The Coming of the Milk: Imbolc, St Brigid and milk folklore.

Today is the 1^st of February, an unremarkable day to most of us, but in the Gaelic calendar, this is the first day of spring, and still celebrated as such in Ireland (Mikhailova, 2020). You may have already spied daffodils and snowdrops nodding their heads with the rhythm of the chilly breeze, or lambs wobbling on their nascent legs, but for the rest of us in the British Isles, spring has definitely not yet sprung. According to how we calculate spring, this season doesn’t officially start until the spring equinox on 20^th March, but to our Celtic ancestors, it started earlier, at a time in the turning of the seasons known as Imbolc/Imbolg.

In this blog I am going to explore Imbolc and explain why this was one of the four important Celtic fire festivals (I have previously given Samhain some attention in previous blogs – see Samhain Dartmoor). We will see how significant this festival was in our agricultural past, and what worshipful and folkloric practices happened at this time of year. It will also become apparent, the remarkable link that Imbolc has with successive Christian practice and to cows and dairy. This festival is therefore particularly salient in my pursuit of understanding transhumance and dairying on Dartmoor.

What is Imbolc?

Imbolc is one of the four Celtic fire festivals. You may have heard of Samhain (which we now celebrate in the form of Halloween). This is the first festival which marked the start of the Celtic year. It was a time of blood sacrifice and the killing off of surplus stock going into winter. Later in the year, equivalent to May Day, came the festival Beltaine, which amongst other things was a time of procreation. In our August was Lughnasadh. This festival embraces the harvest. So what is Imbolc?

Much like humans, the gestation period of cows is a little over nine months. With Beltaine being a festival of procreation, at which time people coupled up but also controlled the mating cycle of their cattle, then it is readily apparent that Imbolc, a festival nine months after Beltaine, is the festival of fertility, birth and the coming of mother’s milk (Nicholson, 1997, p16). In fact, the word itself translates from Celtic as ‘in the belly’. It is also the point of the year when animals might be expected to come out of hibernation, hence European traditions of hedgehogs emerging from winter slumber and foretelling of the weather to come, more famously translated in the United States as Groundhog Day (Mikhailova, 2020). These cute hibernators are themselves probably cultural replacements from earlier times, when it was bears that our agricultural ancestors might be anticipating, rising from winter dens.

Making Sense of the Calendar

Imbolc is thought to have been associated with the goddess Bríde or Brigid (more on her in a minute). This later became Christianised into the glorified figure of Saint Brigid. St Brigid’s Day is the 1^st of February in the Gregorian calendar and is followed on the 2^nd February by Candlemas. This is why today, we imperfectly link Imbolc with the date in our calendar of the 1^st February. However, our modern calendar is a social construct, and the calendar of our forebears was not the same as ours. Before the Gregorian calendar was the Julian calendar, and before Christian calendars, there were lunar calendars.  The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, so going back in time, Imbolc would have fallen a little later in the year, nearer to the middle of our February.

Since it is the case that domesticated cattle do not have a time when they come into season, but the wilder cattle breeds of the Neolithic did (e.g. Balasse et al, 2021), some authors think that Imbolc developed from these very ancient rhythms of the agricultural year (Mikhailova, 2020). However, even if cows can become pregnant year round, for reasons of food availability and warmth, it would have remained preferable to adhere to this pattern. It is only with industrialised agriculture that this seasonal link has been broken.

Milk Worship and Protection

Cows and their milk have a sacred place in our psyche, which probably reaches back to the beginnings of our shift from hunter-gatherers to pastoral farming in the Neolithic, and the domestication of animals. In today’s world of endless food choice and western food security, we tend to pay little regard to our ‘basket-goods’. In earlier times though, cows, and their ability to give us daily milk, butter, cream and cheese, would have been of vital importance. For their supply of dairy, our ancestors would have reason to give thanks. However, if anything should happen to our life-giving and precious cow, we would be in trouble. 

“Herders and milkers working to produce a good supply of butter and cheese to see them through the winter knew themselves to be threatened by bad weather, pestilence, accidents to the animals, or inefficiency in the dairy”

Davidson^a, 2002, p92

For example, some farmers might find their milk production might start late and finish early in the season compared to their neighbours, or in comparison to what they experienced as normal. The cow might dry up of milk for inexplicable reasons (Salomonsson, 1994, p192). These things would be disastrous and underpin why the concept of ‘milk-luck’ became ubiquitous. For example, in the medieval, these fears manifested as demons, witches and hares suckling and stealing milk (see, for example https://caitlinfitzgeraldart.com/milk-hares-troll-hares-and-medieval-witches/ .

