\nThis done, each man his candle lights, The line between Catholicism and paganism was always a little blurry.<\/p>\n In other custom Candlemas brought a definitive end to the season of Christmas, whose festive decorations of bay and holly and mistletoe were now to be taken down — thoroughly, as another poet warned:<\/p>\n That so the superstitious find With the ubiquity of electric lights the blessing of candles has lost some of the punch it packed in former ages, and though a couple of my neighbors might heed that warning about goblins, the only Candlemas custom now widely recalled in America is the one about the weather. Since Candlemas marked the coming of spring, it was believed throughout Western Europe that good weather on that day warned of a long winter yet to come and a bad growing season ahead, while clouds and snow or rain heralded an early spring and good planting. Here’s another old rhyme, a Scottish one:<\/p>\n If Candlemass day be dry and fair, It seems odd to many people today that foul weather would herald an early spring — but to an agrarian mind, of course, rain or snow was nearly always a good sign, especially when no work had immediately to be done in the fields. People may also have felt that winter was going to have its way sooner or later, and that it was best to get it over with. If so, I sympathize: I can’t help thinking, on these gorgeous seventy-degree February days, that come May it will be a hundred and cut the pea crop short again.<\/p>\n In Germany, one version of this custom held that the badger emerged from his burrow on Candlemas day, and that if he found snow he remained above ground, but if he met the sun he withdrew into his hole. In America, the badger became the groundhog — any small animal will do, really — though I believe it was only in the last hundred years or so that anyone thought actually to go in search of a groundhog; previous generations had looked at the sky and judged for themselves whether one might see one’s shadow. We seem largely to have lost the ability to judge anything about the weather for ourselves, and now rely on television. And so in addition to the National Weather Service we have Groundhog Day, on which morning a poor beast is dragged from his den, shaken from a cozy slumber, cameras pointed into his face, and abandoned after some minutes to his muddy hole, where if lucky he returns quickly to sleep and recalls the whole nasty business one sunny afternoon in late May only as a bizarre dream that he dares not mention to his mate for fear of scornful laughter. Pity the poor Marmota monax<\/span>, who deserves a bit of doggerel of his own:<\/p>\n If on Candlemas the groundhog sees
\nWhere chiefest seemeth he,
\nWhose taper greatest may be seen;
\nAnd fortunate to be,
\nWhose candle burneth clear and bright:
\nA wondrous force and might
\nBoth in these candles lie, which if
\nAt any time they light,
\nThey sure believe that neither storm
\nNor tempest cloth abide,
\nNor thunder in the skies be heard,
\nNor any devil’s spide,
\nNor fearful sprites that walk by night,
\nNor hurts of frost or hail.
\nRobert Chambers, ed., The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Collection with the Calendar, vol. 1<\/a> (Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1863), p. 213.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nNot one least branch there left behind;
\nFor look, how many leaves there be,
\nNeglected there, maids, trust to me,
\nSo many goblins you shall see. Ibid., p. 214.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe half o’ winter’s to come and mair;
\nIf Candlemass day be wet and foul,
\nThe half o’ winter’s gone at Yule.Ibid., p. 215.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nHis shade beneath the bare-limbed trees,
\nThen back to bed, and lad and lass
\nWill yet feel Jack Frost bite their ass.
\nBut if he finds gray sky and snow,
\nThen spring is coming, don’t you know!
\nHe’ll stay above ground, and soon be startin’
\nTo eat every damned thing in your garden.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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