"Imbolc: A New Interpretation" by Phillip Bernhardt-House

I am republishing my review of Bernhardt-House's article in celebration of the fact that he has uploaded the paper to Academia.edu, making this hard-to-find piece easy to obtain. Thank you, Phillip! (Click here to view or download.)

 “Imbolc: A New Interpretation”, Phillip A. Bernhardt-House (pp 57-76) in Cosmos 18 (2002)

This intriguing article looks at the meaning of Imbolc from a new perspective—that of a connection with wolf and warrior cults originating with the Indo-Europeans and presenting in Roman and Celtic civilizations. Bernhardt-House has a broad knowledge of the literature and he brings together disparate pieces into a tantalizing whole. Where he himself concludes that his new etymology may be proved unsound, it nevertheless serves to “refocus our attentions on certain smaller aspects” of Imbolc, particularly the wolf aspect, which is “now beyond doubt as having been important to the holiday as it would have been observed in pre-Christian times” (pg 65-66).[1]

In approaching the subject, Bernhardt-House first looks at both Neo-Pagan and scholarly etymologies of the Irish word for the festival, Imbolc. While accepting the consensus meanings of milking and purification, he suggests an additional—and surprising—one.

If im has as its basis “butter”, olc is generally derived as “evil, bad, wrong” in Irish, both Old and Modern. But Kim McCone[2] traces this word back to the Indo-European root meaning “wolf”. Joining these two, Bernhardt-House offers “Imbolc as the 'butter-wolf'”, hoping to “shed some light on further images in Irish sources, as well as connecting this to a further complex within Indo-European ritual” (pg 60).

These images in Irish sources range from calendrical evidence linking February to wolves, the association of Candlemas in France and Belgium with the wolf (where a wolf sighting predicts the ending of winter), of Brigit herself with the bear and wolf, and so on, along with an examination of the period of time between Samhain and Imbolc and its association with warring, as well as hospitality.

Perhaps most interesting is the parallel drawn between the rites of the Lupercalia in Rome and Imbolc in Ireland, and their potential links to Gaulish deities and to earlier rituals. The link with purification in both festivals is already established; the writer points to a possible further link in purification with the use of milk or, in the Irish case, butter.

The young Roman priests, the Luperci, sacrificed a dog and a goat at the cave where Romulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf. The blood of these two animals was mixed and the youngest priest's forehead anointed with the mixture; this was then cleaned away using a piece of milk-soaked wool, which ritual was followed eventually by striking the general populace with goat-skin thongs for luck and fertility.

In a medieval story St Brigit removes the signs worn by men which signify their engagement in activities of war; Bernhardt-House suggests that if “some form of Brigid was one of the presiding deities of Imbolc, Brigit who was bear-mother in origin but could easily have been a wolf-mother in Ireland, might have been the deity who removed these warrior-signs and reincorporated the youthful fian-warriors into regular society, perhaps by the means of the purifying medium of milk, or, given the etymology I have suggested with imb-, perhaps even butter” (pg 64).

The details examined by the writer are greater in number and scope than suggested by this brief review, and it is worth tracking down the article through your local or university library.[3]

This is just the sort of thing that gets the creative mind churning along nicely. A very enjoyable article.

---

[1]     For a complete review of the wolf and werewolf in Celtic literature and an examination of that material, see Bernhardt-House, Phillip A., Werewolves, magical hounds, and dog-headed men in Celtic literature: a typological study of shape-shifting, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.

[2]     See my review above of his Brigit section, “Fire and the Arts” (etc) in Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature, Kim McCone (1990)

