Imbolc ~ Feast of the Bride

The First of February belongs to Brigid, (Brighid, Brigit, Bride,) the
Celtic goddess who in later times became revered as a Christian saint.
Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc,
two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes, the flow of milk
that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. Later,
the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on
February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features
candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the
Light-Bringer overlights both pagan and Christian celebrations.
In most parts of the British Isles, February is a harsh and bitter
month. In old Scotland, the month fell in the middle of the period
known as Faoilleach, the Wolf-month; it was also known as a' marbh
mhiòs, the Dead-month. But although this season was so cold and
drear, small but sturdy signs of new life began to appear: Lambs were
born and soft rain brought new grass. Ravens begin to build their
nests and larks were said to sing with a clearer voice.

In Ireland, the land was prepared to receive the new seed with spade
and plough; calves were born, and fishermen looked eagerly for the end
of winter storms and rough seas to launch their boats again. In
Scotland, the Old Woman of winter, the Cailleach, is reborn as Bride,
Young Maiden of Spring, fragile yet growing stronger each day as the
sun rekindles its fire, turning scarcity into abundance. Of her,
Alexander Carmichael wrote:

Bride with her white wand is said to breathe life into the mouth of
the dead Winter and to bring him to open his eyes to the tears and the
smiles, the sighs and the laughter of Spring. The venom of the cold is
said to tremble for its safety on Bride's Day, and to flee for its
life on Patrick's Day.

THE EXALTED ONE
…woman of wisdom…a goddess whom poets adored…— Cormac's Glossary

It is tempting to view this tender goddess of the early Spring only as
she is pictured in Scottish artist John Duncan's famous picture, The
Coming of Bride: a wide-eyed, golden-haired girl, encircled by
children. But behind her girlish innocence is the power of a
once-great ancestral deity, Brigid, whose name means "The Exalted
One," queen and mother goddess of many European tribes. She is also
known as Brigid, Bridget, Brighid, Brighde, Brig or Bride and some
scholars consider her name originated with the Vedic Sanskrit word
brihati, an epithet of the divine.

The 10th century Cormac's Glossary describes her as the daughter of
the Daghda, the "Great God" of the Tuatha de Danaan. He calls her a
"woman of wisdom…a goddess whom poets adored, because her protection
was very great and very famous." Since the discipline of poetry,
filidhect, was interwoven with seership, Brigid was seen as the great
inspiration behind divination and prophecy, the source of oracles.

She is said to have had two sisters: Brigid the Physician and Brigid
the Smith, but it is generally thought that all three were aspects of
the one goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft. Elsewhere she is
described as the patron of other vital crafts of early Celtic society:
dying, weaving and brewing. A goddess of regeneration and abundance,
she was greatly beloved as a provider of plenty who brought forth the
bounties of the natural world for the good of the people. She is
closely connected with livestock and domesticated animals. She had two
oxen called Fea and Feimhean who gave their names to a plain in Co.
Carlow and one in Tipperary. She was also the guardian of Torc Triath,
king of the wild boar, who gave his name to Treithirne, a plain in
West Tipperary. These three totem animals used to raise a warning cry
if Ireland was in danger.

Some Irish rivers bear her name, as do places as far apart as
Breconshire in Wales, Brechin in Scotland and Bregenz in Austria,
which was once the capital of the Brigantii tribe. This tribe was
under the tutelage of the goddess Brigantia, who is thought to be
another aspect of Brigid. The most powerful political unit of
Celtic-speaking Britain, the Brigantii mostly held sway in Northern
England, where place-names and rock-carvings still echo the presence
of their mother-goddess.

SAINT OF THE FLAME
…she shall arise like a shining sun… — Lives of Saints, The Book of
Lismore

With the coming of Christianity, the powerful energy of the pagan
goddess was transmuted into Ireland's much-loved saint, second only
to Patrick himself. Her transformation happened almost literally in
Drumeague, County Cavan, at a place called "The Mountain of the Three
Gods." Here a stone head of Brigid was worshipped as a triple deity,
but with the coming of Christianity, it was hidden in a Neolithic
tomb. Later it was recovered from its burial-place and mounted on a
local church where it was popularly canonized as "St. Bride of
Knockbridge." [iii]Though many legends are attached to her, there is
certainly no firm evidence of her as a historical figure. Accounts of
the saint's life reveal what Sir James Frazer once called her: "a
goddess in a threadbare cloak."