To honour the importance of cows and milk in earlier cultures, and to engage in protective practice, diverse peoples, for whom dairy was important, developed ancient dairy-related goddesses. In Europe, these morphed into barely veiled Christian guises, often hijacking pre-Christian ritual calendars, and developing Christianized versions of superstitions and charms.

‘Pagan’ Milk Goddesses

Many ancient cultures had milk and cow goddesses. The Egyptians had a cow-goddess called ‘Hathor’ who protected Pharaohs and who wore a sun-disk headdress, flanked by cow horns (Davidson^a, 2002, p91). In India, the cow is a sacred animal, and many Hindu goddesses are described as being cows, to which milk offerings are made. One of their goddesses called ‘Sri-Laksmi’[1] is herself supposed to have been born out of gods and demons churning her into existence from a primeval ocean of milk.

The populations of some parts of the world are milk intolerant, whilst in arid climates, grazing can be limited for lack of lush vegetation. Around the Mediterranean, oil was easier to produce, store and transport than milk and butter, but in cool northern areas, grazing animals were dominant, with herds taken to high pastures in the spring, for summer pasturing. Northern European cultures therefore have a particularly strong milk-goddess and milk folklore heritage, fuelled by fear of ‘milk failure’ at any point in the dairying life cycle, from calving, though setting out with the cows for summer pasturing, to the churning process itself.

Knowledge of Celtic deities is sketchy, but a few female goddess carvings have been found across Britain, depicted with an object that might be interpreted as a dash churn. Examples include Roman-era stone carvings from the Cotswolds and Hadrian’s Wall, depicting a goddess, who some have ascribed as ‘Rosmerta’, and others as ‘Brigid’, who later morphed into Saint Brigit.

The name Rosmerta is interesting. It is recorded as meaning ‘The Great Purveyor’ and she first appears in artifacts in Gaul in Romano-Celtic times as a goddess of fertility and abundance (Davidson^b, 2002). The name Rosmerta can be broken into ro-smert-a. The ‘ro’ element is thought to mean very/great/most and the suffix ‘a’ is apparently a typical ending for Gaulish female names. The middle ‘smert’ element is found in other Gaulish names e.g., Ad-smerio, Smertu-litani, Smerius, and is thought to mean provider (Delamarre 2003, quoted on Wikipedia). This bears an uncanny resemblance to the word smeoru, meaning fat or butter, that gives its name to Smeardon, one of the places Saxon dairy maids on Dartmoor are linked to, bearing testament to the fundamental and central role that life sustaining dairy fats played in the lives of our ancestors.

Brigid (Bríde, Brig) is also a Celtic goddess of fertility and prosperity and particularly associated with herding and dairying. She has strong links to the British Isles, but there are also stories about her from across Europe. In some of these tales she appears with a white-bodied, red-eared cow, and there are legends of this goddess-herder and her cattle emanating from below the ground or from lakes, giving them an otherworldly quality with links to water (Davidson, 2002^a, p99). She is also known by the appellation ‘the fiery arrow’ (Rowley, 1997) giving her a connection to flames. It is perhaps from such folklore that later Christian traditions of wells flowing with milk, or having properties that can protect milk, might be interpreted. I also wonder if it is from this link with women, fertility and milk, that we get our modern term for a bride?

Her name appears to relate to that of the ‘Briganti’ and is connected to the Brigantes tribe, in the area now northern England. However, Moore (2011) explains that Brigantes should be translated as ‘upland people’ and, rather than being tribal, is a generic descriptor of upland/northern dwellers. People described as Brigantes are also present in Ireland at this time. Complicating the story of this goddess, Cormac’s Glossary, which dates to the late 9^th/early 10^th C, indicates that, rather than Brigid being a single Celtic goddess, it is the name by which all Irish pagan goddesses were known (Cusack, 2007, p85). Whether one goddess or many, Brigid’s name, like the tribe, is interpreted as ‘the high one’.

What is particularly remarkable about the goddess Brigid, is that she became one of the most successful pre-Christian deities to be assimilated into Christianity in the syncretic form of Saint Brigid/Saint Bridget (Nicholson, 1997; Cusack, 2007).

Saint Brigid

The first written stories of St Brigid come from the seventh century and recount that she lived from 452 to 524-528 AD in Kildare in Ireland and that she became associated with new-borns, midwives, fugitives, healing, smithing, cattle, milk and butter (Lawrence, 1997; Rowley, 1997).

