The spring season belongs to Brigid, the Celtic goddess who in later times became revered as a Christian saint. Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc, two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes, the flow of milk that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. Later, the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the Light-Bringer overlights both pagan and Christian celebrations.

It is tempting to view this tender goddess of the early Spring only as she is pictured in Scottish artist John Duncan’s famous picture, The Coming of Bride: a wide-eyed, golden-haired girl, encircled by children. But behind her girlish innocence is the power of a once-great ancestral deity, Brigid, whose name means “The Exalted One,” queen and mother goddess of many European tribes. She is also known as Brigid, Bridget, Brighid, Brighde, Brig or Bride and some scholars consider her name originated with the Vedic Sanskrit word brihati, an epithet of the divine

Goddess St Bridgit Both Pagan Goddess and Saint! Saint

This is the true Goddess Pagan Version of Goddess St Bridgit not the Catholic Version

Some Irish rivers bear her name, as do places as far apart as Breconshire in Wales, Brechin in Scotland and Bregenz in Austria, which was once the capital of the Brigantii tribe. This tribe was under the tutelage of the goddess Brigantia, who is thought to be another aspect of Brigid. The most powerful political unit of Celtic-speaking Britain, the Brigantii mostly held sway in Northern England, where place-names and rock-carvings still echo the presence of their mother-goddess.

With the coming of Christianity, the powerful energy of the pagan goddess was transmuted into Ireland’s much-loved saint, second only to Patrick himself. Her transformation happened almost literally in Drumeague, County Cavan, at a place called “The Mountain of the Three Gods.” Here a stone head of Brigid was worshipped as a triple deity, but with the coming of Christianity, it was hidden in a Neolithic tomb. Later it was recovered from its burial-place and mounted on a local church where it was popularly canonized as “St. Bride of Knockbridge.” [iii]Though many legends are attached to her, there is certainly no firm evidence of her as a historical figure. Accounts of the saint’s life reveal what Sir James Frazer once called her: “a goddess in a threadbare cloak.”

Saint Brigid was said to be the daughter of a druid who had a vision that she was to be named after a great goddess. She was born at sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold, and so "was neither within nor without." This is the state known as liminality, from the Latin, limen: a threshold " the state of being “in between” places and times. In Celtic tradition this is a sacred time when the doors between the worlds are open and magical events can occur.

To me Birgid is both Mother Goddess and Saint and to be totally revered, it deeply frustrates me that during the Vatican II reformation that she was unjustly decanonized! She will always have her saint aspect to me

Its time the catholic clergy stopped denying its co-opting of pagan customs and Pagan Goddesses which many were co-opted into saints without crediting their Pagan Goddess Stature. Instead they still choose to keep women in subordinate roles and deny women their goddess nature and fear the Goddess concept simply because they fear the power of women and our nature.

I want to touch on moronic extremist christians like the ughhhhh Pat Robertson crowd that want to declare anyone that differs from their personal view of what christianity is as being evil I say get a life! We will not let nazis like you define us. Pagans will define themselves not you! Paganism and those that embrace it are here to stay, no longer in a closet for you to define and defile but proudly free and defining themselves good decent people free from your oppressive goddamn tierney! As an Irish woman i'm happy and proud that I decended from Druids and Neopagans then a moronic culture as yours Mr Robertson!