Brighid - MysticWicks Online Pagan Community and Spiritual Sanctuary

Dria El · #1 September 28th, 2001, 02:41 AM

WHO IS BRIGHID?

Brighid is the Daughter of the Dagda, one of the more universal deities of the pagan Gaelic world. She is known as the Goddess of Healers, Poets, Smiths, Childbirth and Inspiration; Goddess of Fire and Hearth and a patron of warfare or Briga. Her soldiers were called Brigands. Her name means "Exalted One." She is also known as Brigantia, Brid, Bride, Briginda, Brigdu, and Brigit. She is said to lean over every cradle.

The lore and customs have continued to this day regarding Brighid, more vividly than all the other Gaelic deities combined. In the middle ages, Brighid is in many stories. In one she is the wife of Bres, the half-Fomorian ruler of the Children of Danu. Their son, Ruadan, wounded the smith god Giobhniu at the second battle of Magh Tuireadh but he himself was slain in the combat. Brigid then went to the battlefield to mourn her son. This was said to be the first caoine (keening), or lament, heard in Ireland.

Until recent time, it was a tradition to hire women to caoine at every graveside. In another story, Brighid was the wife of Tuireann and had three sons: Brian, Iuchar and Ircharba. In the tale, The Sons of Tuirean, these three killed the god Cian, father of Lugh L‡mhfhada when he was in the form of a pig.

She was transformed by the Church of St. Brigid into St. Brigid about 453 C.E. Saint Brighid is known as the patroness of farm work and cattle, and protector of the household from fire and calamity. To this day, one of her most common names in Gaelic is Muime Chriosd, "Foster-Mother of Christ." St. Brighid was said to be the daughter of Dubthach, a Druid who brought her from Ireland to be raised on the Isle of Iona, sometimes called "The Druid's Isle."

"A fascinating link to the traditions of the saint Brigid is the fact that a woman called Darlughdacha appears in St. Brigid's community in Kildare as her close companion, sharing Brigid's bed. Darlughdacha, who became abbess of Kildare on Brigid's death, means 'daughter of Lugh' and the 'saints' lists' also give her feastday as 1st February...Mary Condren thinks that Darlughdacha might even be the original name for the goddess Brighid, presumably as Brigid (Exalted One) is a title rather than
a name."

It is said that by repeating the genealogy of Brighid, you will always be protected. "This is the geneology of the holy maiden Bride, Radiant flame of gold, noble foster mother of Christ, Bride, daughter of Dugall the Brown*, son of Aodh, son of Art, son of Conn, son of Crearer, son of Cis, son of Carmac, son of Carruin, Every day and every night That I say the genealogy of Bride, I shall not be killed, I shall not be harried, I shall not be put in a cell, I shall not be wounded, Neither shall Christ leave me in forgetfulness. No fire, no sun, no moon shall burn me, No lake, no water, nor sea shall drown me, No arrow of fairy nor dart of fay shall wound me And I under the protection of my Holy Mary And my gentle foster-mother is my beloved Bride."

"St. Brighid (in Gaelic pronounced sometimes Bride, sometimes Breed), St. Bride of the Isles as she is lovingly called in the Hebrides, has no name so dear to the Gael as "Muime-Chriosd", Christ's Foster-Mother, a name bestowed on her by one of the most beautiful of Celtic legends. In the isles of Gaelic Scotland, her most familiar name is Brighid nam Bhatta, St Briget or St. Bride of the Mantle - from her having wrapt the new-born Babe in her Mantle in Mary's hour of weakness. She did not come into the Gaelic heart with the Cross and Mary, but was there long before as Bride, Brighid or Brighid of the Dedannans, those not immortal but for long ages deathless folk who to the Gael were as the Olympians to the Greeks.

That earlier Brighid was goddess of poetry and music, one of the three great divinities of love, goddess of women, the keeper of prophecies and dreams, the watcher of the greater destinies, the guardian of the future. I think she was no other than the Celtic Demeter - that Demeter- Desphoena born of the embrace of Poseidon, who in turn is no other than Lir, the Oceanus of the Gael, and instead of Demeter seeking and lamenting Persephone in the underworld, it is Demeter- Brighid seeking her brother (or, it may be, her son) Manan (Manannan), God of the Sea, son of Oceanus, Lir...Persephone and Manan are symbols of the same Return to Life."

BRIGHID AND THE SACRED FIRE

In her earliest incarnation, as Breo-Saighit, she was called the Flame of Ireland, Fiery Arrow. She was a Goddess of the forge as well, reflecting on her fire aspect. Legend says that when She was born, a tower of flame reaching from the top of her head to the heavens. Her birth, which took place at sunrise, is rumored to have given the family house the appearance of being on fire. For many centuries, there were 19 virgins (originally priestesses and later nuns) who tended Her eternal flame at Kildare. There they are said to have sung this song (until the 18th century):

"Bride, excellent woman, sudden flame, may the fiery, bright sun take us to the lasting kingdom."

These women were the virgin daughters of the Fire and were called Inghean au dagha; but, as fire-keepers, were Breochwidh. The Brudins, a place of magical cauldron and perpetual fires, disappeared when Christianity took hold. "Being in the Brudins" now means in the fairies. Brigid's shrine at Kildare was active into the 18th century. It was closed down by the monarchy. Originally cared for by nineteen virgins, when the Pagan Brighid was Sainted, the care of her shrine fell to Catholic nuns. The fire was extinguished once in the thirteenth century and was relit until Henry VIII of England set about supressing the monastaries.

Sister Mary Minchin, a Brigedian nun at Kildaire relit the flame on Febuary 2, 1996 and the intention is to keep it burning perpetually once again. In an ancient Irish text Giraldus Cambrensis, she and nineteen of her nuns took turns in guarding a sacred fire which burned perpetually and was surrounded by a hedge within which no male might enter. In this, Brighid is like the Gaulish 'Minerva'." In Minerva's sanctuary in Britain there was also a perpetual flame.

~Author Unknown~