Her hagiography tells that her birth was at sunrise, as her mother had just been going out with a vessel to do the milking. In this sense her birth is doubly liminal – on the threshold of night to day, and the threshold of the door (Rowley, 1997). In some stories Brigid’s mother is supposed to have washed her new-born in the milk from her pail, which Davidson (2002^a, p99) suggests might link to a pre-Christian rite in which new-born infants are recorded as having been washed in milk. In other versions angels or clerics appear and baptize her in the milk (Nicholson, 1997, p16). These stories paint pictures of her surrounded by a gentle enclosure of flame that bathes her in light.

“The protection of God and Colmkille [St Columba] encompass your going and coming, and about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms, Brigid of the clustering, golden-brown hair”

Montague 22, quoted in Nicholson, 1997, p16.

As a child, Brigid is described, like her mother, as herding cows, and churning milk, and she is fed on the milk of a ‘white cow with red ears’ (a recurrent symbolism), a breed that may have been brought to Britain by the Romans, and favoured in ritual practice and sacrifice (Lawrence, 1996; Davidson^a, 2002, p100).  Whilst out in the rainy pastures, a sodden Brigid would miraculously hang her rain-drenched cloak on sunbeams for it to dry and, as a grown woman, she founded a church and monastery lit by a sacred and perpetual fire.

Brigid’s christianized story retains many elements from her Celtic goddess guise. As Celtic deity she was characterised by the fiery arrow, and as Christian saint, she is born surrounded by flame, harnesses the power of rays of sun, and is pictured with a fiery flame on her head, symbolic of her burning faith (hence also her link to blacksmiths). In hagiography she even retains the appellation of ‘Fiery Arrow’ (Nicholson, 1997, p16) and her nunnery at Kildare supposedly housed an inextinguishable fire that burned for centuries. St Brigid supposedly died on 1^st Feb which, as we have learnt, is the date of the festival of Imbolc, associated with goddess Brigid. A day later, the timing of which some scholar’s link to Brigid, comes Candlemas, a Christian festival of light and flames.

In addition to a flame, Brigid is also represented with a cloth called a ‘brat’ or ‘mantle’. In carvings from antiquity, pre-Christian figures of a goddess are depicted with a cloth. These have been interpreted by Davidson^a (2002, p93) as early representations of Brigid. Cloths were important for dairying and used in the straining of milk solids, and cloths like those pictured with St Brigid, feature in folkloric practice in her name. Legends and images of St Brigid also show her with keys, with these stories linking her to the unlocking of rooms to obtain food for the hungry – more symbolism of her being ‘the great purveyor’.

Folkloric Practice at Imbolc and St Brigid’s Eve

Documents tradition, particularly from Ireland, but also in Scotland, indicates great effort was expended and much celebration took place on St Brigid’s Eve. For example, it was a special cloth (the brat) would be kept on farms ‘to ensure a good milk-supply and lay on sick animals’. A cloth – be it a ribbon, scarf, or other piece of piece of material – would be re-used each year, and left out on a windowsill, doorstep or hanging from the door latch, for blessing by St Brigid on the eve of her saint’s day (Davidson^a, 2002, p93). Each farm would keep the same cloth for this purpose as it was thought that it became imbued with potency from its purpose. 

It was also practice on this day to decorate the milk churn with hay to form a representation of St Brigid (sometimes known as a Bridey Doll), to fashion out of corn a Saint Brigit cross, to eat fresh butter, and to give dairy gifts to poorer neighbours. The handle of the churn dash would be stuck into the ground with the plate-like dash upwards, and on this temporary ‘alter’, a dish of milky porridge was left out on St Brigid’s Eve, in offering to the saint (Davidson^a, 2002, p93; Cusack, 2007, p92). In Ireland it was also common to visit holy wells on St Brigid’s eve/day, these having a link with healing. In the case of wells named after Brigid, these might also have an added power of curing sterility (Mikhailova, 2020).

On Bride’s Eve the girls of the townland fashion a sheaf of corn into the likeness of a woman. They dress and deck the figure with shining shells, sparkling primroses, snowdrops, and any greenery they may obtain …. A special bright shell or crystal is placed over the heart of the figure. This is called ‘real-iuil Bride’ the guiding star of Bride, and typifies the star over the stable door of Bethlehem which led Bride to the infant Christ. The girls call the figure ‘Bride’, ‘Brideag’, ‘Little Bride’, and carry it on procession, singing the song ‘Beauteous Bride, virgin of a thousand charms’. The ‘banal Bride,’ Bride maiden band, are clad in white, and have their hair down, symbolising purity and youth. They visit every house, and every person is expected to give a gift to Bride and to make obeisance to her. The gift may be a shell, a spar, a crystal, a flower, or a bit of greenery to decorate the person of Bride. Mothers, however, give ‘bonnach Bride,’ a Bride bannock, ‘cabag Bride,’ a Bride cheese, or ‘rolag Bride,’ a Bride roll of butter

Scottish St Brigid tradition in Carmichael, 1928, quoted in O’Catháin, 1992.

