![]() ![]() It is likely this story which makes the connection of Brigid as the goddess said to cure eye diseases.Īn ancient worship of the fire goddess continued almost into modern times, where nineteen virgins tended an undying fire, and on the twentieth day of a cycle, left it to be tended by Brigid herself. In another tale, Brigid restored sight to a blind friend, who asked to be made blind again so her soul would not be tempted from the beauty of nature. She hung it on a beam of sunlight, which became stiff and hard until the cloak dried. One day she came in from the rain and could find no place to hang her cloak. She invented keening, the distraught, crying sound a completely devastated person makes when grief is unbearable, as when a loved one dies. She invented whistling one night to call her friends. But when the Irish monks mingled with the Christians, this provided most of the written history which can be found about Celtic mythology.Īccording to the Irish, Brigid brought several useful things to humanity. In other countries, destruction of the Bards (Druids) who sang these tales could wipe out generations of history. But this is not unusual, as the Celts had only a rudimentary written language, and most of their history is remembered in songs or oral stories. Although Kildare is associated as the center of worship for Brigid, there are no Pagan records of a temple there. She was connected to a magical cow that never ran out of milk, with fire, as in the sun and the hearth, and with water, especially the kind found in healing springs. She ruled ideas into art as goddess of poetry. The triple Brigid was the daughter of the Earth god, and shares his powers of abundance. She was the ruler of transformation, goddess of metal smith, of illness to health, as a midwife and goddess of healing. ![]() ![]() With such a polytheistic world view, it is possible to be fully Catholic and fully Pagan at the same time.”īrigid was depicted as a triple goddess, or as three sister goddesses who shared the name. Instead of duality, we have multiplicity Ireland’s Goddess Danu on one hand, Brigit in another, Mary in the third. The Goddess is both internal and external, immanent and transcendent. A flowing brook is both a body of water and a Goddess. Polytheism encourages a both/and approach. The sacred and mundane are separated by an unbridgeable chasm, and dualistic world view, leading to exclusivity. Psychologist David Miller explains, “monotheism inclines toward either/or thinking: something is divine, or it’s not. Still, the Irish keep the old polytheism. The Irish are annoyed by “witches” traipsing through their countryside who do not really understand the seriousness with which they love their land. But these primitive rites that have survived are kept a bit secret, one must know where to go to find like minded people to celebrate them. They are coming back into existence, as is goddess worship. This writer met author Patricia Monaghan at a book signing, and was able to hear her lively discussions about her trips to Ireland as a follower of Paganism. Pagans who visit Ireland and expect to find Beltane fires and the like are sometimes disappointed. The word Brigid means “bright one” or “high one,” and all the old shrines to the Goddess were called by names with “bridge” in them. Today it is a place where people gather to bridge the differences which have stayed alive between Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants, between Christians and Pagans, and between men and women. Brigid's sanctuary in Kildare was a temple in ancient times and a convent in Christian times. Paganism and Catholicism are joined together in Ireland in a way that is impossible to separate, and they need each other to survive. ![]()
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