[3]     For a posting in the NeoPagan blogosphere see http://www.patheos.com/community/paganportal/2011/02/01/the-hidden-imbolc/. For a discussion  in a Celtic Reconstructionist forum of both the blog post and this peer-reviewed article, see http://community.livejournal.com/cr_r/351977.html In particular see the comment from  wire_mother: “I've read the original article from which PSVL derives this thesis (Bernhardt-House, Phillip A., "Imbolc: A New Interpretation", Cosmos 18 (2002), 57-76), and I buy the argument on the basis that OIr. olc very plausibly derives from PIE *wlkwo- "wolf" (which gives us English "wolf"!, and which through simple metathesis gives us *lukwo-, from which we derive e.g. English "lupine" from Latin) and also very plausibly shows semantic drift into its current meaning of "bad, evil" given the Christian experience of the youthful warrior/lycanthropic bands in Ireland; that it shows a definite relationship to Lupercalia, which seems to be a Latin reflex of the same ritual impulse; and the relationship of St. Brighid to the outlaw bands (all of which elements are discussed in that article by PSVL). For disclosure, I know both Prof. Bernhardt-House, the author of that article, and PSVL in person, and have discussed the issue with them many times, but even so, the three points I list here are more solid than even the assumption that we can derive pagan practices from e.g. folklore. That is, we have solid linguistic grounds (any linguist can easily derive that using tested rules of language change - one would have to dismiss nearly the entire field of linguistics to dismiss that point), solid comparative grounds (in the same region, even, and from a tradition which is linguistically closely related - one would have to dismiss the concept that religious ideas refer to the past in any way to dismiss that point, which would require one to dismiss the concept of any continuity of pagan religion at all), and solid hostile testimonial grounds (and the evidence for those youthful warrior-bands being also self-consciously, as well as community-consciously, considered to be "lycanthropic" is extensively documented across Europe, in the Celtic countries, and specifically in Ireland).”

The Mythical Pairing of Brig and Bres: Its Origins and Meaning in ‘Cath Maige Tuired’

“In the ninth century Irish text “Cath Maige Tuired”, the figure of Bres offers an illustration of a failed king and his impact on prosperity. The goal of this paper is to uncover a greater mythical significance to Bres, and to begin to discover what the presence of his wife Brig (Brigit, daughter of the Dagda) in the tale might indicate. This is done by examining their significant attributes and relationships in this and other texts and, in the case of Brig, in material attaching to St Brigit of Ireland.”

There is very little evidence in the medieval texts of a goddess named Brigit: this is one of two that I know of.

For those who haven't read the text, it's quite interesting, as is the First Battle of Moytura, which also features Bres although Brig doesn't make it in.  But even if you haven't read and don't feel like reading the texts, you can still learn some interesting facts about Brig, her husband and children, and the world of the medieval Irish tales in “The Mythical Pairing of Brig and Bres”.

Click here for the free pdf download at Academia.edu.               



Morgan Daimler I think the paper raises some very interesting ideas about Bres and his ultimate role in the mythology beyond "bad king" that deserve some real reflection. I also like the exploration of Brig and Bres as a couple and why that could be and is significant - its really not a subject I've seen anyone else try to deal with.


Pinar Writes: this is beautiful, many thanks for sharing. I shall dowload it and refer to it later as well. it's not easy (at least for me) to form and understand the relationships and what they represent between Celtic deities sometimes; they're so much more fluid than, say, the Greco-Roman pantheon. that's one part of the challenge. after all these years (about 20!) I'm still trying to figure out the connections, the symbolism, regional variances and all that. articles like yours are very helpful in that sense.

What the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has to say about Brigit

Brigit [St Brigit, Brigid] (439/452–524/526),patron saint ofKildare 

by T. M. Charles-Edwards

St Brigit in Melbourne, Australia

Brigit [St Brigit, Brigid] (439/452–524/526), patron saint of Kildare, is the only native Irish saint to enjoy a widespread cult in all the Celtic countries. About the events of her life little can be said, since the earliest sources come from more than a century after her supposed death, on 1 February in either 524 or 526, and were in any case interested in miracle stories rather than biographical detail. Her early cult is, however, among the most influential and the most interesting of any saint in Ireland or Britain.

The cult and lives

• Uploaded by Joe Byrne

The early texts in Brigit's hagiographical ‘dossier’—ranging from the seventh to the early ninth century—contain different perceptions of her natural clientele. At one end of the spectrum, she was a pan-Irish saint, enjoying local support in all the provinces of the island; at the other end, she was the saint of her own people, the Fothairt, settled mainly in Leinster but with outposts elsewhere. The Fothairt were never, in the historical period, a leading power even in Leinster, let alone anywhere else; indeed, their particular pride was that Brigit belonged to them. Even within Leinster different texts emphasized different themes: the life by Cogitosus (c.675) was written by a champion of her principal church, Kildare; there, so the life claimed, she lay enshrined, alongside her episcopal helper, Bishop Conlaíd [Conláed, Condlaed] (d. 518/520). On the other hand, the Vita prima, which powerful arguments would date earlier than Cogitosus, is more interested in Brigit's relationship with the people of her father, Dubthach, the branches of the Fothairt settled on the north-western frontier of Leinster. The same is true of the ninth-century vernacular life, Bethu Brigte, which is related to, but not dependent on, the Vita prima; both probably drew on a lost life of the mid-seventh century. These local affiliations were to be enduring: Brigit has remained to this day the patron saint of Kildare, but her cult has continued to be vigorous around Croghan Hill in Offaly, which is mentioned in Bethu Brigte and was close to the home of her father.

