Last week I wrote about St. Brigid, the Patron Saint of Ireland. And a few weeks ago, I shared one of the most famous stories about St. Brigid, her blue cloak, and the Nativity. Since then, I’ve had many readers email me about the connection between this famous Catholic Saint and the pagan goddess also called Brigid. So today I’d like to discuss the pagan Brigid who came centuries before Saint Brigid.
Long before Christianity came to Britain and Ireland, the British lands were ruled by a pantheon of Celtic gods and goddesses. While we now associate Celtic traditions with Ireland, and sometimes Britain and Brittany (in France), the Celtic people originated in mainland Europe (around 1200 BC) before being forced out by the Romans. These Celtic tribes shared a similar language, culture, traditions, and belief in a specific pantheon separate from the Romans and Greeks (although similar in many ways). Their tribe names are familiar even today throughout France, Spain, Ireland, Wales, England, and Scotland. They were known as the Gauls, Galli (from the Latin word meaning barbarian), Britons, Irish, and Galatians. Eventually, the Romans pushed them out of Europe, murdering most of them along the way. They ended up settling in the Northwestern corner of French, known as Brittany, and throughout the British and Irish islands. While the Romans eventually took over southern Britain, neither they nor the Anglo Saxons (who ended up throwing the Romans out and conquering the native Britons) ever successfully conquered Ireland. Until 432 AD (when St. Patrick arrived), Ireland remained a pagan country with Druidism as the main faith.
So what does this have to do with Brigid the goddess?
According to Celtic mythology, the pagan Brigid was a child of the Dagda (Celtic equivalent of Zeus) and the Morrighan (Celtic equivalent of Hera). Before the Celts left Europe, a tribe of fierce Celtic warriors who lived in Bregenz (current day Austria) began to worship Brigid as their mother and protector. Under her stewardship, these soldiers destroyed Roman legions on a regular basis, and from those battles we get the word “Brigand”. When the Celts reached the shores of ancient Briton, they offered their thanks to the goddess Brigantia, from which we get the words “Britain” and “British” and “Bride”.
Anyway, as time went on, Brigid was transformed from a simple goddess in the Celtic pantheon to a member of the Tuatha de Danaan, the ancient fairy race of Ireland. This change in status set off a Cult of Brigid that lasted up until the Nazi bombardment of Britain in 1940. In 400 AD, when the Romans finally left Britain, the Celtic gods and goddesses were firmly in place. But none of the other gods and goddesses rose to the level of fame that Brigid attained. Some historians say that it was because she was the patroness of soldiers and the mediator of peace between tribes. Others say it’s because she was the patroness of childbirth and of farm animals. There are so many stories and folktales about her, it’s hard to keep them straight. She protected sailors, blacksmiths, female seers (called augury), and she was the patroness of all poetry and oral storytellers. And, her most important job, was to protect wells. In ancient times, clean water meant life whereas tainted water literally led to death.
As you can tell, Brigid was a very busy goddess. But as Ireland transitioned from paganism to Christianity, the stories of the goddess Brigid and the Patron Saint Brigid began to meld together. So much so that some people say that neither woman existed, that the Christian ideal just overtook the pagan ideal. That’s an interesting idea, except there are too many historical written records and letters that mention St. Brigid. Written records by a Roman General, a Spanish Saint (St. Teresa of Avila), as well as a number of British and French historians of the time. Brigid is also mentioned in the records of monasteries around Britain as well as early sermons. St. Brigid was definitely a real person.
But the devotion to the pagan Brigid didn’t end because a new Brigid showed up on the block. Up until 1940, people kept eternal flames devoted to the goddess lit near the holy wells that dotted Ireland and parts of Wales and Britain. But when the Battle of Britain began, and Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England were ordered into a full nighttime, blackout, the eternal flames were extinguished. Many of the sites sacred to Brigid were destroyed by German bombs, including an 18th century London church devoted to St. Brigid designed by Christoper Wren. After the war ended, no one seemed particularly interested in resurrecting the dedication to the goddess or the Saint.
Then, in the 1960s, Irish people began leaving cloths and ribbons tied to trees around the sacred wells. This was an ancient practice that meant people were asking to be healed of illness, disease, heartache, anything that was causing them difficulty in their lives. Since then, the interest in both pagan Brigid and Saint Brigid has revived. Now there are tours offered around Scotland, Ireland, and Britain that take you to all of the sites deemed sacred to both the goddess and the Saint. While I love the stories revolving around these women, I’m not sure what is driving the resurgence. It could be the increase in fictional stories about the Irish Fairies, or maybe it’s because as Mara Freeman (author of Kindling the Celtic Spirit, Harper San Francisco, 2001) suggests, ‘Brigit is the nearest thing we have to a Great Mother of the Celts.’ Maybe Ms. Freeman is correct. Maybe, in this wild and crazy world, sometimes we just all need a mother.
