02/02/2023
Finding Brigid: The Meta-Myth of an Irish Goddess
âBrigit, goddess of the pagan Irish, was supplanted in the Christian era by Saint Brigit, and the Irish of the Middle Ages transferred in some way to this national saint the cult that their pagan ancestors had addressed to the goddess Brigitâ.
This is the first explicit identification of the pagan goddess with the christian saint; made by french Celticist, Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville in his 1884 work, âLe cycle mythologique irlandaisâ.
Little did he know, that when he made this statement, that in less than 150 years it would play a large part in getting Ireland a new National HolidayâŠ
and seeing as *most people in Ireland (63% according to an scientific survey of some people in Ireland), believe that St Brigid is (in *some* way) a continuation of a pre-christian deityâŠ
That must mean, Ireland has actually declared a National Holiday in honour of a Pagan Goddess⊠How cool is that !
âŠSo who was the Goddess Brigid?
Although there is no historical evidence that actually proves the existence of the Christian Saint Brigid; if a cult or religion dedicated to an earlier Goddess of the same name existed in Ireland, no evidence remains of it either.
Nearly all of the characteristics, customs and rituals, that have been applied to the contemporary Goddess Brigid, come directly from the medieval hagiographies and traditions associated with the Christian saint.
While Saint Brigid does share her name with a literary mythological character (usually called Brig meaning âvalourâ, but sometimes Brigit meaning âhigh/exalted oneâ), there is very little evidence of any association between the two.
None of St Brigidâs many âmiraclesâ and overtly âpaganâ attributes have any correlation with the Brig character in either of the two âmythical talesâ that she appears in (The Battle of Moytura & The Book of Invasions).
In those tales, Brig, the daughter of the Dagda, is married to Bres (the beautiful), the half Fomorian, King of the Tuatha DĂ©, who after being deposed, raises an army of Fomorians to take back the land by force.
Although her marriage to the King could mark her out as a symbol of sovereignty, Brigâs only personal appearance is when her son, Ruadan, is mortally wounded trying to kill Goibniu, one of Aes Dana - Gods of Skill/the ArtsâŠ
âand he (Ruadan) died in his fatherâs presence in the Fomorian assembly. Brig came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)â
It is interesting to note that, other than being the daughter of the Dagda, the main attributes of the âmythologicalâ Brig character - such as her marriage to Bres and the death of her son - along with her idiosyncrasies - such as inventing keening & night-whistling? - rarely, if ever, appear in the contemporary descriptions of the Goddess Brigid.
The earliest extant reference to an Irish goddess named Brigid is found in the 9th-century text, âSanas Cormaicâ (Cormacâs Glossary), which also refers to St Brigid; in a different entry, as a separate entity.
(The glossary also contains the earliest known reference to Imbolc but does not associate it with either of the Brigids⊠but more about that in the next post).
This often quoted description of the Goddess Brigid in the Sanas Cormaic is as followsâŠ
âBrigit i.e. a poetess (ban-file), daughter of the Dagda. This is Brigit the female seer, or woman of insight (ban-Ă©ces nĂł ban-Ă©icsi), i.e. Brigit the goddess (ban-dea) whom poets (filid) used to worship, for her cult was very great and very splendid. It is for this reason that they call her (the goddess) of poets (poetarum) by this title, and her sisters were Brigit the woman of leechcraft (bĂ©-legĂs), and Brigit, the woman of smithcraft (bĂ©-ngoibnechta). i.e. the goddesses (bandĂ©) i.e. three daughters of the Dagda are they, from whose names with all Irishmen a goddess was called Brigit.â
This description of the Goddess Brigit, suggests that she is a patron of the Arts (poetry/divination, healing & smithcraft, being considered the three âArtsâ in ancient Ireland) as opposed to being a goddess of âhome & hearthâ - as seen in most contemporary descriptions.
This role as patron of the arts is emphasised by Brig/Brigit being the daughter of the Dagda who is elsewhere described as⊠âthe son of all arts, that is a son who has all art.â Perhaps Brigid was invoked as the divine personification of the arts.
Interestingly, the passage also implies that âBrigidâ was a name by which all goddesses were known in Ireland. This ties in with the view of many etymologists that the word âBrigidâ was used as an honorific title, rather than a personal name.
The passage finishes with another, much quoted, line - âBrigit, then, breo-aigit, breo-shaigit, âa fiery arrowâ.â - This âfolk etymologyâ for the name Brigit, although known to be wrong (as an actual etymology); is often cited as proof that the Goddess was a fire deity.
