Sorry, but Phil's a flake

Thirty-nine percent accuracy isn't exactly convincing. Nor is it very rational to rely on a rodent to forecast the weather, plan agricultural activities, or determine when it's time to put away the down comforter.

Yet here we go again: Groundhog Day is Saturday.

So maybe my shaking head has as much to do with another annual family film obligation - Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day," again (and again, and again, and... Gotta see it to get it). Hence life on Groundhog Day feels rather like the movie. But I digress.

Since 1887 America has watched breathlessly as that overgrown rat named Punxsutawney Phil scurries about looking for his own shadow, which spooks him. Shadow equals the little runt's retreat to "Gobbler's Knob" and six more weeks of winter. No shadow, early spring. That's the formula 39 percent of the time, not that odds mean squat for weather.

Why "Punxsutawney?" The name given the small Pennsylvania town by the Delaware Indians, who first settled the spot 90 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in 1723, means "town of sandflies." The Delawares considered groundhogs to be honored ancestors; the word "woodchuck" is said to derive from the Indian legend of Wojak, an ancestral groundhog-grandfather.

The tradition of relying on animal forecasting is even older. European cultures long celebrated Candlemas on Feb. 2, which may have been brought here by German settlers around 1700. On Candlemas, various animals emerging from hibernation were observed in the same way we watch Phil. German tradition used a badger. As an Old English poem states:

"If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again."

Americans have their own version:

"If the sun shines on Groundhog Day; half the fuel and half the hay."

Candlemas in turn was preceded by the old pagan celebration of Imbolc, the midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox. Superstition held that if the weather was fair on this date, the rest of winter would be stormy and cold.

So who turned all this into Punxsutawney Phil? A newspaper, naturally. On Feb. 2, 1886, the editor of The Punxsutawney Spirit, Clymer Freas, wrote:

"Today is groundhog day and up to the time of going to press the beast has not seen its shadow." Freas called him "Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary."

And Gobbler's Knob? Phil first headed there in 1888. It looks nothing like the movie, which was actually filmed in Woodstock, Ill. The real Gobbler's Knob is not in a town square, but described as a wooded hill with a beautiful view. Hollywood, inaccurate? Who'da thunk.

In 1887 (drum roll please)? Shadow, like most years since. I'm waiting with bated breath; aren't you?

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at sholehjo@hotmail.com.