To Banish Winter

In The Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life, Pauline  Campanelli writes, "Now is the time for the banishing of  Winter. On the first night of February, the eve of Imbolc, gather together all of the greens that adorned the house throughout the Yuletide season, including a branch or two of the fir tree that was hung with holiday ornaments. Then, as a part of the Imbolc Sabbat rite, add these greens to the Sabbat Fire (a little at a time, and carefully, because by now they are hazardously dry), dancing and chanting all the while with words like:

"Now we banish Winter!

"Now we welcome Spring!"

Of Brighid and Her Realms

Today's witches take many of their Imbolc associations from pagan Ireland. There, Imbolc belonged to the goddess Brighid or Bride (either is pronounced Breed), mother of poetry, smithcraft and healing..

In their Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom, Caitlin and John Matthews quote the tenth century Cormac's Glossary: Brighid is "a poetess... the female sage, woman of wisdom, or Brighid the Goddess whom poets venerated because very great and famous for her protecting care." Cormac's Glossary gives Brighid the poetess two sisters, Brighid the smith and Brighid the "female physician"; Brighid thus occurs threefold, called by the Celts the Three Blessed Ladies..

The three Brighids multiply, to three times three: Caitlin and John Matthews call Brighid "a being who has nine separate spiritual appearances and blessings, which are ubiquitously invoked through Celtic lore." Hers are the "nine gifts of the cauldron" mentioned in Amergin's "Song of the Three Cauldrons": poetry, reflection, meditation, lore, research, great knowledge, intelligence, understanding and wisdom. The Christianized St. Bridget had nine priestesses, the "Ingheau Anndagha," or Daughters of the Flame,who lived inside her shrine and tended her fire, whom no man could look upon, according to Kisma K. Stepanich in Faery Wicca, Book One. Brighid is also a midwife and protector, a war-goddess and a teacher of the arts of battle..

Celtic lore makes Brighid the daughter of the Dagda, the Good God, and marries her to Bres of the Fomors, by whom she bears a son Ruadan. But, as Janet and Stewart Farrar write in The Witches' Goddess, "The fact that Dana, though goddess/ancestress of the Tuatha, is sometimes referred to (like Brighid) as the Dagda's daughter; the hints... that the Dagda was originally the son of this primordial goddess, then her husband, then her father; the dynastic marriage between Brighid and Bres - all these reflect a long process of integration of the pantheons of neighboring tribes, or of conquerors and conquered, and also of patriarchalization."
Like many goddesses, Brighid probably once birthed the god later called her father. Brighid's name can be derived from the Gaelic "breo-aigit" or "fiery arrow," but the Matthewses prefer a derivation from Sanskrit, "Brahti," or "high one."

The entire Celtic world worshipped Brighid. She was Brigantia in Britain, the patron goddess of the tribe of the Brigantines in northern England and of the Brigindo in eastern France, Stepanich says. The Celts continued to worship her in Christian times as St. Ffaid in Wales, St. Bride in Scotland and St. Bridget or Bride in Ireland. St. Bridget was said to be the midwife and foster mother of Christ, the helper and friend of Mary..