Skeptic » Reading Room » The Discoverie of Magic skeptic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from skeptic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Find out how the word legerdemain came to be, why medieval spectators of the cups and balls illusion had to watch their pockets, and more in this list of fun and fantastical facts about the history of magic.
Most of us know the tradition: on February 2, our old friend the groundhog will emerge from hibernation, come out of his den, and predict whether winter will deliver more cold weather this year. If the groundhog sees his shadow, the story goes, cold weather will persist another few weeks. If not, warm weather is around the corner. If you like the folklore of holidays, you may be interested to know that Groundhog Day is related to two of the other holidays we have written about extensively on this blog: Halloween and Mayday. In this post, we ll look at the ancient origins of the Groundhog Day tradition in Celtic and Germanic culture. We ll also present two fun groundhog songs from AFC collections, and links to further reading and exploration of this seasonal observance.