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Customs Uncovered: St Brigid’s Day, Candlemas and Imbolc

Tales of Saints, Goddesses and weather folklore

All stories have to start somewhere, and when I began compiling my book Maypoles, Martyrs and Mayhem, way back in 1992, these were the first words I wrote: “Eyes peeled for oystercatchers in Scotland – their arrival signals the imminent outbreak of spring.

A bird standing on the beach

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“the imminent outbreak of Spring”, apparently

They traditionally time their fly-past for February 1st, Brides Day. Hence in Gaelic oystercatchers are Gille Brighde, ‘Bride’s servants’. This particular bride is high on the old and borrowed, low on the new and blue. Officially a Christian saint, she moonlights as a Celtic goddess and a minor Scottish snake.”

There’s a lot going on here, so it would be handy to take a moment to consider exactly who we’re dealing with. The problem is, we don’t really know…

There are two characters at play in the myriad folklore surrounding Bride (pronounced Breeda-a, by the way, much to the chagrin of that wedding joke in the quote from Maypoles). In the red corner we have Bride, aka Brigid, a British and Irish goddess associated with water, fertility, fire, snakes, and lots more besides. In the blue corner we have St Brigid/Brighid of Kildare, also associated with water, fertility, fire, no snakes, but lots more besides.

There’s no absolute proof, but one of two scenarios seems to have played out in the early mediaeval period. First, St Brigid of Kildare may have been roped in to cover lots of the ground associated with the hugely popular goddess-with-a-similar-name. Second, it is equally possible that the saint was an invention of the early church, giving the old goddess a new veneer. What we do know is that the many legends of St Brigid were first written down 200 years after her supposed death in AD 525.

According to hagiography, the pseudo-historical Saint Brigid/Brigid of Kildare, aka Brigid of Ireland, lived from AD 451 to 525 and spent her adult life as a nun and abbess. She was the daughter of an Irish chieftain and an enslaved Christian woman and was raised in a druid’s household before devoting her life to religious service. She inspired particular affection in Scotland, with dozens of churches there dedicated to her (the common name ‘Kilbride’ meaning ‘the church of Bride’).

As one of Ireland and Scotland’s premier saints, Brigid got some pretty amazing gigs. In Hebridean legend, she was miraculously transported to Bethlehem and not only served as midwife to Mary but also nursed the infant Jesus, making her the only virgin wet nurse in mythology. At the other end of Jesus’ story 30-odd years later, Bride turned up at the Crucifixion. Brigid would also be welcome at any folk session, as one of her miracles involved turning water into beer.

A 1524 fresco by Lorenzo Lotto in the Suardi Chapel showing Brigid turning water into beer (left) and healing a blind man (right).

The goddess Brigid was a leading light in Ireland’s Tuatha Dé Danann, being the daughter of the king of the Irish gods, The Dagda. She was associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, and smithing, and was revered by poets. She has been interpreted as a Triple Goddess, manifesting as three sisters: Brigid the Poet, Brigid the Healer and Brigid the Smith. She may be the same deity as the British goddess Brigantia – the clue is there in the name (especially when you consider that the name Brigid comes from the Proto-Celtic Briganti, meaning ‘the high/exalted one’), but it is impossible to find concrete evidence for such assumptions, logical though they may seem.

Given this pagan-Christian mashup, it is no coincidence that St Brigid’s feast day, February 1st, coincides with Imbolc, one of the Celtic quarter days (the others being Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain), a pre- Christian festival marking the beginning of spring. Imbolc is the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and is associated with the lambing season.

Bride’s birds, magic fish, and the Serpent Queen

There’s lots more to Bride and Imbolc than spring lambs, though. Having digressed to summarise the salient features of the goddess/saint, the bestiary is yet to come.

The Hebrides are said to be named after Bride, and her presence is symbolized by the resident oystercatchers, which accompanied her on an evangelising journey from Kildare in Ireland to the Hebridean island of South Uist. When her ship was becalmed at sea, oystercatchers miraculously put wind in her sails by flapping their wings, blowing Bride to dry land. She is still believed to send her totem oystercatchers to protect and guide sailors.

Legend also affirms that an oystercatcher guided St. Bride to Calvary just in time to witness Jesus’s crucifixion. In homage to the bird’s central role in the Bride legend, the parish magazine of St Bride’s Church, Kelvinside, Glasgow, is called The Oystercatcher.

Bride as half saint, half goddess, Seek Festival, Dundalk, County Louth. (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.)

