SOURCE SYNOPSES ON BRIGID AS GODDESS & SAINT (bibl at
end of each synopsis)
(parenthetical notes are mine; not text’s)
BRIGID/BRIGIT A
triune goddess of:
1) healing therapy
2) blacksmiths fire
3) fertility & poetry light, poets/seers, divination,
prophecy
(also Patron saint of travelers, domestic arts; weaving &
dyeing, agricultural abundance; the kitchen (bread), brewing; arts/crafts learning; protectress of
women; patroness of midwives/childbirth, water)
Mythological aspects: A daughter of the Dagda (The Good God
....Q is Boand (cow goddess) her mother??? her two sisters were also called
Brigid, in other words, she was a triune goddess: that is, three in one). Must’ve been confusing having three goddesses with the same name.
She was married a while to Bres, the half-Fomorii ruler of
the Dé Danann. By Tuireann she had 3 sons: Brían, Iuchar, Iuchara (twins+ 1, a
mythic motif. It is said that at the death of her son, uttered the first cry of sorrow in
Ireland.)
She appears as the equivalent to Dana, mother of all gods.
Counterpart in Brythonic Celtic (Brigantia; Totem of the
Brigantes) and Gaulish (Brigindo) cultures. Her name seems to represent “High
One”
(Exaulted One, Fiery Arrow. Bríg means god. A cognate with
brihati in Vedic Sanskrit, correspondent in Britain with Briganti, latinized to Brigantia,)
Festival, Imbolg/Imbolc, Feb. 1, one of four great Celtic
feasts. Pastoral festival assoc. w/the milk of the ewes and 1st day of spring.
(NOTE St. Brigid’s Night divided the year into 2 seasons
winter/summer ....(from A& B Rees book, Celtic Heritage) Gemredh (winter
half), Samhain (summer half), Earrach (spring or Oimelk/Imbolg or Imbolc -bolg+stomach/bag...ime is
butter butterbag??? cream
bag/stomach? bainne = milk in Irish. If she’s the Indo European Cow Goddess,
this all ties in. Cow, serpent, bird, cockerel assoc. w Brigid)
4. Brígid, 5th C. SAINT, AKA Mary of the Gaels; her tradition is often
confused with the goddess. Attribute;
Icon: cow lying at her feet.
St. Brigid was born in Faughart in AD 540 and died in Kildare in 523; (note
c.453 -523;
daughter of a slavegirl and Dubthach...a chieftain (or
possibly a druid)
either sent to a druid or was born in a druid’s house...
She was baptized and returned to her father’s house,
refusing offers of marriage (from a poet, no less), took the vow of virginity
& with 7 companions, she founded Kildare, one of the greatest monasteries in
Ireland. It was probably an important pagan site
kil= cell and dare= oak; Classical references state the druids worshipped in oak groves; it’s possible she was also perceived as a druidess. On the flat plains of what
came to be Cell Dara were certain areas sacred to the fertility goddess Bríg,
where her priestesses kept an eternal fire, The plains were left untilled even though fertile, a sign that the
goddess owned them. Isle of the
Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Early Ireland, Lisa Bitel, Cornell University Press, 1990 p 44).
Numerous accounts of her life were written soon after her
death and her cult became widespread.. Her cult is second only to St. Patrick
in Ireland (a paradox, if she was real, with 2nd generation monk-saints, a real
misogyny seems to arise: it is said that St. Kevin disliked women as did Kentigern, and
Columba, there’s even a tale attached to Brendan’s fear of women...a new
element under Christianity : women lost many, if not most of their legal rights with the introduction of
Christianity).
Many traditions and ceremonies assoc. w/ her predecessor,
the goddess. Her Feast Day Feb. 1.
(Candlemas...interesting fire imagery here, also one description of her
from the Hebrides has her head haloed with candles).
“RAS MacAlister put forward the theory that the saint was
actually a priestess of Brigid who converted to Christianity. In most accounts
of her life, her father is named as Dubhthach, a druid.”
p 50, A Dictionary of Irish Mythology, Peter Berresford Ellis, Oxford University Press, GB
1987.
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BRIGID (Brigit, Bridget, Bride) d 525 Abbess of Kildare. Historical facts about her
extremely rare; some scholars doubt her existence. Lives mainly anecdotes and
miracle stories, deeply rooted in Irish pagan folklore.
