How Brigid went from a Celtic goddess to Catholic saint

St. Brigid's feast day on February 1 is also known as Imbolc, a celebration for the ancient Celtic goddess Brigid.

Spring in Ireland traditionally starts on St Brigid's Day, February 1. However, this may not be entirely historically accurate as it is a celebration with roots a long way back in pre-Christian times, some 6,000 years ago, when no written tradition existed.

Read More:  The enduring traditions of St. Brigid's Day

As was the case in many ancient cultures around the world, female deities ruled supreme, making the similarities between Egyptian mythology and Irish mythology quite remarkable. For example, most people will be familiar with an Egyptian ritual from "The Book of the Dead" of Isis breathing life into the mummified corpse, but many may not know that the same scene is depicted in stone at the foot of a high cross in Ireland.

Brigid, the highly revered Celtic goddess, beloved by poets

Similarly, our Goddess had a sacred cow that suckled a king, the same as Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt. India and many other cultures revere the cow as a symbol of nurturing. In fact, up until the 12th-century children were baptized with milk in Ireland.

Fascinating or obvious, these ancient races relied on the land, so it is no wonder they revered the female goddesses that embodied and symbolized mother earth for them. The goddess had to be appeased and celebrated to ensure the fertility of the land, animals, and people.

Celtic mythology holds that the chieftains slept with the goddesses in a mating ritual that crossed the boundaries of physical and metaphysical, as these goddesses could shape-shift into birds and other mythical creatures. She could be "an old hag" in human form standing at a crossroads, or the triple goddesses "Moriggan" in the tale of the Tain, or the "Banshee" in later years foretelling death in a family.

Read More: Everything you need to know about St. Brigid, Ireland's female patron saint

When the Celtic goddess Brigid became a Christian Saint by the same name

Having infused tradition in Ireland with a mixture of reverence and fear, for thousands of years prior to Christianity creeping into Ireland, it is highly understandable that our ancestors would have been a tad reluctant to banish her completely, which coincidentally is about the time she seems to have morphed into the Christian St. Brigid we know about today. Although the signs were there from the start that this was no ordinary mortal woman.

It is said that the Irish never let the truth get in the way of a good story. And so the story goes, that when St. Brigid was trying to wrestle enough land from the high king of Leinster to build her monastery in Kildare, he said that she could have as much land as her cloak would cover. Whereupon Brigid laid down her cloak and it magically spread out to cover several hundred acres.

Beannachtaí na feile Bride - "greetings of the feast day of Brigid on you." In other words, "Happy St. Brigid's Day!"

Read More: The Celtic and Catholic traditions of St. Brigid and her cross

For more from Susan Byron, visit www.irelands-hidden-gems.com.

How do you mark St. Brigid's Day (or Imbolc)? Let us know in the comments!