This false etymology has appeared elsewhere, when describing the Saint, as⊠âa fire lighting with the love of Godâ. However, given its context here; describing a âgoddessâ of the arts, I would suggest the âfiery arrowâ represents, artistic inspiration - rather than marking her out as a âfire deityâ.
Perhaps the clue to finding the pre-christian Goddess Brigid is in the actual etymology of her name.
The ultimate source of of name âBrigidâ (Old-Irish Brigit), is the Proto Indo-European (PIE) word â*bÊ°erǔʰ-â meaning âto riseâ, which gives us (PIE) *bÊ°rÌ„Ç”Ê°Ă©nt (high-lofty-hill). From this we get the Proto-Celtic word â*BrigantÄ« â meaning âof the high placeâ or âhighlanderâ - cognate with many place names across central & western Europe.
However, this etymology takes a leap into the divine (and into history) as, by the 1st Century CE a Celtic tribe called the âBrigantesâ, are known to have settled in northern Britain (around the border between Scotland and England), and by the 2nd Century CE are, according to Ptolemy, located in Ireland; possibly migrating here after the Roman invasion of Britain.
Although they left no evidence of it in Ireland. . . we know from a number of inscriptions in Scotland & England that the Brigantes worshipped a goddess, known in their Celtic (Old British - Brythonic) language as Brigantia - meaning âhigh/exalted oneâ; who would be known in another Celtic language (Old Irish - Goidelic) as Brigit.
Although this is probably the most convincing evidence for the pre-christian goddess Brigit (and there is very little else), it is often glossed over in contemporary Irish descriptions of the Goddess.
However this might have more than a little, to do with âneopagan-nationalismâ as Brigantia is sometimes *mistakenly* cited by English neopagans as the source of the later Britannia character (the neo-classical personification of Britain) - not someone the Irish âDruidsâ are gonna pray to!
..So who is the Goddess Brigid ?
Although the Sanas Cormaic dates back to the 9th Century, It wasnât until Whitley Stokes published the first translation of it in 1862, that the Goddess Brigid was (re)introduced into the public/academic sphere.
It should also be noted that, in the millennia between the time of its writing in the 9th Century and its translation in the 19th, there is no other, known mention of a âgoddessâ called Brigid in early Irish literature; and no evidence that the saint was perceived as such during that time either.
In fact, the idea that saint and goddess are the same entity can be traced back, not to antiquity, but to the Celtic revivalists of the Victorian age; when in 1884 - little over twenty years after the publication of the Sanas Cormaic - Jubainville made his now-familiar claim that began this postâŠ
â... Brigit, goddess of the pagan Irish, was supplanted in the Christian era by Saint Brigit, and the Irish of the Middle Ages transferred in some way to this national saint the cult that their pagan ancestors had addressed to the goddess Brigitâ.
The result of being seen as a continuation of Irelandâs ancient Celtic past, St Brigid became a popular subject in late 19th Century Gaelic/Celtic revivalist art & literature where her saintly virtues were applied to the modern goddess we know today.
Jubainvilleâs theory was also accepted and expanded upon, by Irish academics such as R. A. Macalister, who suggested that the head of a college of priestesses who honoured âthe fire-goddess Brigidâ at Kildare was regarded as her incarnation and bore her name, âbut one of the succession came under Christian influence, and . . . accomplished the tremendous feat of converting the pagan sanctuary into a Christian religious houseâ.
Outside of academic circles however, Brigid remained very much a Christian Saint in Ireland, throughout the 20th Century; the devotion to her Catholic cult reached a peak in the early 1950âs but remained strong until the 1990âs, when a series of scandals led to a huge exodus (of mainly women) away from the Catholic Church.
At the same time a counter-cultural shift in Ireland, saw the rise of its own Neo-Pagan groups/faiths; many of which, were influenced by the US based, feminist-goddess movement and the UK Wiccan faith. Both of which, already viewed the now, post-modern, saint/goddess Brigid as something of an icon.
3 decades later and Brigidâs transformation from a post-modern saint/goddess to a meta-modern Irish Goddess, is almost complete. Perhaps in another 150 years, the original 1884 statement by Jubainville could be âre-arranged/writtenâ to quite accurately state...
âBrigit, âsaintâ of the âchristianâ Irishâ, was supplanted in the âmeta-modernâ era by the âGoddessâ Brigit, and the Irish of the â21st Centuryâ transferred in some way to this âpagan goddessâ the cult that their âchristianâ ancestors had addressed to âSaintâ Brigitâ.
La Fheile Bhride
Image: ICON by Simon Tuite
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