Kyndilmessa

I have a "science trivia daily" calendar here at work, and today's was about groundhog day. We got to talking about it here, and P suddenly sprouted forth a poem:

Ef í heiði sólin sést
á sjálfa kyndilmessu
snjóa vænta máttu mest
maður upp frá þessu.

It's all very archaic and flowery in phrasing, but translation is approximately, "if you see the sun set on Candlemass, you can surely expect snow". So, the traditions are not all that different, since a sunny day is necessary for the groundhog to see his shadow anyway. If today's weather holds, it means we're gonna have an early summer then, since the clouds are so low they're practically around my ears.

My calendar went further to explain that the US tradition came from German immigrants and their belief that a badger would see his shadow and retreat, thinking it was a predator. Since they had no badgers in Pennsylvania, they swapped in a groundhog, a much less interesting animal.

P dug a little further and found that part of the significance of the day is that it's forty days after Christmas. According to Catholics a while back, women were considered unclean for the forty days* after childbirth. So, if Mary gave birth on the 25th, today's the first day Joseph could enjoy a bit of slap and tickle. Party time!

* and now I am wondering how this relates to another Famous Forty Days. Is there some kind of fertility issue in the story of the flood? Might as well have a flood since the wife's not touchable? I hope there aren't any extremely religious readers who are impossibly offended by this, but I do think it's a really interesting connection.