Linnets are known as ‘Bride’s birds’. The red in their plumage (like the red beaks and legs of the oystercatcher) was believed to symbolise fire, which plays a central role in some of the legends of Bride.

Away from the flames, the song of a lark on February 1st was considered an auspicious omen for the arrival of spring. Larks were said to have been Brigid’s alarm clock, tweeting her out of bed each morning to attend prayers.

At Conwy in Wales, Bride – called Ffraid in this neck of the woods – answered locals’ prayers during a fish famine, throwing an armful of rushes into the river. At first, the people were understandably unimpressed by this divine intervention, but a few days later, the rushes transformed into fish. Since then, River Conwy fish have been known as sparlings, or brwyniaid, meaning rush-like.

St. Ffraid arrived in Wales not by oystercatcher-powered boat, but on a clump of turf. This miraculous journey ended when she made landfall at Treaddur Bay on Holy Island near Anglesey, where the sod transformed into the mound upon which her church, Capel San Ffraid, now stands. St. Ffraid is said to have plucked out her own eyes to deter unwanted suitors, miraculously popping them back into their sockets once the sexual predators had been deterred.

But the most eye-popping Bride legend of all involves her incarnation as a snake. A traditional Gaelic prayer for 1st February assures us:

Early on Bride’s morn shall the serpent come from the hole.
I will not harm the serpent, nor will the serpent harm me.

In some parts of the Scottish Highlands and Ireland, a snake effigy was shaped from peat on February 1st, and these words were spoken (in Scots Gaelic):

This is the day of Bride, the Queen shall come from the mound,
I will not touch the Queen, nor will the Queen touch me.

In the parts of Scotland observing the snake rituals, Bride acquired the epithet Serpent Queen. She is linked to a barrow at Glenelg near Inverness, from which she emerges every February 1st in the form of a large white snake. And she is not alone in emerging from her lair today, as her serpent manifestation is the traditional cue for adders and grass snakes to leave their winter nests.

However, the most famous animal leaving its nest at this time of year is the groundhog. The American and Canadian Groundhog Day hinges on weatherlorem if the groundhog’s shadow is cast on 2nd February, winter will return. One of the original rhymes describing this, translated from German, is:

When the groundhog sees his shadow on the morning of Mary Candlemas, he will again go into his hole and remain there for six weeks. But if the morning of Mary Candlemas is overcast, the groundhog will remain outside and there will be another spring.

The ‘Mary’ bit refers to Bride’s most famous employer, the Virgin Mary, who is associated with the Christian Candlemas (2nd February).

The same shadowy spring/no spring lore applies to hedgehogs in Ireland and Britain, while the bear is the prognosticating beast in some parts of Europe, including Germany and Hungary. Badgers were accepted as a safer alternative if there were no bears.

More Imbolc weatherlore

I’ve never been entirely sure what “Brigid’s feast day white, every ditch full” means, apart from the threat of snow. However, if there’s sun instead of snow, you still haven’t escaped the white stuff, as a sunny St Bride’s Day (1st February) means there’ll be snow before Mayday. It’s also said that whichever way the wind blows on this day, it will maintain that direction until April the 30th; while hoar frost gathered on Bride’s Day has healing properties, particularly for headaches.

A Gaelic verse mellifluously states how the spring weather is switched-on today by the saint-goddess:

Brigid put her finger in the river on the feast day of Brigid and away went the hatching-mother of the cold.

Candlemas is one of the premier days for weatherlore, with the general message being snow good, sun bad. Here’s a brief flurry of the dozens of prognostications on offer:

  • If it neither rains nor snows on Candlemas Day, you may straddle your horse and go and buy hay.
  • If Candlemas Day be fine and clear, corn and fruits will then be dear.
  • If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, winter will have another flight, but if Christmas Day brings clouds and rain, winter is gone and won’t come again.
  • On Candlemas Day, if the sun shines clear, the shepherd would rather see his wife on the bier (i.e., dead).
  • On Candlemas Day, just so far as the sun shines in, just so far will the snow blow in.
  • If the lavrock [lark] sings afore Candlemas, she’ll mourn as lang after it.
  • If it snows on 2nd February, only so much as may be seen on a black ox, then summer will come soon.
  • If on 2nd February the goose finds it wet, then the sheep will have grass on 25th March.

Top marks for bad seasonal rhymes are awarded to the following three:

  • On Candlemas Day, if the thorn hangs a drop, then you’re in for a good pea crop.
  • If Candlemas Day is wet and foul, the half of the winter was gone at Yule.
  • Snow at Candlemas stops to handle us.

