Originally this was part of the previous post 'rose' is in and 'air' is out, a mythological angle is discussed this blurb made the entry far too long. to get the full picture have a look-see at the former post to see how this all relates.
What you are about to read is my layman's interpretation of the connection between Brigid the Celtic goddess and St. Brigid the Catholic Saint so please excuse any discrepancies that you might see concerning the aforementioned figures. This is meant largely to inform those subjecting themselves to this blog about the connections that I draw between the two figures. Since I claim "artistic licence" on the mythological angle of The Host of the Air, I deem it only fair that the reasoning behind imagery used in the future be explained now - as I will be drawing from the background of both Brigids. I would love to hear what anyone reading this has to say on the subject. As with every other post on this blog, you do not have to be a member of blogger/Google to comment; and can even post anonymously or with a pseudonym should you so desire.
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Brigid the goddess and Brigid the saint are connected how?
You might wonder why I draw a connection between both the pagan goddess Brigid and the Christian saint Brigid. The answer is simple, for all intents and purposes they are the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the ancient celts worshipped a saint, or that the modern Catholic Church revers a celtic goddess. However, at some point in time the two figures were the at least similar. For example, not only do they share the same celebration day, but they are both protector/parton of very similar groups. About four years ago I wrote a paper called Celtic Christianity: St. Patrick, the Druids, and the Saints, which focused on the idea that "the ministry of Saint Patrick, the post Roman world, the Druids, and the mythology surrounding the Celtic Saints all combine to create the basis for what is considered to be the origins of Celtic Christianity." The following is an excerpt from the paper, which directly addresses the "Brigid issue."
Ian Bradley, author of Celtic Christianity and other books concerning the Celts and their culture, states that “the extent to which pre-Christian material was woven into early Celtic Christian literature is fiercely disputed among modern scholars and lies at the heart of the debate between nativists in the field of Celtic studies” (8). While the amount of influence pre-Celtic culture had on Celtic Christianity may be disputed, the fact that it did is indisputable. The influence of Druidic beliefs and Celtic myth on Celtic Christianity is most evident is in what Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, a folklore professor at The University College Dublin, calls “the cult of the saints” (202). As was the practice of the early Catholic Church, customs from pagan regions were often used in forming an area’s “local theology.” Pagan ideals were meshed with Christian ideals in an effort to win over the local populace and assimilate them into the Christian Church. To some extent, Celtic Christianity was no different in Ireland. Wherever “popular practice and belief” were not seen to conflict outright with Christian theology, they were often allowed to continue in slightly different forms (Ó hÓgáin 202). The most obvious example of this is found in the case of the Celtic Saint Brighid (Brigit). Not much actual fact is known about her, but the stories surrounding her existence demonstrate the role that pagan beliefs played in her life - or what the ancients believed her life to have been. Two main conflicting ideas concerning her life are currently recognized. The most referenced of these is found in the 12th century document by Leabhar Breac Of the Life of St. Brigit. Breac recounts that Brigit was the illegitimate daughter of the Irish king Dubthach by his valued bondmaid. Raised by a “wizard” and his consort, she was eventually placed under the watch of a certain Bishop Mél. Later, she was given the rights of a bishop with eight “virgins” under her, in her care (Breac 55, 67). This is the only source I found that cites her as a bishop. Others describe her as an abbotess, but most sources agree that her order resided on land that had once been consecrated for pagan religious purposes. Despite its unusual location, which was possibly the location of an ancient goddess’s temple, Miranda Green, the author of many books concerning Celtic religion, states that St. Brigit’s “convent” was “jointly for women and men” (43). If what Miranda Green asserts about Brigit’s religious establishment is true, than her order defies the conventional ideals of Early Christianity and alludes to the order of the Druids. Druidic priests and priestesses are believed to have worked side by side, while Christian monks and nuns dwelled and worked in separate self-sufficient communities. The celebrated Brigit is also unique in that she shared her name with an ancient goddess. Ó hÓgáin suggests that perhaps she was originally not so celebrated as a saint for her accomplishments, but the original success of her “cult” and the vast numbers of her followers was due to this connection with the pagan deity. He hypothesizes that if she did indeed “Christianize a pagan sanctuary” as legend tells, than to the locals her role as abbotess took on an “aspect of a mother-goddess” (202). Even some Christian writers as late as the 5th century referred to her as “another Mary,” and today she is often called Muire na nGael, or “the Mary of the Irish” (Ó hÓgáin 202).
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My Deductions
My paper from 2004 discussed Brigid the saint from the hypothesized angle of a Druidic priestess who adapted to fit the christian mold as an abbottess. There is certainly research to back up this angle, however, a little bit of reading done in the past couple weeks has made me wonder if the Saint Brigid and the goddess Brigid really aren't just one and the same. They are patrons of the same people groups (well Saint Brigid is patron of many more than my limited information on the goddess reveals), they share the same feast day, they share the same symbols, and all information I could find after a short search had something akin to a see "Saint Brigid/see Brigid, goddess" clause. The Catholic Church has a history of adapting the feast day dates of various pagan religions in order to ease native groups into conversion to Catholicism. If this was done with dates, was to keep it from happening with gods/goddesses or figures of great local significance? This in no way demeans or questions the religious significance of the Saints to the Catholic Church or the holiness attributed them; but with the history of St. Brigid (as written by Leabhar Breac) being questionable at best, who is to say that the Celtic goddess wasn't used as a basis for the saint. It is known that the goddess Brigid was important to the local area and turning her into a saint as part of the local theology would certainly have been a powerful factor in making converts to Celtic Christianity. From this angle, your truely feels justified in using iconography associated with both figures (shared and not) in hosts of the air.
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