I have always been astounded that we rely on a rodent each year to get our weather predictions. I will give you Santa Claus, of course. I have colored eggs for the Easter Bunny and even paid off for the Tooth Fairy.

But I don’t get Groundhog Day. Never did.

First of all, we are going to have more than six more weeks of winter no matter whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his fat shadow or not.

This ain’t South Carolina.

Through the miracle of the Internet, I have determined that this lunacy dates back to pre-Christian days, even before Dick Clark, when the celebration of Imbolc was conjured up to celebrate the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Think you have cabin fever now? Think about spending the winter in a bear pelt in a mud hut with no HBO or large-screen television. You would want a February holiday, too.

For the uninformed, Imbolc means “in the belly” and signified the quickening of a new life in the womb of Mother Earth as the seeds planted at the solstice began to stir. I assumed they would dig a few up, just to check, sort of like leafing through Caribbean travel brochures in the first week of February as an antidote to cabin fever.

According to Cathy Holt, author of “The Circle of Healing” published by Talking Birds Press, Imbolc became the celebration of St. Bridget, “the bright one” who was goddess of the hearth, poets, artisans, craftsmen, fertility and midwifery – which sounds like a full plate to me. During the midway point, priestesses kept a sacred fire burning in Bridget’s temples (the building, not her head) as a purification and cleansing rite.

According to Holt, Bridget’s celebration was sort of an early Mardi Gras as “societal propriety was relaxed and lovemaking was carried out as a fertility ritual. Bride’s crosses were made by forming a female figure of straw laid in a basket with a phallic wand to symbolize the impregnation of mother Earth.” Now that’s a holiday.

Soon, the Catholic Church got wind of this and quickly canonized Bridget as the protector of households and Feb. 2 became both St. Bridget’s Day, a pious celebration of 40 days after Christmas and “Candlemas,” when people who were lucky enough to have windows placed candles in them. The saying was “If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter will have another flight.” If the sun came out on Feb. 2, six more weeks of very wintry weather lay ahead.

OK so far?

Let’s switch to 1723 when the Delaware Indians settle Punxsutawney, halfway between the Allegheny and Susquehanna rivers. Among the many weaknesses of this tribe, along with settling in the middle of nowhere, was the belief that groundhogs were not only a sacred beast but also honorable ancestors.

When German immigrants invaded the area, somehow Candlemas, Imbolc and the sacred groundhog got mixed together to create Groundhog Day. We can blame it on Morgantown, Pa., storekeeper James Morris who wrote in his diary on Feb. 4, 1841, “Last Tuesday was Candlemas Day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the groundhog peeks out of his winter quarters and, if he sees his shadow, he pops back for another six weeks nap. But if the day be cloudy, he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.”

The corrupted holiday was formalized by the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper on Feb. 2, 1886, when editor Clymer Freas proclaimed Groundhog Day and named the local rodent Punxsutawney Phil, as “Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, the Weather Prophet Extraordinary” and dubbed the town “The weather capital of the world.”

I say we go back to the fertility rites of Imbolc. Makes a lot more sense to me.