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Author Topic: Brigid / Brighid  (Read 3375 times)

Kayah

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Brigid / Brighid
« on: August 25, 2011, 11:02:42 pm »
Let me start with.. I seem to be working with a goddess who identifies herself as Brighid.

I don't know anything about Celtic religious beliefs OR culture. In fact, the only thing I know is that the current Wicca wheel of the year and cardinal direction associations with the element seems to come from Celtic origin.

Is there anyone here that worships/works with Brighid? Do you have any UPG you would like to share? Do you have any sources (books, internet sites, myths) that you can point me to for learning about Brighid specifically, and more broadly, about general Celtic religious beliefs/rituals/etc?

Or, really, just anything to say about this particular goddess?


As of right now, I have a sense that I actually don't need to learn this stuff, but it would put me more at ease.

My current worship of Brighid is kind of odd (seems odd to me) - all she requires is that I continue my current studies, and when I have time, that I create.. that I go back and start sewing again, that I start making my jewelry again, that I start painting and drawing, and being in the garden, and create and change things with my hands as my devotions to her.

I have looked online and she seems to be a goddess of artists and smiths.. but I don't really know what to think of all this.

Aster Breo

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Re: Brigid / Brighid
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2011, 02:41:02 am »
Quote from: Kayah;15634

Is there anyone here that worships/works with Brighid? Do you have any UPG you would like to share? Do you have any sources (books, internet sites, myths) that you can point me to for learning about Brighid specifically, and more broadly, about general Celtic religious beliefs/rituals/etc?

 
Actually, there is a whole group of us here on TC.  Several years ago, those who wanted to be more active in our worship of Brighid formed a Cill, which is a group of people who take turns tending Brighid's (metaphorical and physical) flame.  You should take a look at the resources we've collected:

This link is to the Cill SIG here on this incarnation of TC.

This link is to the information page we put together when we first formed the Cill (I used to use the name Moon Ivy).

This link is to the archived Cill threads, which have tons of info in them.

 This link is to the list of resources we put together a while back.  (Make sure to go through that whole thread -- additional resources were added as we found them.)

Besides the Cill, some of us -- including me -- are dedicated solely to Brighid.  In fact, a friend and I are in the process of creating a structured practice focused exclusively on Brighid.

Take a look at the resources I've linked to above.  After that, if you have additional questions (which you probably will ;) ), post them and I'm sure you'll get good responses.  

Oh, one other thing, you said in your OP that "the only thing I know is that the current Wicca wheel of the year and cardinal direction associations with the element seems to come from Celtic origin."  That's not completely accurate.

As far as we know -- and that's not necessarily very far, since the ancient Celts did not write things down -- the ancient Celtic tribes probably celebrated various versions of the "fire feasts" (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasa).  But there is no evidence that they did or didn't celebrate the "solar festivals" (the solstices and equinoxes).  

About the elements, I suspect you're referring to the commonly used four: earth, air, fire, and water.  AFAIK, there is nothing to support the claim that the cardinal associations originated with the Celts.  In fact, Celtic spirituality is more in line with the triad of Land, Sea, and Sky than with the classical four elements.

If you're interested in learning more about Celtic spirituality, you might want to take a look at TC's Hazel and Oak SIG, which focuses on Celtic polytheism.  And if you want more info on this, let me know and I'll link you to some resources.

I hope all this helps.  Please feel free to post questions, if you need clarification of anything I've said here.

~ Aster
"The status is not quo."  ~ Dr. Horrible

Micheál

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Re: Brigid / Brighid
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2011, 03:05:34 am »
Quote from: Kayah;15634
Do you have any UPG you would like to share? Do you have any sources (books, internet sites, myths) that you can point me to for learning about Brighid specifically, and more broadly, about general Celtic religious beliefs/rituals/etc?

Here's something I wrote a while ago, if it helps


"Brighid, Briganti, Brigit, Briga, e.t.c is a Celtic Goddess, and Irish Saint, who's parallel comes up frequently in topics focused on Paganism and Christianity. That parallel is what I intend to focus on, so just briefly touching on the nature of this Goddess...

The etymology of her name literally means "exalted one, a pseudonym that Celtic inhabitants around high hills used for their mother-goddess.(Briganti) This Goddess was the sovereign Goddess said to give her name to Britain, and there was even a tribe that controlled central Britain based around the Pennine Hills called the Brigantes, with Briganti their principal Goddess. Off-shoots of this tribe settled in the south-east of Ireland around the 1st century A.D. Many scholars believe that her cult was brought to Ireland with these settlements, with Brigit (Brighid) being her Irish adaptation.

In the myths and literacy creations, Brighid is a Poetess of the Tuatha Dé Dannan, and daughter of the Daghdha, with two sisters of the same name. She was a guardian-goddess of domestic animals, and patroness of smithcraft and poetry. A 9th century glossarian wrote that, "among all the Irish, a goddess used to be called Brigit." A few Irish rivers were given the name Brighid, along with many hills called Brí. It was said that Brigh was the first to weep and shreik to the dead, being a defender of the Laigin(Leinster), terrifying enemies appropriate for a territorial sovern goddess. This indicates that like Danu and Mór-Ríoghain, Brighid was another aspect of the mother-goddess.

