I really love the film Groundhog Day - in fact if you have never watched it, please, put it on your list … And, there are few of you who could deny this, I really love hedgehogs … BUT ...
Okay - if you want to shout at me, pop over to the Substack version which will be up first thing in the morning.
I completely understand where myths come from - people come up with an explanation, a story, and then repeat that story until such time as people think it might be true … this is how religions, capitalism, and political manifestos exist!
However, when it comes to something I care about, and people say things that are simply not true in an attempt to create a new mythology, I get twitchy fingers and an overwhelming sense of needing to put things right … so …
There was no Hedgehog Day exported from Europe to the Americas - where on finding a lack of hedgehogs, it was decided to utilise the hibernating Groundhog as a stand in!!!
Groundhogs are fascinating - and for more than the movie. They are true hibernators - doing what hedgehogs do, shutting down their metabolism to enable them to survive the rigours of winter.
The most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil - from Pennsylvania - and, for those unfamiliar with the film, it is Phil who has the capacity to tell the future …
He lives in the improbably named ‘Gobbler’s Knob’ - and his role is to cast a shadow, or not! That is all he has to do. If there is a shadow, then there are to be another six weeks of winter … if no shadow, then spring will spring up early.
So where did Groundhog Day come from? As hard as the hedgehog-lovers may try to squeeze their animal into the mix, here is the bad news …
Oh - and you may not be aware of the fact that there is a vibrant hedgehog-loving community in the USA … pet hedgehogs became a thing in the 1990s. Not ‘our’ western European Hedgehogs, but species from Africa. If you want to know more about that world, may I please point you towards my first book - A Prickly Affair … where I went to meet them at the Rocky Mountain Hedgehog Show - and witness the spectacle that was the International Hedgehog Olympic Games (photos in the Substack version for those who think I am making this up!)
February 2nd is Candlemas - commemorating the day that Jesus was presented to the Temple. It is true that there were European folk traditions featuring this day and weather prediction - in German speaking parts of the Netherlands, where many people in Pennsylvania migrated from, there was Dachstag - badger day - where if a badger was seen on that day and it cast a shadow … you get the idea ….
Fortunately the people from Gobbler’s Knob did not come from Hungary, where the animal used for this prophecy is the bear!
I am not going to wait until Phil has spoken - but here is my prediction! I hope that there is no shadow - and that this leads to the promise of an early retreat of ICE from the lives of those communities attacked by a regime that ripping families apart and installing its victims in concentration camps - a regime that has killed many people behind closed doors, and two in public - ‘fortunately’ in the presence of cameras so the truth can be seen and told.
I find it amazing that, despite the very evidence of our own eyes, Trump and his gang of thugs persist in lying. It really should make you worry for what happens when there are no cameras if they are willing to lie when THEY KNOW WE KNOW THEY ARE LYING!
Photo is from Candlemas celebrations (2025) at Magdalen College, Oxford, where I am lucky enough to spend a lot of time as their photographer.