Divinations might also be carried out, as in this account recorded in Scotland in the early 20th century (O’Catháin, 1992). Hearth ashes were smoothed over on Brigid’s Eve. In the morning these would be inspected to see if they were marked by the footprint of the saint herself, her presence auguring good luck for the coming year. But if Saint Brigid’s mark is missing? The family might sacrifice a cockerel or a pullet (a young female hen) by burying them alive near the junction of three streams. Irish tradition also shows the importance of the hearth fire which would be raked over in the evening and then the fire-re-kindled with the embers on Saint Brigid’s day, in a practice mimicking the hagiography of the eternal flame of her monastery at Kildare.

There are numerous other practices, too many to mention, but I will finish this section with this last quote, illustrating how closely linked to cows and milk were to some of the superstitions still observed wholeheartedly until very recently.

It is still said here that the milk has gone up into the cows’ horns from Christmas until after the Feast of St Brigid. This means that there is a scarcity of milk during this time. Usually milk is very scarce in January but the old people used to say during the month when they heard anyone complaining of the scarcity of milk – ‘It won’t be scarce very long now as St. Brigid and her white cow will be coming round soon’. I heard that some of the older women of the Parish take a Blessed candle to the cow’s stall on Brigit’s Eve and singe the long hair on the upper part of the cow’s udder so as to bring a blessing on her milk 

Entry from the Irish Folklore Collection, in S Ó Catháin (1999), quoted by Cusack, 2007, p93

A Devonshire Imbolc and St Brigid’s Day?

Whilst there is a huge repository of Christian and folkloric practice recorded about St Brigid in Ireland – there are over 3000 records alone in the Irish Folklore Collection – no such record exists in Devon. Catholic practice, and mixed into it, the folklore of the pre-Christian past, was largely wiped out here due to the 16^th century Reformation. But if the Irish records, along with hints from Scotland and across Europe are anything to go by, then the people of Devon may also have put out cloths on St Brigid’s Eve, fashioned hay effigy’s of the saint, made Brigid Crosses from rushes, and variously practiced all sorts of other superstitions, far too numerous for me to recount here.

Bríde and Brigid (or perhaps I should now spell it Bridget, as is more typical in England), are similarly elusive in the Devon landscape with some exceptions. At Heavitree in Exeter there was a Saxon well called Bride’s Spring. No doubt in the past there were many more Bride wells, dotted across the county (before they got stoppered up or tarmacked over). In Devon there are also three churches dedicated to her name – St Bridgit’s of Virginstowe, Bridgerule and Bridestowe. The name of each of these places may bear Bridget’s mark. Bridestowe is the most obvious, containing the earlier Celtic form of her name ‘Bride’. Virginstowe, is not named after the virgin Mary but the virgin Bridget. Both Bridestowe and Virginstowe contain the -stow suffix, itself a signifier of early church foundations. Gover et al (1931) identify Brigerule first as Brige in 1086 (DB) and state that this is named after the bridge over the Tamar, with the ‘rule’ part because the manor was held by a man called Ruald. Given that bridges at the time of Domesday were much rare than today, and given the Saint Bridget church dedication, it is equally possible that Brige instead of meaning bridge, relates to a Celtic spelling of Bridget – ‘Brig’.

Reconstructing this time of year – whether pre-Christian of Christian – I can see why this was such a meaningful time for people. Milk supplies over winter would have all but dried up, and stores from the last year’s harvest would be depleted. How anticipated must have been the signs of spring and the birth of newborn livestock? No wonder there were celebrations but also superstitions arising out of fear, a need to protect, and to bring luck.

This was also a time at which people were in their winter-places. Gradually, as centuries ticked away, we gradually became less itinerant, but even until the late Saxon, our society still contained much greater seasonal mobility than we often conceive. Placing Imbolc, and early Christian celebrations of St Bridget into this context, we can see how this festival marks another cyclical point at which people start thinking about and preparing for the exodus of some of the community to summer pastures.

Finally, if people too, were in rhythm with this agricultural year, and if Maytime Beltaine was indeed the festival of sexual coupling up, then nine months later, Imbolc might not just have been a time of livestock births. It may also have been a time at which we were more likely to give birth, adding to the anticipation, joy and fear of this time of year- Saint Bridget was, after all, also a patron saint of midwives!

[1] Laksmi – Lak is equivalent to the Latin word for milk ‘lac’; from *g(a)lag, also *g(a)lakt-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning “milk.”. From https://www.etymonline.com/

References

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