St. Brighid, Brigit, Bríd, of the Fotharta, Mary of the Irish/ Muire na nGael, is an Irish saint reputed to have lived C. AD 439-524, however practically nothing historical is known about her. Her cult had political importance with the rise of the Uí Dhúnlaige Leinster sept, so a Latin biography called Vita Brigitae was written in 650 by a cleric under the pen name Cogitosus.A shocking feature to many scholars about the text is the lack of any historical information about Brighid who supposedly lived a century earlier. It's mostly composed of miracles such as multiplying crops&stock, healing the sick, and even changing the weather(akin to rumoured feats of druids, and prayers to the Goddess Brighid) and the importance of Kildare. Not only does the saint share her name with the Goddess Brighid, but it's highly coincidental that her feast day, Lá Fhéile Bhríd, falls on the same date as Oímelg(Imbolc), the pagan festival of spring and turning point of the Celtic year, also connected with the goddess. Oímelg means "lactation", and is associated with the birth of farm animals, that the saint and goddess also happen to be patronesses of.

Kildare itself, Irish Cill Dara, means "Church of the Oak tree." This suggests that the site was a sacred pagan one, by the presence of oak groves sacred to the druids, and some accounts even state Brighid was the daughter of a druid. It's sceptical to doubt the existence of an actual Christian Saint of Kildare, but it's likely that a holy woman of the Fotharta Christianised a pagan sanctuary at Kildare, and borne the name Brighid, common among druidresses. The synthesis between Paganism and Christianity would have met less resistance under the name of Brighid, and much of Saint Brighid's lore contains elements of druidic practices keen for Christian propaganda. It's widely believed that the goddess's presence in the Gaelic mind was so strong, she was simply canonised as a saint.

Her cult was prominent in Leinster, and south Ulster, especially in Kildare and Faughart(where some sources even claim to be her birth), and much of her lore even spread to Scotland and Wales. Kildare and Faughart are still rich with her lore. Folk customs, especially on Febrary 1st like solar&St. Bríde's crosses (cróssog na Bríd), maintain lines to the Goddess Brighis, and well as being the feast of the Saint. Outdoor shrines, especially around sacred spriongs, as well as offerings and well dressings are all remnants of Ireland's pagan past, and living traditions of both Pagan and Christian Gaelic Traditionalists, as you can see here  in the pics we took of her shrine at



"
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Aster Breo

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Re: Brigid / Brighid
« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2011, 07:03:37 am »
Quote from: Micheál;15679

 
One of the things I find especially interesting about Brighid is that She actually only appears (as a goddess) extremely briefly in the extant Irish lore, although there are A LOT of stories of Saint Brigid, of course.

From what I understand from the Celtic studies scholars, the only solid mention of Brighid as a goddess is in the Cath Maige Tuired, v. 124-125:

124. Now that was damaging to the Fomoire, and they picked a man to reconnoitre the battle and the practices of the Tuatha De--Ruadan, the son of Bres and of Brig, the daughter of the Dagda-because he was a son and a grandson of the Tuatha De. Then he described to the Fomoire the work of the smith and the carpenter and the brazier and the four physicians who were around the well. They sent him back to kill one of the aes dana, Goibniu. He requested a spearpoint from him, its rivets from the brazier, and its shaft from the carpenter; and everything was given to him as he asked. Now there was a woman there grinding weapons, Cron the mother of Fianlach; and she ground Ruadan's spear. So the spear was given to Ruadan by his maternal kin, and for that reason a weaver's beam is still called "the spear of the maternal kin" in Ireland.

125. But after the spear had been given to him, Ruadan turned and wounded Goibniu. He pulled out the spear and hurled it at Ruadan so that it went through him; and he died in his father's presence in the Fomorian assembly. Brig came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)


(I think that bit at the end about the whistle is fascinating!)

She also appears much later (10th Century) in Cormac's Glossary, which is where the reference to poetry, smithcraft, and healing comes from:

Brigit, i.e., a female poet, daughter of the Dagda.  This Brigit is a poetess, a woman of poetry, i.e., Brigit: a goddess whom poets worshiped, for very great and very noble was her superintendence.  Therefore they call her goddess of poets by this name.  Whose sisters were Brigit, woman of healing, Brigit, woman of smith-work, i.e., goddess, from whose names with all Irishmen Brigit was called a goddess.  Brigit then, i.e., breo-saigit, a fiery arrow.

(Note that this etymology for Brighid's name has been pretty much discredited.)

And that's really it, for the surviving pre-Christian lore, anyway.

As I understand it, there are some mentions of women or goddesses with similar names who might or might not be the same Brighid scattered throughout some of the other lore, but nothing definitive.

One of those references is to a female law-giver named Brig Ambue ("ambue" literally means "cowless", which would be analogous to a societal outsider).  I love this reference because, as I choose to interpret it, this aspect of Brighid is all about advocating for social justice.

Here's a link to a LiveJournal thread on the subject of Brighid's appearances in the lore, and this link is for the Mary Jones page on Brighid.

In addition to the stories of Saint Brigid, many individuals and groups who honor Brighid rely, at least to some extent, on UPG and SPG.  F'ex, I, personally, don't think that Brigantia is/was the same goddess as Brighid, despite the similarities in their names.  W/r/t Her name, it's important to keep in mind that it stems from the word for "exalted" or "high one", and is, therefore, likely to have originated as a title.  So, at one point, this goddess might have had a different name that was combined with the title of "exalted", and, over time, Her name was lost.

I think it's so interesting that Brighid is such a popular goddess, and clearly has been through the ages, even though there is so little about Her in the surviving lore.  No doubt there were many stories about Her passed down orally.  It's such a shame they have been lost.

~ Aster
"The status is not quo."  ~ Dr. Horrible

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