Saint Brigid was said to be the daughter of a druid who had a vision
that she was to be named after a great goddess. She was born at
sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold, and so "was
neither within nor without." This is the state known as liminality,
from the Latin, limen: a threshold – the state of being "in between"
places and times. In Celtic tradition this is a sacred time when the
doors between the worlds are open and magical events can occur.

Another legend tells how her mother was carrying a pitcher of milk at
the time, with which she bathed her new-born child. As a child, Brigid
was unable to eat ordinary food, and was reared on the milk of a
special white red-eared cow. White animals with red ears are
frequently found in Celtic mythology as beasts of the Otherworld. We
have also seen how the pagan goddess owned two magical oxen. In
Celtic society, cattle were the most highly valued of all animals,
revered as symbols of plenty, and Saint Brigid was very closely
associated with livestock in general, and dairy cows in particular. As
an adult, she was accompanied by a cow who also supplied her with all
the milk she needed.

When she became abbess of Kildare, she miraculously increased the milk
and butter yield of the abbey cows; some accounts say that her cows
produced a whole lake of milk three times a day, and one churning
filled hundreds of baskets with butter. When Saint Brigid died, her
skull was kept at Kildare after the pre-Christian custom of revering
the head as sacred. Norman soldiers were supposed to have stolen it
from the abbey and taken it to Portugal. Here it played its part in a
spring ceremony where cattle were driven past it. In Scotland she was
invoked as "Milkmaid Bride," or "Golden-haired Bride of the kine,"
patroness of cattle and dairy work. Medieval Christian art often
depicts her as holding a cow, or carrying a pair of milk-pails.

She also provided abundant ale-harvests: At one Easter-time, one
measure of her malt provided ale for seventeen churches. Her
miraculous powers changed water into ale and stone into salt. With
boundless generosity she fed birds, animals, and the poor, and they
all loved her in return. The bountiful mother goddess of the fruitful
earth shines through the generosity of the Christian saint.

Early writers believed Brigid's name stemmed from breo-aigit: "fiery
arrow," a false but somehow very fitting etymology for a goddess of
smithcraft, and one who kindles the fires of creativity and
regeneration. Her association with fire and the sun continues into the
folk-lore of the Christian saint. In one version of her life from the
Book of Lismore, a druid prophesies that she will be "a daughter
conspicuous and radiant, who will shine like the sun among the stars
of heaven." As a child, a fire was seen rising from the house where
she and her mother were asleep. Yet it did not burn the house, but
glowed like the burning bush of the Old Testament. When she first
began to pray to God, a column of flame was seen rising from the
house. She emerged unharmed, but "full of the grace of the Holy
Spirit," a reference to the Pentecostal flames. A charming story tells
how stories of Brigid's deeds drew the attention of the famous Saint
Brendan who stopped by on an unannounced visit. She had been out
working in the fields on a showery day, and was so surprised to see
the great man in her house, that she flung off her rain-cloak without
bothering to hang it up. The cloak caught on a sunbeam and to the
older saint's astonishment, hung there till it dried.

Like the rising sun, she belonged to the East, where her influence
radiated out from her convent at Kildare in the heart of Leinster.
Within the convent burned a perennial flame which became known as one
of the three inextinguishable fires of the Irish monasteries. Stories
about the flame's miraculous properties told that it stayed alight
through the grace of God while the ashes from the burnt wood never
increased even though it burned for a thousand years, from the 5th to
the 16th centuries. Gerald of Wales wrote about it when he visited the
convent sometime in the twelfth century. He tells that there used to
be twenty nuns keeping watch over the flame during Brigid's lifetime;
since her death, nineteen took turns, one each night, in guarding the
fire. When the twentieth night came, the nineteenth nun put the logs
beside the fire and said:

"Brigid, guard your fire. This is your night."

In the morning, the wood was found burned and the fire still alight.

Brigid's flame was housed within a sacred enclosure, surrounded by a
withy hedge which, Gerald reports, "no male may cross." A terrible
fate awaited any man who tried, although the nature of the punishment
was not specified. It seems probable that Kildare was once a pagan
sanctuary attended by priestesses, similar to the Vestal Virgins of
Roman tradition. Some scholars have seen a connection between Brigid
and Sulis Minerva whose sacred fire burned at Aquae Sulis (Bath) in
the 3rd century. Elsewhere only nine maidens are described as guarding
the Brigid's flame, a scene reminiscent of the nine maidens in the
Welsh poem, The Spoils of Annwn, whose breath warmed the magical
cauldron of the Underworld. Goddess of the Sun and Christian saint of
the Eternal Fire are equally invoked in the beautiful invocation known
as Brighid's Arrow:

Most Holy Brighid, Excellent Woman, Bright Arrow, Sudden Flame;
May your bright fiery Sun take us swiftly to your lasting kingdom.

