Oh the misogyny! A woman has been replaced by a rodent! Punxsutawney Phil has been substituted for the Cailleach Béara.
Phil is famous in the USA for being the best friend of comic actor Bill Murray.
The Cailleach Béara is famous in Ireland for being "one of the oldest and most powerful of mythical beings associated with Ireland". She plays an important role in the ancient Celtic festival Imbolc which takes place on February 1st.
An Irish blogger explains the purpose of the festival:
"Simply put, Imbolc was a celebration of the end of winter and the impending light half of the year. The hardest part of the year was over; adverse weather, cold temperatures, food rationing, and of course, no warfare (an integral part of Celtic society) would soon be a thing of the past. Farmers were getting ready to go back to work, preparing animals for breeding, warriors were picking up their weapons again, and the political and social aspects of life that had been put on hold for winter were also beginning again. . . Imbolc was celebrated all across Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, with each region having slightly different variations in name and customs."
Irish Central explains the Cailleach Béara's role in Imbolc:
"On Imbolc, February 1st, legend has it that the Cailleach runs out of her store of winter firewood and goes to gather more. If the day is fine and dry, it means that she will be able to gather more firewood and prolong the harsh winter months, but if it rains, she will have no fuel and so will have to give way to spring."
From Mythopedia:
"On Imbolc, or February 1st, of each year, the Cailleach runs out of firewood for the winter. In the Manx tradition, she transforms into a great bird and collects firewood in her beak. In Ireland and Scotland, meanwhile, she collects firewood as an old woman. If she wishes for winter to last longer, she makes the day sunny and bright for her search. If she accidentally oversleeps, the day is stormy and gray. Thus, tradition holds that if February 1st is gray and wintery, winter will be shorter that year; if the day is bright, winter will return due to her preparation."
So, how did a Celtic woman get changed into a groundhog? That answer is given by the Irish Post:
"It's already possible to see where the Groundhog Day tradition of predicting six more weeks of spring came from – but before Imbolc became Groundhog Day, it was assimilated into Christianity with Candlemas, which celebrates the purification of the Virgin Mary. Like the legend of the Cailleach, Candlemas tradition states that if there is good weather on Candlemas, there will be much worse weather to come before spring is finally sprung. As Ireland let go of its Celtic pagan roots and turned to Catholicism, the country began celebrating St Brigid's Day – still known as the first day of spring. With this, rather than the Cailleach gathering wood for a longer winter, came a new legend: that to see a hedgehog on St Brigid's Day was a good weather omen, because if the hedgehog left the den it had been sleeping in all winter, it knew that the winter was over and spring was coming. As the tradition spread from country to country and the centuries passed, the hedgehog became the badger became the groundhog – and such is the tradition observed in North America and Canada today."
So, why did people in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania start using a member of the rodent family as a weather forecaster? From Germanology Unlocked:
"Where does the groundhog come in, you ask? Well, due to traditions passed on by the ancient Romans, certain animals were believed to have weather-predicting capabilities in various European countries. In Germany, this animal was a badger. From medieval times, people had believed that the animal awoke from his hibernation to make the weather prediction for the farmers. If the badger didn't see his shadow when he came out, it was a good time to begin the planting, but if the badger did see his shadow, the cold would prevent farming for the next several weeks. Moving on to 19th-century America... badgers apparently weren't very common where the German immigrants lived in Pennsylvania. The groundhog, however, was quite popular, so the German settlers simply decided to assign the impressive weather powers of the badger to the local groundhog."
As to why Bill Murray would go for a groundhog when selecting a best friend, perhaps Bill is pretending to be jeepy.
That is how the Cailleach Béara, the ancient Irish goddess of winter, was turned into a rodent named Punxsutawney Phil.
By the way, in ancient Irish mythology, the goddess of Spring is Brighid.
