Hedgehog Day

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This article considers the historic and contemporary nature of the so-called Hedgehog Day.

[edit] A Roman Hedgehog Day?

In the popular media are found references to Hedgehog Day, which is said to have been celebrated by the Romans. Hedgehog Day is claimed to be a precursor to Groundhog Day, a minor holiday in North America on the second of February. On that day, groundhogs are said to emerge from their burrows. According to tradition, if they see their shadows, they return to their burrows and six more weeks of winter are to be expected. According to the history page of groundhog.org, the groundhog day tradition is a transformation of a European tradition, which relied not on groundhogs, but on hedgehogs. German immigrants to North America, finding no hedgehogs in their new land, substituted groundhogs. Tracing the tradition further into the European past, groundhog.org claims:

The Roman legions, during the conquest of the northern country, supposedly brought this tradition to the Teutons, or Germans, who picked it up and concluded that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, an animal, the hedgehog, would cast a shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of bad weather. [1] (This quote was gathered January 29, 2007).

This account, which traces Groundhog Day back to a Roman Hedgehog Day, is drawn directly from a book meant as a popular promotional tract for the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but the book, unfortunately, does not indicate its sources for its explanation of Groundhog Day's historical roots.^[1] A similar implied claim that Groundhog Day can be traced back to the Romans occurs on a page entitled "Hedgehog Day" at hedghogcentral.com. The page states:

Long before the advent of Groundhog Day on February 2nd, the Romans observed a similar event thousands of years ago on the exact same day. Rather than use the North American groundhog, the Romans used the hedgehog.[2] (This quote was gathered Jan. 31, 2007)

However, this information is unsourced, as, ultimately, was that at groundhog.org.

It is of great significance to the question whether the Romans celebrated a Hedghog Day that there is no Hedgehog Day attested in lists of holidays from the Roman Calendar on February 2 or any other day.^[2]

Furthermore, there is no attestation that Romans observed hedgehogs to predict the length of winter. It is true that ancient Greeks entertained a belief, or maybe literary conceit, that Hedgehogs were clever—probably because of their trick of curling up and exposing only a hostile spiny surface to predators.^[3] Two Greek authors, Aristotle and Plutarch tell us that hedgehogs have an uncanny ability to sense changes in wind direction and thereby predict weather; they also report that a man from Cyzicus or Byzantium (presumably a Greek and far from the Roman homeland) got famous for predicting the weather on the basis of hedgehog behavior.^[4] Moreover, a similar claim that hedgehogs can predict winds appears in a first century A.D. Roman author, Pliny the Elder.^[5] This information then resurfaces in the writings of the medieval German polymath Albertus Magnus.^[6] This alleged ability to foretell future weather may relate to the notion that a putative Hedgehog Day inspired modern Groundhog Day. In addition, the apparent passage of the information on hedgehogs' ability from the Roman Pliny to the German Albertus Magnus reflects the notion that Hedgehog Day passed from the Romans to the Germans. However, Pliny the Younger, the nephew and adopted son of Pliny the Elder, describes Pliny the Elder's method of compiling his works, and it is quite clear that it mostly consisted of excerpting the the writings of others.^[7] It is not unlikely, then, that Pliny, when reporting on hedgehogs, was merely copying previous authors, perhaps from the same literary tradition that gives us Plutarch's and Aristotle's reports, and was not reporting Roman folkloric tradition. And while Albertus Magnus certainly made original observations and contributions, his major task in writing about animals was to harmonize the various conflicting written traditions available to him.^[8] Again, it would appear likely that his account of hedgehogs' ability to predict weather comes from the same literary tradition that produced Plutarch's, Pliny's, and Aristotle's accounts and that it does not come from a contemporary folkloric source.

In short, there is no evidence for an ancient Roman Hedgehog Day that resembled the modern Groundhog Day.

[edit] Sonic the Hedgehog and Hedgehog Day

The North American version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for Sega Genesis was first published in the United States on February 2, 1994, advertised on television as "Hedgehog Day".^[9]

Hedgehog Day is also a story featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, a parody of Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray movie about the weatherman who is forced to relive the events of a day over and over again. In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book adventure, Sonic keeps reliving the unfortunate events of a day of festivities in his honor. Either he is caught in a Time Warp, or he is having a recurring nightmare. In any case, he keeps missing the celebration and ends up in the hospital. However, the story has a happy ending, as Sonic finally manages to wake up early and arrive at the park without accident.^[10]

[edit] References

1. ^ Bill Anderson, Groundhog Day: The Great Groundhog Day History and Catalog, Punxsutawney, Penn., 1992, p. 5
2. ^ W.W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, London, 1899; H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, London, 1981; M. York, The Roman Festival Calendar of Numa Pompilius, New York, 1986.
3. ^ C.M. Bowra, "The Fox and the Hedgehog" Classical Quarterly 34 (1940) 26-29
4. ^ Aristotle, Historia animalium 612b; Plutarch De sollertia animalium972a
5. ^ Pliny Naturalis historia 8.133
6. ^ Albertus Magnus, De animalibus 22.97
7. ^ Pliny Ep. [Letters] 3.5
8. ^ K. F. Kitchell and I. M. Resnick, "Introduction," in Albertus Magnus on Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, trans. and annotated by K. F. Kitchell and I. M. Resnick, Vol. 1, Baltimore and London, 1999, pp. 40-42.
9. ^ http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=5102
10. ^ Sonic the Hedgehog # 167, December 2006