In the coldest, darkest part of winter (the Failleach, or wolf month) - forty days after Christmas, to be exact - the feast of Candlemas, or La Fhèill Brighde (the Feast of Brighde or Saint Bride's Day) is celebrated throughout the Scottish lands. This marks the changing of the brutal winter goddess Cailleach into the gentle fertility goddess Brighde, and the day in which villagers burn plants bought during the wintertime in order to usher in the spring season. On this holiday, Scots tidy up their homes and tie primroses to their doors, hoping to lure Brighde, the goddess of the hearth, into their homes. After such a harsh winter, villagers are desperate for Brighde's warmth to create a bountiful harvest and melt the unrelenting snow.

Brighde is represented by warmth, light, and candles, so in the evenings villagers light multiple candles in her honor. In addition to the primroses, homes are adorned with white curtains and other decorations, as white symbolizes purity, renewal, and honesty. Brighde symbolizes all of these things, and people believe that if the home is properly welcoming of the goddess, she will visit and bless the family. As she is known as a goddess of the hearth, livestock, and harvest, meals incorporating dairy (in honor of the cattle she protects) are very important to La Fhèill Brighde. Biscuits with butter, milk, cheese, and cakes are all consumed in abundance, with the leftovers being left as an offering to Brighde herself. Many women bake cakes solely for the goddess, to show their love and admiration. Some families will burn juniper in their fireplaces to cleanse their homes of impurities and further make it suitable for Brighde's visit. Young girls of the village will create a leaba Bride, a small symbolic bed made of straw that will be placed in the home to let to goddess know that she is welcome to rest her weary head there. Some villages will even go so far as to have their young girls create a brideag, a small replica of Brighde made of corn and decorated with shells, rocks, and minerals, all clear or white of course, then have them proceed throughout the village in what is called the banal Bride, or "band of Brighde." These activities are designed to get the goddess's attention and make her feel loved, so that she will visit the village and spread her warmth through the frozen homes. In fact, the warmth and love of Brighde is so vast and all-encompassing that most young Scottish girls dream of being a bride for a day, complete with beautiful white dress, when they get older!

During La Fhèill Brighde, Cailleach is known to gather firewood for the remainder of the winter, before renewing herself as Brighde. If winter is to last longer on one of Cailleach's whims, she makes the day bright and sunny to improve her sight while collecting wood. If the day is cloudy, this means that the hag Cailleach has overslept, and winter will soon be over. Scottish villagers pray for clouds every year on La Fhèill Brighde, believing that if Cailleach is not out collecting wood, she must be transforming into Brighde earlier and will be able to bless more homes.



Author's note: There are SO many conflicting stories on this Scottish version of our Groundhog Day story! I took about five different versions of them, dissected the elements that I thought would be most interesting or the things people would be able to identify with a little bit, and combined them to explain this sacred holiday. I wanted to leave in the part about Brighde being the inspiration for brides, because I thought that was absolutely adorable - I never really even connected the dots between Brighde being this beautiful goddess who is always symbolized by purity and innocence, generally wearing white, and - according to legend - the word "bride" - which is generally associated with the exact same things. It's hard to decide what the "most important" parts of the story are, because they are all important to me, but if I were to tell all of them this story would probably be novel-sized! There seem to be elements of so many holidays here - not just Groundhog Day, but even semi-related holidays like the global, Catholic holiday of St. Lucia's Day. We leave cookies and milk out for Santa Claus in December; in February, the Scots leave cake and milk out for Brighde. It is fascinating to see how traditions not just from Scotland, but from all over the world, have survived for so long.


Bibliography:

"Circle of Thyme – A Celebration of Bride," by Linda Monsees Stump (2007). Web Source: Silver RavenWolf
"Candlemas," by Anonymous (2002).Candlemas (warning: MIDI)
"Bride and the Cailleach," from Tairis UK (2009). Web Source: Tairis UK.


Introduction | Beira | Brighde | A'Cailleach | Samhainn