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Keeping the tradition of the St. Brigid's Cross alive through 2021 - Join Wicklow Willow's, Aoife and Pat as they discuss the legends associated with St. Brigid, source reeds and make a traditional Irish St. Brigid's Day Cross. Aoife will provide a how-to video tutorial in making your very own St. Brigid's Cross! Great Fun for all the family - discovering, learning, drawing, colouring and weaving as you find out all about this ancient Irish custom!
Hop over to our Facebook page to see Wicklow Willow's videos on St Brigid and St Brigid cross making.
Who is St Brigid? St Brigid is one of Ireland's patron saints, second to the world renowned, St Patrick. There is an abundance of fact and folklore connnected to this special Saint. The saint shares her name with an important Celtic goddess and there are many legends and folk customs associated with both St Brigid the Saint and Brigit the female goddess. As so often happened in Irish tradition many of the pagan lore associated with the goddess became associated with the Saint when Ireland became Christianised, for this reason St Brigid represants both a fascinating figure in Irish history from a historical point of view and also from a folkloric viewpoint.Would you like to know more about this interesting female? We have plenty to share with you.
Read on for more information!
Lá Fhéile Bríde or St Brigid’s Day.
There are many traditions and customs associated with St Brigid and her feast-day. February 1st was originally a pagan festival called Imbolc, from the Irish/Gaelic for ‘im bolg’, often thought to mean the time when spring lambs were in gestation, thus marking the beginning of spring. Brigit, Brigid or Bríg, from Old Irish meaning 'exalted one' is also a goddess of pre-Christian Ireland. She appears in Irish mythology as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the daughter of the Dagda and wife of Bres, with whom she had a son named Ruadán.
She is associated with the spring season, fertility, healing, poetry, brewing, lactation and blacksmithing. Cormac's Glossary, written in the 10th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was "the goddess whom poets adored" and that she had two sisters: Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith, suggesting she may have been a triple deity.
According to Saint tradition, Brigid was born in the year 451 AD in Faughart, just north of Dundalk in County Louth, Ireland. Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of her life, there is debate among many secular scholars and Christians as to the authenticity of her biographies. Three biographies agree that her mother was Brocca, a Christian slave who had been baptized by Saint Patrick. They name her father as Dubhthach, a chieftain of Leinster.
As she grew older, Brigid was said to have performed miracles, including healing and feeding the poor. According to one tale, as a child, she once gave away her mother's entire store of butter. The butter was then replenished in answer to Brigid's prayers. Around the age of ten, she was returned as a household servant to her father, where her habit of charity led her to donate his belongings to anyone who asked.
In both of the earliest biographies, Dubthach is portrayed as having been so annoyed with Brigid that he took her in a chariot to the King of Leinster to sell her. While Dubthach was talking to the king, Brigid gave away his bejeweled sword to a beggar to barter it for food to feed his family. The king recognized her holiness and convinced Dubthach to grant his daughter freedom.