Born near Uinmeras, 5 miles from Kildare, parents of humble
origin, baptized by Patrick, became a nun at an early age, founded a monastery
at Kildare and contributed notably to the spread of Christianity. Her miracles
stories portray her as a personification of compassion. Themes: multiplication
of food, butter to the poor, and her bathwater into beer! (kinky!!!) to satisfy
the thirst of unexpected cleric visitors. Even her cows gave milk three times during the same day to ensure that some thirsty bishops has enough milk to drink.
Other legends personify her with the Blessed Virgin (Mary of
the Gael) based on a vision of Bishop Ibor the night before an assembly
addressed by Brigid. When she arrived she corresponded exactly to his vision of
Mary. Ibor also supposed to have consecrated her (or perhaps Mel “When Brigid went to Bishop Mel to receive
the veil of a nun, he became so ‘intoxicated’ with the sanctity in his presence
that he read the ritual for ordaining a bishop over her. Thus, Brigid is unique
among Irish holy women in being a fully accredited bishop.” (Conversing With
Angels & Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland, Joseph
Nage (Cornell 1997) p233 )
ODS author David
Hugh Farmer states: claims of bishops and abbesses of Kildare supreme over
others in the whole of Ireland were a principal reason for the existence of
even the earliest Lives, such as that by Cogitosus *(c. 650). (Ultan of Ard Braccan, d. 657, also
wrote a Life). Lives translated into Old French, Middle English, German (some 7
Lives written??? ).
(Cogitosus maintains that Brigid’s patruchia stretched throughout Ireland....Brigid remains so colorless as an historical person that one doubts
whether she had lived as a saint at all.” Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, Michael Richter, St.
Martin’s Press 1995 p78.
(In Conversing With Angels & Ancients: Literary Myths
of Medieval Ireland, UCLA Celtic Studies
scholar Joseph Nage writes; “There is no serviceable modern edition of
Cogitosus’s text (in Louvain)” page 234).
(“The cult of Brigid is the most spectacular example of the
transformations effected by the medieval Irish hagiographic tradition, whereby
pre-Christian divinity or divine trait becomes Christian saint or typical
saintly behavior. There are incontrovertible references in medieval Irish
literature to a pre-Christian divinity Bríg or Bright, who is obviously the
inspiration for much of the cult of St.
Brigid.” Conversing With
Angels & Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland,
Nage, p 233).
Unusual Double monastery of Kildare Brigid and Bishop
Conleth (it’s significant that he’s a metalsmith, in one story, he’s
accused of fathering a child and Brigid makes the child point out its father,
in another story the cleric is Brón (sorrow), Another more repressed story
where she gets rid of a nun’s fetus “public determination of paternity...is at the heart of the story
pattern.” Conversing With
Angels & Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland, Nage, p231).
NOTE also suggested that the double monastery was w/
Patrick and / or her brother).
Her cult is second only to Patrick. Popular in England (19
ancient churches dedicated to her: St. Bride’s Fleet St.) and in Wales: as many churches (NOTE
numerology: 19 churches, 19 nuns) St. Bride’s Day, Dyfed emphasizes strong
links w/ Irish Christianity. Many places in Wales called Llansantaffraid (=St
Bride’s Church ...llan santa FFraid:
Welsh for Brigit). The cult of Brigid was popular on Continent, esp. in Alsace, Flanders &
Portugal. (Also France & Italy...what’s amazing about this is that it is thought that women
didn’t travel, so monks would’ve had to spread the word. But if she was indeed a bishop as
Nage suggests, it would explain her power and widespread cult).
Brigid is
patron of poets, blacksmiths and healers. Icon: cow lying at her feet, which
recalls her phase as a nun-cowgirl.
A relic of her shoe in Nat Museum, Dublin (NOTE: she is
often paired w/ Lugh...patron of shoemakers...get back to that later).
Folkloric elements important in her Lives and cult. Gerald
of Wales d.c. 1200 (See orig. text, incl. & use in paper) described a fire
kept burning continuously at her
shrine for centuries, tended by 20 (19) nuns of her community. The fire was
surrounded by a circle of bushes, which no man was allowed to enter.
Brig also means valor or might, personified as a goddess whose fire cult took place on Feb. 1;
her translation to June 10. There is another feast on March 24 commemorated the
discovery by St. Malachy in 1185
of the supposed bodies of Patrick, Columba and Brigid at Downpatrick.
—from p 50 Oxford Dictionary of Saints, David Hugh Farmer, ed. Oxford University Press, GB
1978. (he cites Plummer, among others) take tidbits from his intro on Celtic
saints???