Like the goddess of old, Saint Brigid was renowned for her gift of
healing. She wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland and wove into it
healing threads which kept their power for centuries. Many healing
wells and springs were named after her. Earlier this century, an old
woman recounted her experiences at a well of Brigid's on the west
coast – one of many that are still active today.

"I had a pearl in my eye one time, and I went to Saint Brigit's well
on the cliffs. Scores of people there were in it, looking for cures,
and some got them and some did not get them. And I went down the four
steps to the well and I was looking into it, and I saw a little fish
no longer than your finger coming from a stone under the water. Three
spots it had on the one side and three on the other side, red spots
and a little green with the red, and it was very civil coming hither
to me and very pleasant wagging its tail. And it stopped and looked up
at me and gave three wags of its back, and walked off again and went
in under the stone….And in three days I had the sight of my eye again.
It was surely Saint Brigit I saw that time; who else would it be?"

At Kildare her well stands just outside the town, and was refurbished
by the local nuns in 1984. Near the spring, an upright stone tablet
bears two crosses on either side. One is a Christian cross, the other
is the cross of Saint Brigit, the fiery sun-wheel turning.

SAINT BRIDE OF SCOTLAND
"Oh the blessing of Brìd on the child of my heart" —Scottish Lullaby

In Scotland Brigid was known as Bride and like her pagan predecessor
reigned over fire, over art, and over beauty, fo cheabhar agus fo
chuan (beneath the sky and beneath the sea.) As she presided over the
birth of Spring, so legends tell that she was the midwife at Christ's
birth. She was called Muime Chriosd, "Foster-mother of Christ", while
the divine Child was known as Dalta Brìde, "the Foster-Son of Bride."
Sometimes Brigid was conflated with the Virgin herself, for in the
Highlands and Islands she was often addressed as "Mary of the Gael."

Her presence was invoked at childbirths, as Alexander Carmichael
recounts:

When a woman is in labour the midwife…goes to the door of the house,
and standing on the door-step, softly beseeches Bride to come in:

`Bride, Bride, come in!
Thy welcome is truly made,
Give thou relief to the woman,
And give thou the conception to the Trinity.'

Highland women also invoked Brigid's presence at the hearth-fire, the
center of the home. The hearth was not only the source of warmth and
cooking but also symbolized the power of the sun brought down to human
level as the miraculous power of fire. Every morning the fire was
kindled with invocations to St. Brigid, the "radiant flame" herself:

I will build the hearth
As Mary would build it.
The encompassment of Bride and of Mary
Guarding the hearth, guarding the floor,
Guarding the household all. [xi]

THE FEAST-DAY OF BRIDE
Bride put her finger in the river
On the Feast Day of Bride
And away went the hatching mother of the cold. — Carmina Gadelica

It was said: "from Brighid's feastday onwards the day gets longer and
the night shorter." Although this refers to the time of the winter
Solstice, the felt truth was that the goddess brought back the growing
light. On the eve of Là Fhéill Bhrìghde (St.Brigid's Day), the Old
Woman of Winter, the Cailleach, journeys to the magical isle in whose
woods lies the miraculous Well of Youth. At the first glimmer of
dawn, she drinks the water that bubbles in a crevice of a rock, and is
transformed into Bride, the fair maid whose white wand turns the bare
earth green again. Another version of the story of Spring tells how
Bride is a young girl kept prisoner by the Cailleach all winter long
in the snowy recesses of Ben Nevis. She is rescued by the Cailleach's
son who elopes with her despite his mother's attempts to keep them
apart with fierce storms.

The coming of Bride was celebrated in the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland with heartfelt prayers and songs. Of these all are gone
except for a few evocative titles and fragments—"Mantle of Bride,"
"Staff of Bride," "Bride's Prayer—empty sea-shells on a forgotten
shore. But thanks to Carmichael's work in collecting old customs, we
do know more about the festivities of this joyful time. On Bride's
Eve, young girls made a female figure from a sheaf of corn, and
decorated it with colored shells and sparkling crystals, together with
snowdrops and primroses and other early spring flowers and greenery.
An especially bright shell, symbol of emerging life, or crystal was
placed over its heart, called in Gaelic, the "guiding star of Bride,"
after the star over the stable in Bethlehem that led Bride to the
Christ child. The figure was named Bride or Brideag, Little Bride, and
was carried about the town in procession by the young girls who were
called banal Bride, the "Bride Maiden band," all dressed in white and
wearing their hair down, personifying the spirit of purity and youth.

