Imbolc

After a long winter we find ourselves yearning for spring and that has got me interested in the calendar festival of Imbolc. All around much of nature has been sleeping and although Spring can still feel far. soon the snowdrops will raise their heads, little white lights, reminding us of the lighter, brighter, warmer days to come when the sunny daffs can trumpet that spring is truly here. Yesterday there were blue skies so I did some gardening and found the new shoots of fennel and lemon balm popping up!

 

 Imbolc lands on the 1st of February and is a welcoming celebration and an encouragement of the first stirrings of Sping. The old pagan wheel of the year and the turn of the seasons marks imbolc, landing between the darkest days of Yule (winter solstice) and Ostara (spring equinox). Fires were lit and candles set out in the earth to welcome the Celtic goddess Bridged, to bring her life force into the earth and wake her from her rest. In Catholicism the Feast of St Bridget falls on the same day and the marking of this time seems to me to be an important mechanism in aiding a sense of promise and remembering that warmer days and greener scenes are not forever gone!

'The Golden Bough' was written by Sir James George Frazer a social anthropologist, now seen as a father of modern anthropology. This work was written in 1890 and  'details the similarities among magical and religious beliefs around the globe. Frazer posited that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, in turn replaced by science'. J G Frazer, now controversially, describes many of the peoples he studies as savages and his interpretations of ceremony can be very literal but non the less The Golden Bough is intriguing documentary. I found this extract noting details of the old practices carried out at Imbolc  ....

In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation in spring used to be graphically

represented on St. Bride’s Day, the first of February. Thus in the Hebrides “the mistress and

servants of each family take a sheaf of oats, and dress it up in women’s apparel, put it in a large

basket and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid’s bed; and then the mistress and

servants cry three times, ‘Briid is come, Briid is welcome.’ This they do just before going to

bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the

impression of Briid’s club there; which if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop

and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen.” The same custom is described

by another witness thus: “Upon the night before Candlemas it is usual to make a bed with corn

and hay, over which some blankets are laid, in a part of the house, near the door. When it is

 ready, a person goes out and repeats three times, ... ‘Bridget, Bridget, come in; thy bed is

ready.’ One or more candles are left burning near it all night.” Similarly in the Isle of Man “on

the eve of the first of February, a festival was formerly kept, called, in the Manks

language,

Laa’l Breeshey,

in honour of the Irish lady who went over to the Isle of Man to

receive the veil from St. Maughold. The custom was to gather a bundle of green rushes, and

standing with them in the hand on the threshold of the door, to invite the holy Saint Bridget to

come and lodge with them that night. In the Manks language, the invitation ran thus:

‘Brede,

Brede, tar gys my thie tar dyn thie ayms noght Foshil jee yn dorrys da Brede, as lhig da Brede e

heet staigh.’

In English: ‘Bridget, Bridget, come to my house, come to my house to-night. Open

the door for Bridget, and let Bridget come in.’ After these words were repeated, the rushes were 

strewn on the floor by way of a carpet or bed for St. Bridget. A custom very similar to this was

also observed in some of the Out-Isles of the ancient Kingdom of Man.” In these Manx and

Highland ceremonies it is obvious that St. Bride, or St. Bridget, is an old heathen goddess of

fertility, disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she is no other than Brigit, the

Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the crops.

Many of the customs included using light and plants, reeds or corn as well as lighting lamps and making fires to welcome in Bridgid. I wont be found shouting welcomes to St Bridget around our village but I like the essence of this marking and celebration of this time of year. In the Northern Hemisphere winter is bleak at times and with Easter or Ostara still a way off it feels important to find joy in the new shoots, slowly lengthening days and buds on trees. I'm going to light candles out in our allotment, have friends round for a small fire in my fire bowl, eat warming foods and have some medicinal tea made from new shoots of dandelion, fennel and lemon balm to help beat winter ails and remind us of the green to come.