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(Note Morgan uses similar verbiage as Oxford Dictionary)
Brigid...gathered together women from all over Ireland into protected monastic
communities. (Why did they suddenly need protection? Viking invasions?) Brigid was legendary in her abilities to multiply food: turning bath
water into beer & milking her cows successfully 3 x day (he misunderstands the information: it should say 3 x the yield, not 3 x day). She was an agriculturist: cowherd, shepherd, butter
churner, baker, corn reaper (add more from Life).
The association with Brig whose cult was celebrated with a ceremony of
fire. “Brigid has experienced a relatively recent insurgence of popularity due
to the interest of contemporary feminist and environmental groups, as well as
the growing women’s movement in Ireland.”
p 29 Saints: a Visual Almanac of the Virtuous, Pure,
Praiseworthy, and Good, Chronicle Books,
Tom Morgan, San Francisco 1994.
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Brigid: Caesar includes her among major deities of Gaul
(Interpretatio Romana) as Minerva, patron of the arts and crafts, but Celtic
deities were larger and more complex, often assoc. w Mercury & Vulcan. Her
cult was especially strong among the lower social orders, hence the patron of domestic
arts: weaving & dyeing. Arts & healing, Brigid is honored at Bath (Aquae Sulis) and associated with Sulis.
Nearest counterpart, Irish Brighid in Cormac’s Glossary
(c.8th c) states that she was the patron of filidhecht (poetry and learning,
divination and prophecy-worshipped by the filidh).
Daughter of the Daghda, her two sisters also named Brighid:
patrons of healing and smithing.
p 34 “Among all
the Irish a goddess used to be called Brighid...her name used to be synonymous
for Goddess.” Cormac’s Glossary (c.8th c).
There is slight historical evidence for her Christian namesake. “She
usurped the role of the goddess and much of her mythological tradition”
In the saint’s Lives, she’s associated with livestock and any produce of the earth.
She was born at sunrise, a liminal boundary, neither within nor without the house (between worlds like Cuchulainn at
the ford), and fed milk from a white, red-eared cow (supernatural Otherworld connection). And (while in conversation w/ St. Brendan) she hangs her wet cloak on the rays of
the sun (Lugh/Griannos connection??) her house was ablaze when she entered.
Gerald of Wales quote: she and 19 nuns took turns guarding
the perpetual sacred fire surrounded by a hedge, no men could enter (NOTE add
Columba story of the man who went mad who crossed the threshold of bushes).
Solinus, in the 3rd c., mentioned that Minerva’s sanctuary (Bath?) in Britain
contained a perpetual fire. Minerva’s epithet: Bélsima (most brilliant) Brigid:
The Exalted one; cognate with brihati in Vedic Sanskrit, correspondent in
Britain with Briganti latinized Brigantia, tutelary goddess of the Brigantes.
She gives her name to rivers: Brent in England, Braint in Wales and Brighid in
Ireland.
There is no clear distinction between goddess and saint. Kildare was
probably an important pagan site, Brigid was not a missionary saint, nor widely
traveled (though chariot stories abound). There are dedications to her throughout Celtdom.
p 93 (compare w the Hag of Beare....re sovereignty) mother
goddess, shaper of the land, consort of kings “The composite legend of goddess and saint connected her
to...learning, craftsmanship, healing...childbirth and animal
abundance....predominantly pacific concerns.” War: she intervenes for Leinstermen
as a tutelary goddess concerned with political and economic well being. A territorial goddess of the
land assoc. with sacral kingship. Land should be prosperous and inviolate under
his rule; only a legitimate spouse of the goddess personified.
p 132 ...the notion of sovereignty...abundant evidence that
symbolism and function of both myth and ritual, still clearly perceived pagan
traditions and cults thrived and flourished...under the mantle of the
church...spurious seal of respectability, pagan deities canonized and
assimilated.
pp 32-4; 93, 132 Celtic Mythology,
Proinsius MacCana, Peder Bedrick Books, 1983
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p 53 springs and sacred wells associated with divine cults of
healing, Brigid, Coventina
p54 Celtic Festivals 4 seasonal religious festivals mythic tradition, farming year Imbolc
Feb. 1-2 (lactation of ewes aka Oimelk) linked with Brigid (St. Brigid’s
Night/Candlemas) a multifunctional goddess who protected women in childbirth
who presided over the ale harvest; assoc. w poetry and prophecy.
p65 Brigid born in a druid’s household.
p66 Brigid patron goddess of seers, an expert in divination,
prophecy, learning & poetry.
p 53, 54, 65, 66 Celtic Myths, Miranda Green, British Museum Press/Univ. of Texas, 1993
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p 78 Matres, triple goddess associated with food— loaves, fishes, a suckling infant and a dog at her feet (in this case, the symbol of dog equals abundance, note the Brigid story where she feeds
the dog the bishop’s dinner and the meat is magically restored, a reference to abundance)
(Brigid is also portrayed with a cow resting at her feet).
