On the night of the first full moon in April, the citizens of Dreary celebrate the arrival of spring with Badger Day, one of the town’s oldest and most enthusiastically observed traditions.
At the center of the festivities is the ceremonial arrival of the Great Badger, a figure always portrayed by one of Dreary’s resident were-badgers in full animal form. Emerging from the countryside after nightfall, the Great Badger enters the town bearing symbolic offerings: an apple, representing the promise of growth, and a small pail filled with earth, worms, and grubs—tokens of the soil’s renewal and the less visible labors of the season.
The procession is greeted with cheers, lantern light, and general revelry. Children are encouraged to follow in the Badger’s wake, while adults partake in food, drink, and a variety of less easily described entertainments. The atmosphere is celebratory, though not without a certain underlying roughness characteristic of Dreary observances.
The identity of the Great Badger changes from year to year. The role is considered an honor among the town’s were-badgers, and is taken with great seriousness.
In the most recent celebration, the Great Badger was portrayed by Claude Clemhopper, a local carpenter and furniture maker. Clemhopper has lived as a were-badger for nearly forty years, having been bitten during a solitary excursion in the woods north of Dreary Lake.
“I went out looking for Erystys Tower,” he later remarked, “and got bit instead.”
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