the American equivalent of a similar German tradition that in turn stretched back the pagan Ireland — was observed. By then it had become a hybrid of the old Christian holiday of Candlemas, which also took place on February 2nd, and the German tradition of looking to hedgehogs as weather predictors. As there were few hedgehogs in Pennsylvania, but plenty of groundhogs, the latter rodent was chosen.

Candlemas itself was also used in the middle ages as a predictor of the coming of spring. A popular ditty during those years went something like this: “If Candlemas be fair and bright / Winter will have another fight. /  If Candlemas brings clouds and rain / Winter will not come again.”