“Triplism a basic phenomenon of Celtic religion...mother
goddesses abound...a type of
Celtic divinity...and the triadic form appeared to have played an important
role in her worship and cult expression.” Note the three-headed goddesses...and Mercury was
triple phallused! (The Welsh saint had three breasts).
p 101 ...native
/fertility goddess mates with mortal sovereign to ensure continued prosperity
of Ireland.” The idea of Triplism is ethnically important. War was also an important
aspect of fertility symbolism. “Irish fertility goddesses combine features of
war, maternity, youth, age, monstrosity, always part of a fundamental
life/death protective symbolism.”
p 150 Healing
cult of sacred springs—votive offerings, replicas of heads, organs, legs, offered to the
goddess. Blindness, arthritis, goiter, hernia clearly represented. Breasts,
genitals (archaeological evidence in Britain and on the continent) regenerative powers of water, a kind of
fertility motif.
p 153 Epona,
Apollo/belenus, bricta 7 Luxouvious, couples who was Brigid’s?
154 Coventina counterpart? w/ sulis minerva? Bath again.
pp 78, 85, 101, 150, 153, 154 Gods of the Celts,
Miranda Green, Sutton Publishing, Ltd. 1986
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“The abundance of cow imagery reinforces the dependence of
Ireland upon cattle. The goddess Brigid was reared on the milk of an otherworld
cow.” This is a significant trope.
pp184-5 Animals
in Celtic Life and Myth, Miranda Green,
Routhledge NY 1992
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p 20 threefold goddess of light/fire/healing; worshipped at a
fire festival Feb. 2 called Brigantia or Imbolc
Cormac’s Glossary (9th c) the bishop wrote: “A goddess whom
the bards worshipped, for very great and noble was her perfection. Her sisters
were Brigid, the woman of healing, and Brigid, the smith-woman.” This is when
Christianity replaced polytheism, ...(did) a priestess-guardian of the shrine
became identified mythically with the goddess (use Giraldus’ description of the
sacred fires like the Vestal Virgins of Rome)
“Until 1220, a perpetual fire, tended by 19 nuns, burnt in a
shrine near her church at Kildare. ..no bellows were used to keep the fire
burning, only the breath of women.... there were attempts to rekindle it in the
1990’s.”
St. Brigid is also the epitome of kindness and charity: assisting
and feeding the poor, freeing slaves, interceding on behalf of the unfortunate.
p21 Story of
her father beating a servant, she stopped him “‘Would to God you were always
here to protect us from the Master’s violence,’ a servant told her. Because of
this, St. Brigid is the protectress of women.” Wild geese and ducks came to her
for caresses, and foxes...
Brigid was famous for her ale (from bathwater?) “...on one occasion she
supplied 17 churches in Meath with ale from Maundy Thursday to Low Sunday.”
Under the name of St. Ffraid, Brighd was a popular saint in
Wales.
Travelers said this prayer; “St. Ffraid bless us on our
journey.”
She was sometimes conflated with Mary. St. Broccan called
Brigid “The one-mother of the Great King’s son, wrote a hymn, Brigid, mother of my king,/ of the Kingdom of
Heaven,/ Best was she born.”
There was more than one St. Brighd, who were disciples, or
former devotees of the Goddess. “In Ireland, at Candlemas, it is the custom for
people to make special St. Brigid crosses out of rushes, The rushes must be
pulled up, not cut on St. Brighd’s Eve., and must be woven from left to right,
Then the Brigid’s Cross is set above the door, as a sacred protection for the
house, and left there until the next year, when it is replaced by a new one.
Traditionally Brigid is welcomed back at her festival by rekindling the hearth
fire after the house has been spring-cleaned.”
pp 20, 22 The
Celtic Saints, Nigel Pennick, Bridgewater
Book Co., Ltd., GB 1997.
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misc notes:
Synopses of L Gregory’s collection: some 20 tales of Brigid
which seem to incorporate most of the earlier Lives themes, some are barely
recognizable and some are skeletal remains of the earlier miracles; most have
interesting accretions that include many aspects of the heroic tradition;
especially the supernatural signposts surrounding her birth. She was born at
sunrise (another tale has her born half-way between day and night) on the first
day of spring (between the 2 halves of the year) in a druid’s house...she drank
the milk of a white, red-eared Otherworld cow (which is her totemic animal), everything
she put her hand to used to increase, feeding a dog (another totemic animal).