Everyone they visited had to pay homage to Bride and give her a gift
such as a flower or a crystal, while the mothers gave bannocks, cheese
or butter, reciprocating Bride's lavish gifts of food. When they had
finished their rounds, the girls spent the night at a house where the
figure was made to sit in state, while the girls prepared the Bride
feast for the next day. The young men of the town soon came knocking
at the door and were let in to pay tribute to Bride, after which there
were songs, dancing and much merrymaking until the break of day. At
first light, they all joined hands and sang a hymn to Bride, and
shared out the remains of the feast among the poor women of the town.

The older women of the town also conducted a ceremony on the Eve of
Bride. They too made an effigy of Bride out of oats, lovingly
decorated it, and prepared for her a basket called leaba Bride,
Bride's bed. Carmichael describes what happened next;

… one woman goes to the door of the house, and standing on the step
with her hands on the jambs, calls softly into the darkness, `Bride's
bed is ready.' To this a ready woman behind replies, `Let Bride come
in. Bride is welcome.' The woman at the door again addresses Bride,
`Bride, Bride, come thou in, thy bed is made. Preserve the house for
the Trinity.' The women then place the ikon of Bride with great
ceremony into the bed they have so carefully prepared for it.

In her hand they placed a small straight white wand, generally of
birch, the tree of spring, or other sacred wood: straight to signify
justice, white for purity and peace. Then, before retiring for the
night they smoothed the ashes of the hearth. Their dearest wish was
that she visit them in the night, and in the morning they eagerly
examined the ashes for traces of her presence: if they discerned the
marks of her wand, they knew they were favored; if the footprint of
Bride was discovered in the ashes then they were overjoyed, and knew
to expect increase in family, flock and field in the coming year. If
there were no signs at all, they were downcast, believing she must be
offended. To remedy this, they buried a cock as an offering at a place
where three streams met—a three-fold confluence of sacred power—and
burned incense on the fire the next evening.

There are places in Scotland where St. Bride's Day festivities are
still very much alive. For example, Canon Angus MacQueen on the Isle
of South Uist celebrates all the Celtic feast days with his
parishioners, especially Là Fhéill Bhrìghde, when the Brideog is
carried round to each house on the island.

In Ireland, similar joyous rituals were enacted to welcome back the
light on Lá Fhéile Bríde, St. Brigit's Day. An 18th century account
tells how every farmer's wife made a special cake, the ale was brought
out, the neighbors came round and a festive evening was had by all.
Fresh butter was churned and always formed part of the meal; the more
wealthy farmers gave gifts of butter to poorer neighbors, along with
some roast meat, to celebrate the return of the bringer of bounty. At
this time, Brigid herself was believed to travel about the
countryside, blessing the people and their livestock, and so an
offering of cake or bread and butter was left outside on the
window-sill for her. Sometimes they left a sheaf of corn too, as
sustenance for the white cow who traveled with her. Or a bundle of
straw or fresh rushes were laid on the threshold for her to kneel upon
to bless the house, or possibly so she – or the cow! – could wipe
their feet before entering.

In many districts an effigy of Brigid was carried about from door to
door as in Scotland. Often the figure of Bride was fashioned from a
churn-dash covered with straw, emphasizing her presence in the dairy;
sometimes it was a child's doll decked out for the occasion, and
sometimes a young girl dressed in white represented Brigid herself.
The girl might hand out a Brigid's Cross to each household, for the
saint's special cross was an important part of the Irish celebrations
in all parts of Ireland. These crosses of rushes or straw were made on
St. Brigid's Eve and hung in the house and often in byre and stable
too, to honor Brigid and to gain her protection. The crosses took
shapes that are not traditionally Christian, but bear marked
resemblance to symbols of the sun in cultures throughout the world.
One kind was actually not a cross at all, but a figure with three
legs, recalling the three-fold nature of the goddess-saint. It is, in
fact, an ancient Celtic symbol known as the triskele.

