This is a book I reviewed in A Long Sip at the Well, but this is a review I wrote the year the book came out, which I just stumbled across. Slightly longer than the other, it has a more "hands-on" perspective, too. So I offer it here.
Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers
Miranda Green (1996)
Reviewed 24 sept. 1996
Miranda
Green, a senior lecturer in archaeology and early Celtic studies at the University
of Wales and recipient of the National Library of Wales' John Legonna Celtic
Research Prize in 1986, has a new book out called Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers (1996). The last chapter ends with a few pages on Brigit. She discusses primarily the distinctions
between and blending of the goddess and saint, and offers some interesting in sights.
I'm
pleased with some of the revelations because of their connections to my
life. As a goddess, Brigit acted as a
mediator between the Tuatha De Danaan—the deities of Celtic Ireland—and the Fomorians—some
of their greatest foes. Her interest,
despite being a tribal deity, was not only the winning of wars for
one side or the other, but was "the future well-being or Ireland"
(pg.198). This makes her an especially
good deity to turn to when mediating between warring aspects of the self or
between individuals or groups that do not understand each other well.
A feature both goddess and saint shared was "liminality": being
associated with boundaries, particularly between this world and the next.
“Brigit's liminal imagery is intense and manifests
itself in various ways. She belonged to
both the pagan and Christian worlds; she was born at sunrise, her mother straddling a threshold at the precise time of her birth; one parent,her father
Dubthach, was of noble lineage, while her mother, Briocseth, was a
slave. Brigit was nourished on the
milk of an Otherworld cow... and this increases her
symbolism as a being linked to two worlds (pg. 199).”
This
aspect is particularly enticing when thinking about making inner journeys such
as meditation or trance-work, which involve moving from the mundane world to a
world of symbolism and magic. It
suggests that performing such rituals on the day one is tending the flame could
strengthen the crossing. (See Circle of Stones, by Erynn Rowan Laurie.)
A thought-provoking passage refers to the paradox of Brigit's
sacrifice of her own sexuality (in order, as a saint, to maintain autonomy and
be able to do her life's work) and her deep connection to fertility and birth,
her ability even to "cure frigidity in women" (pg. 200). Although the text here seems to be referring
both to goddess and saint, Green states elsewhere that the goddess was married
to the Fomorian Bres, and I recall reading somewhere that the keen originated
with Brigit, who used it in mourning her dead son (see Cath Maige Tuired, The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, translatedby Elizabeth A. Gray, paragraph 125) so it is possible that her fertility function carried over from her less
virginal pagan state, although in another sense of the word "virgin"—an autonomous woman—she
was always such.
Green
offers another explanation. “The strength of Brigit's fertility-imagery is
suggested by the medieval carvings of Sheela-na-gigs in Ireland,
interpreted by some scholars as grotesque depictions of Brigit with the
entrance to her womb wide-open, even though the saint was a
virgin. As we saw with some of the Welsh goddesses... it may be that it was because Brigit was
sexually-intact that her fertile power was so concentrated (pg.
200).”
 |
| Sheelagh-na-Gig, Dunaman, Co. Limerick |
Sexually
intact. Interesting choice of
words. Because of course intactness
denotes wholeness, completeness: an essential part of healthy sexuality. The image that suddenly arises for me is of a
very sexual, completely whole and autonomous woman, who may or may not have
children, a spouse, a lover, but who certainly has her own sexuality, thank you
very much. The sheela-na-gig would
suffice as a symbol for her, indeed.
A little disconcerting, as the organizer
of the Daughters of the Flame, is Green's assertion that our belief that Brigid
was a fire goddess is based on her saintly association with fire—a common
association among Christian saints which symbolized their close connection to
god. She doesn't rule out that Brigit
may have been a solar deity; a healthy dose of caution is advised. She discusses the perpetual fire at Kildare—“a
symbol of hearth and home but also of purity” (pg. 199), but does not assert
that it originated with pre-Christian worshippers, although she does cite the
argument of others that Brigit may be connected with Minerva, who did have a
perpetual flame burned in her honour. In
citing it this way I get the impression she doesn't lean strongly in that
direction herself, when weighing the evidence.
Yet earlier in the book she lists as one of "a few unequivocal
references to priestesses attached to specific temples in early Celtic literature"
the legend that the monastery at Kildare was built on the site of a pagan
temple. It was “apparently tended by
women who kept vigil over a sacred fire which...was never allowed to go out”
(pg. 143).
Be
that as it may. The intact picture of
the goddess Brigid is long lost to us, and it's true that our vision of her is
shaped not only by “Lives of the saints” written by Christian scholars over
hundreds of years, but by our modern life and personal interpretation and
experience of her. As Green herself concedes,
many of the elements of the saint's description and mythology seem lifted straight
from Pagan symbolism and tradition, and it is possible that the picture we can
glean of her from the “Lives” is an illumination more than a distortion, if we
eliminate the purely Christian elements.
I'm not married to this idea, nor am I worried. In the many centuries before Christianity she
must have altered many times as cultures rubbed against each other and new
meanings were absorbed into her cult. If
we are paganising a Christian ritual, or repaganizing a christianized Pagan ritual...
It is a fair exchange, at the very least.
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