And to return to the theme that kicked off this Imbolcation, remember to peel your eyeballs for Bride’s oystercatchers on February 1st, as they are Spring’s harbingers.

Cross purposes

Brigid’s Crosses, made from rushes or straw, are traditionally hung over doors and windows on February 1st to ward off fire, lightning, illness, and evil spirits. Hanging a Brigid’s Cross in your home brings the saint’s blessings and protection throughout the year. It is tempting to see this as a pagan survival, but Brigid’s Crosses are first documented by spoilsport history in the 17th century.

A cross made of green sticks

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A Saint Brigid’s cross made from rushes, County Down. (Culnacreann GFDL, CC-BY 3.0 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.)

Folklore explains that the wily saint used a makeshift cross to convert a pagan chieftain (her druid father in some versions). To help visualise the crucifixion of Jesus – which she had witnessed, remember – Brigid wove a cross from rushes, leading the chieftain to embrace Christianity and request baptism. Another legend tells us that Brigid had been poisoned by some dodgy wine and wove a rush-cross to help neutralize the toxins. Don’t try this at home.

On St Brigid’s Eve, January 31st, families would gather rushes (sometimes straw) to create the crosses. Once woven, they were first left out overnight to receive Brigid’s blessing. On 1st February, they were hung indoors and in stables, pigsheds, barns and byres.

The magic crosses, which are still woven in parts of Ireland and Scotland, are either replaced annually or are left to accumulate like unswept cobwebs. If discarded, the crosses should be burned or buried rather than binned, providing a cheap and sustainable form of holy fertiliser. Carrying one around with you on long journeys is a wise precaution, too, as it brings good luck on the road.

The Celtic tradition of hanging Brigid’s Crosses extended to Glastonbury in England, which local legend claims the well-travelled saint visited in AD 488. A small community of Irish monks who had fled from Viking raids on Wexford in the 9th century settled at Beckery (known as Little Ireland) in the town, probably bringing the cult of Brigid with them.

In Ireland and parts of Scotland, a doll representing St. Brigid, known as the Brídeóg or ‘Biddy,’ made from rushes or reeds and adorned with cloth, flowers, and shells was paraded through the streets by girls and young women. In some areas, a girl would assume the role of the Brídeóg, accompanied by attendants, carrying rush-woven crosses, crowns, and shields.

Killorglin in County Kerry has revived these traditions with its annual ‘Biddy’s Day Festival.’ Men and women don elaborate straw hats and masks, carrying a Brídeóg through the town, a spectacle intended to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune for the coming year.

Barra in the Hebrides has a custom of making a bed of straw called Bride’s Bed on February 1st and inviting the saint/goddess indoors with the invocation, “Bride come in, your bed is ready”. Bride then resides within for the coming year, bringing luck and prosperity. Any supernatural being who will happily hop into a bed of straw like a pet rabbit is low maintenance and very welcome in my spare room.

In other parts of Scotland and on the Isle of Man, Bride’s Eve used to be observed every January the 31st with similar rituals. At sunset, Manx householders would stand outside with armfuls of rushes and invite St Brigid into their homes with this prayer (translated from Manx): “Brigid, Brigid, come to my house tonight. Open the door for Brigid and let Brigid come in”. Like the straw on Barra, the rushes were then strewn on the floor to make the saintly goddess a bed.

A painting of a person surrounded by children

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The Coming of Bride (1917) by John Duncan

To prepare for Bride/Brigid’s arrival, families would leave items of clothing or strips of cloth outside overnight, hoping they would acquire healing and protective powers. In some regions, a family member would enact the role of Brigid, carrying rushes three times around the house and then knocking on the door three times before being welcomed inside.

Brigid’s bones reunited

A piece of Bride’s skull was taken as a relic by pilgrims to Lumiar in Portugal in the 13th century. On 1st February 2024, this relic was returned to Kildare to join the rest of Bride’s bones. This is no temporary loan – according to The Portugal News, the relic will be “kept on display within St. Brigid’s Parish Church for eternity”.

Whether these relics belong to Bride is contested, to put it mildly. Most information about her life and work derives from a hagiography written by a monk called Cogitosus 200 years after her supposed birth. The Saint is so shrouded in folklore that her very existence is in doubt, and the miraculous discovery of her Kildare grave in the 13th century is one of those events, like the discovery of King Arthur’s bones at Glastonbury, that was intended to attract pilgrims – and thus money – rather than have a meaningful relationship with the truth. But the return of the relic makes for another fascinating nail in the coffin of St Brigid, whose veneration as a Christian and pagan icon through the ages is one of folklore’s never-ending stories