A less common design from counties Cork and Tipperary is a shape we
should by now be most familiar with: the circle-cross. An added beauty
of its symbolism is that the figure is formed from triple-braided
straw rope, thus marrying the sacred numbers of four and three.
Another ritual object involving these numbers sounds as if it is from
a much earlier time. Known as the Crios Bríde, or Saint Brigid's
Girdle, it was made from braided straw rope and carried in procession
with the effigy of Bride throughout the town. At each house, the
occupants were expected to pass through it, to obtain Bride'
protection and good health for the coming year. As they did this, the
bearers of the crios chanted a verse. One version goes in translation:

Brighid's girdle is my girdle
The girdle with the four crosses
Arise, housewife
And go out three times.
May whoever goes through my girdle
Be seven times better a year from now.

Rituals such as these anchored participants securely in the cosmic
order represented by the four directions and the three worlds: lower
world, physical world and upper world, mediated by the sacred presence
of Brigid.

CANDLEMAS
A wondrous force and might
Doth in these candels lie… — Barnaby Gouge: The Popish Kingdome

In keeping with the policy of the Catholic Church to subsume pagan
festivals into Christian feast-days, the Day of Bride became equated
with Candlemas on February 2nd, the feast of the Purification of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. At this time, forty days after childbirth, Mary
was supposed to have gone to the Temple at Jerusalem to make the
traditional offering to purify herself. As she entered the temple, an
old man named Simeon recognized the baby as the Messiah of Israel, and
a "light to lighten the Gentiles." So, once again we encounter the
archetype of the young Sun or Light come to redeem the darkness, but
now in Christian clothing. Certainly, the service most used for this
day in the medieval church made much of this symbolism, playing upon
images of the appearance of divine light in the darkness of human sin,
of renewal and rebirth of light in the dark time of the year, and of
the new light of heaven come to transform an old world.

In Britain, Candlemas was celebrated with a festival of lights. In the
dark and gloomy days of February, the shadowy recesses of medieval
churches twinkled brightly as each member of the congregation carried
a lighted candle in procession around the church, to be blessed by the
priest. Afterwards, the candles were brought home to be used to keep
away storms, demons and other evils. This custom lasted in England
until it was banned in the Reformation for promoting the veneration of
magical objects. Even so, the symbol of the lighted candles had too
strong a hold on the popular imagination to be entirely cast aside.
Traces of the festival lingered until quite recently in other areas of
the British Isles like little lights that refused to be blown out. In
Wales, Candlemas was known as Gwyl Fair y Canhwyllau, Mary's Festival
of the Candles, and was celebrated as late as the 19th century by
setting a lighted candle in the windows or at the table on this night.
Special Candlemas carols were sung by singers who processed from house
to house. One of these contains the lines:

Hail reign a fair maid with gold upon your chin,
Open up the East Gate and let the New year in;

The carolers had to undergo a contest of riddles before being allowed
to enter (an example of ritual at a liminal place.) When they were
allowed in, they might see a young girl with a baby boy on her lap,
surrounded by candles, to whom they sang once more and pledged in
drink. She of course personified Virgin and Child, but in a country
where Catholicism never had a strong hold, it is not difficult to
discern a pre-Christian custom similar to the Scottish welcoming of
Bride behind the Christian trappings.

In the county of Shropshire, the snowdrop, first flower of spring,
took the place of candles, being named, "Candlemas bells,"
"Purification flowers" or – with a faint remembrance of Brigid,
perhaps – "Fair Maid of February." And an interesting survival was
noted in Cornwall, where until recently in the town of St. Ives, a
silver ball was passed around from 10.30 till noon on this day
throughout the streets and on the beach. It was started off by the
mayor at the parish church, and whoever holds the ball at noon
receives a small prize. The significance and history of this unusual
and isolated custom is not known. Does the silver ball represent the
pale orb of the returning sun?

Finally, traces of the festival of the growing light can even be
traced to modern America in the Groundhog Day custom on February 2.
If the groundhog sees his shadow on this morning, it means there will
be six more weeks of winter. The custom comes directly from Europe,
and Scotland in particular, where an old couplet goes:

If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
there'll be two winters in the year.

A Scottish rhyme about the Feast Day of Bride begins:

This is the day of Bride,
The queen will come from the mound…

In other versions it is a "serpent" that will emerge from a hole, an
allusion which Professor Séamus Ó Cáthain has linked to Scandinavian
customs regarding the reappearance of the hibernating bear. For this
is the time when the animal world begins to stir from its winter sleep
in the depths of earth, and life and light is ushered in by Brigid,
the Queen.

© 1999 Mara Freeman