| FOGS News Volume IX number 2, February 1998 |
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| The Bride Cycle |
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| If Candlemas be dull and cool |
| Half the winter was by at Yule |
| If Candlemas be fine and fair |
| Half the winter's to come and mair |
| - traditional |
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BRIDE as an historical figure is likened to Irish Abbess Brigid of Kildare who died AD 525, but whose flame
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was kept alive as a perpetual fire in her monastery for more than a thousand years after her death. She is
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| known as Bride in such diverse locations as Wales, Alsace, Flanders and Portugal. |
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| Bride in Northeast Scotland has Christian dedications at early (now invariably ruined) sites of worship: her |
| name lingers in Kemnay at Brideswell where she shared the parish with fellow saint Anne (former Alisonwells, |
| now Alehousewells); she still has churches at Skene, Kildrummy and Drumblade and a gently crumbling one |
| at Cushnie. Her name is commemorated (though her church has gone) at Lhanbryde in Moray. |
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| Brideswells abound. It pays to look into her pre-Christian persona to see why her cultus should have been |
| so influential (see FOGS Imbolc newsletter 1997, Vol VIII number 2). |
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| As Brigantia she was recognised by Roman authors as goddess of the Brigantes and in later Brythonic use |
| as 'brigantinos' the Brittish word for 'anointed one' or king. Even Pictish kings called Brude or Bridei (at one |
| count in Pictish mythology there were 30 of them reigning one after the other) may have derived from their |
| having been anointed by or whose genealogy stemmed directly from the goddess. |
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| Because in one of her triple goddess aspects she was patroness of poets and bards, she was supreme muse |
| to an oral society who valued memory, learning and recitation of lineage and heroic myth. Her other facets as |
| patron of smiths and woman of healing were potent. |
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| Early Christianity, faced with such power, did well to incorporate her within the martyrology, perpetuated |
| as Saint Bride, Brigid or Ffraid. At Kildare the older pagan tradition of an overlighting female deity was |
| clearly perpetuated until the Reformation: Brigid's fire was kept by 19 virgins (perhaps reflecting a Metonic |
| 19-year moon-cycle), in a sanctuary where no man might enter, and whose breath alone (no bellows) was |
| allowed to fan the flame. |
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| The right of the author to the above material and research is asserted; any duplication of this material should |
| include the author's copyright ©1998-2000 Marian Youngblood |
