Who is Brigid?
Brigid, also spelled Brigit or Brid, and pronounced variably “Bridge-id”, “Brig-eed”, or “Breed”, is an early Irish goddess of fire, smithcraft and other arts and crafts, healing, and poetry, among other attributes. She was the daughter of the Dagda and a member of the Tuatha de Danaan. She was later syncretized as St. Brigid, although February 1st – the solar cross-quarter holiday known as Imbolc – went from being Brigid’s holy day to St. Brigid’s day, and not much changed about it in Ireland except the addition of a mass. She is generally shown as a maiden goddess with fiery hair, surrounded by flames or sunbeams – her name is a distant cognate to “bright” and she may be related to an original goddess of dawn and morning.
Brigid was sometimes referred to as a triple goddess, all three named Brigid, showing her three main areas of blessing, as if she was so gifted that she needed more than one face to show all those blessings. As a goddess of fire, she was worshipped after the Christian conversion with an eternal flame tended by the nuns of Kildare. The flame passed from Pagan priestesses to nuns and burned up until the suppression of the monasteries in the 16th century. In 1993 it was lit again, and is still maintained to this day.
In her healer form, she was also associated with sacred wells, most importantly her holy well at Kildare, but also the holy well at Glastonbury now known as Chalice Well, whose waters are rich in iron and run red like blood. As a goddess of healing she can be called upon by anyone – but especially by women – who practice any kind of healing and medicine. The art of well dressing – decorating a well with designs made of flower petals – and tying streamers of cloth to the trees and bushes around a well, is traditionally done on Brigid’s Day to ask for her healing gifts.
As a goddess of smithcraft and many other arts, Brigid can be called upon for any fine work of the hands, for skill and persistence. Brigid’s Day is also a time when craftspeople can bring the tools of their craft before her sacred flame to bless them, and their hands and skill. She can also be called upon to find unusual and clever solutions to difficult problems that will not move by ordinary means. One of the legends of St. Brigid is that she asked the local archbishop for land to build an abbey at Kildare; he retorted that he would only give her as much land as she could cover with her cloak. One version of the story said that St. Brigid’s cloak miraculously grew to cover several acres; another version, however, claims that St. Brigid spent the night picking her cloak apart into separate threads and tying them together, and in the morning lay the thread on the ground, encircling several acres. The bishop was impressed with her persistence and granted her the land. The story echoes ancient Celtic goddess titles such as Lady of the Mantle. It also gave her power not only over the craft of blacksmithing, but any crafts of needle and thread, and indeed a set of embroidery tools said to have belonged to St. Brigid are still displayed at Glastonbury Chapel.
She was also syncretized with the Roman goddess Brigantia, shown with a helmet and spear and syncretized further with Athena/Minerva during the Romano-Celtic era. As such, in her Brigantia form she can be called upon for skill in martial arts.
Brigid has a pair of sacred oxen, Fe and Men, who graze on a plain named “Femen” after them. She also possessed a sacred boar named Torc Triath and a sacred sheep named Cirb. All these animals would cry out a warning when danger was near, and thus Brigid is seen as a protector of domestic farm animals.
At one point, according to one of the myths, Brigid was married to Bres, an emergency king of the Tuatha de Danaan placed on the throne when the original king Nuada was wounded. Brigid married him and bore him a son, Ruadan, largely for political reasons, it seems – to give him legitimacy for the throne. For this, she is seen as a goddess of sovereignty and she can be prayed to in order to keep (and honorably perform) leadership positions.
As a goddess of poetry and inspiration, she can be called upon as a Muse by poets and writers. Brigid was associated with all things that were high – tall flames, highlands and hill-forts, and states of being that are considered “high” such as poetic eloquence, high intelligence, fine crafting, druidic knowledge and generally any state of excellence, as such, she can be invoked to aid with the pursuit of excellence. As a goddess of both craft and inspiration, she is called upon by modern worshipers for ideas of invention. Since she is associated with fire, metalwork, and inspiration, some modern worshipers claim her as a modern patron for space travel.