DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Brighid, Brigit, Brigid, Bride, Brigantia : pron. Brigit (g as in “get”) and Bride (breed)

1. Irish goddess; daughter of Dagda “The Good” : In her triple aspect she was patroness of poets, healers and smiths. One side of her face was ugly, but the other side was very comely. The meaning of her name was Breosaighit, “a fiery arrow.â€? Her primal function is that of fire and illumination. Her son by Bres, Ruadan, was slain by Goibnui, the Master Smith. For him she made the first keening (caoining) that was ever heard in Ireland. She was subsumed in the cult and person of…

2. Saint Brigit of Kildare (450-523 AD) who founded the first female religious community after Christianity had been established in Ireland. The sanctuary of the nunnery at Kildare had a perpetual fire, tended by the sisterhood, which was not extinguished until the Reformation. Saint Brigit is the secondary patron saint of Ireland. Within Scottish tradition Brigid (the saint and the goddess) is associated with the lambing season and the coming of spring, when she ousts the winter reign of the Cailleach Bheur (the Crone). The saint is further known as the ‘Mary of the Gaels’ and is credited with being the midwife to the Virgin. A folk-story tells how she played the fool by lighting a crown of candles and wearing it on her head to distract Herod’s soldiers from the Holy Infant. Traces of Brigit can be discerned in the name Brigantia.

3. Brigantia in Britain was a goddess of water and of pastoral activities.