One of the most interesting aspects of the hagiography of Brigit is, therefore, its variety, rooted in particular places and enjoying different audiences. Cogitosus's life was addressed initially to the bishop and other educated clerics within the double monastery of Kildare and then to their equivalents in the other major churches; to meet the expectations of such a readership it had to be, and is, a polished piece of writing; Read More...

Did Brigit Love Animals Like a Good Celt Should?

Drawing by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Topographia Hibernica. British Library, Royal MS 13 B VIII, fo. 10v

I'm reading an interesting article by Cristina Olsen, "Did Brigit love animals like a good Celt should? An inquiry into Cogitosus's 'Life of Saint Brigit'". It touches not only on Brigit but on our understanding of the Celtic (most particularly the medieval Irish) attitude toward animals and nature. I got the article through an interlibrary loan; innocent that I am, I only recently learned that I could access these buried-in-vaults articles this way, when I don't have direct access to a university library that carries the particular journal I need.

To give you a sense of what it's about, I will quote a few paragraphs. She begins:

"The analysis in this paper stems from an examination and critique of a genre of modern-day literature that makes broad claims concerning a universal Celtic appreciation of the natural world and a love of animals.* The term "love" itself is problematic. Today in the western world loving nature subsumes principles of aesthetic appreciation not necessarily shared by peoples from other times and places. Given the scarcity of information concerning Celtic societies, it is impossible to draw broad conclusions regarding how ancient Celtic people viewed nature.

"A perusal of the history of western thought concerning the natural world suggests that a burgeoning love of nature is a relatively new phenomenon in the development of western human conscience. While the ancient Greeks and Romans were interested in nature for agricultural as well as aesthetic reasons, it was not until the late eighteenth century that the educated elite, fleeing the spreading cloud of urban industrialization, discovered the "Delightful Horror" of the wilderness and the mountains...

"By the mid-twentieth century, as we awakened to the possibility of nature's annihilation, human imagination attached itself to the elusive Celts, hoping to find amongst the dim vestiges of the ancient people wise counsels concerning the proper stewardship of the natural environment. In other words, the notion that Celts (Pagan or Christian) loved nature is unlikely to be other than a romantic projection reading back into the distant past the present sense of nature's impending demise...

"It is true that there are depictions of nature in Irish literature that intrigue us. However, I am not so sure that we have a clear understanding of what constitutes the Irish or Celtic "approach to the natural world"...In this paper I critique these tendencies to romanticize the ancient Celts and suggest an alternative approach to understanding the Celtic sense of nature by analyzing three animal stories in Cogitosus's seventh-century Life of Saint Brigit. If we truly wish to understand the relationship of the ancient Celts to their natural environments, we need to set aside our mythmaking and return to the primary sources, in this case the text."

In her conclusion, Olsen writes:

"...the animal stories in the Life of Saint Brigit are not about the animals but about Brigit's power and authority over all aspects of rural life in the environments of Kildare and, if Cogitosus would have his way, over all of Ireland. The animals are merely pawns in Brigit's hands in order to demonstrate the strength of her God-given power, and nowhere is there any evidence that these animals elicited concern in their own right.

"That the Life of Saint Brigit is replete with animal stories indicates that they were important; the analysis presented above demonstrates in what sense they were important...they were the center of the Irish rural economy."

Of course there is much more than this but I shall have to leave it here. For those interested in hearing her arguments in full, the bibliographical information is all below.

Blessings on you and your animal friends!


* "A full bibliography of the genre is too vast for footnoting, but the trend is best represented by Caitlin Matthews, The Elements of the Celtic Tradition...and Peter Beresford Ellis, Celtic Inheritance..." She then lists a large number of "works with a specific Christian outlook" beginning with Esther de Waal's Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition.

"Did Brigit love animals like a good Celt should? An inquiry into Cogitosus's 'Life of Saint Brigit'" by Cristina Olsen. COMITATUS--A JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES  Vol/Issue: 33, Date: Jan 1, 2002, Pages: 1-17

Online Paper: Brigit of Kildare and the Liminality of Women's Spiritual Power

Many of you will know the American theologist Edward C. Sellner through his books on Celtic saints ( eg Wisdom of the Celtic Saints) and on the anam cara (Celtic Soul Friend). Here is a paper by him that you may find of interest: “Brigit of Kildare, Golden Sparkling Flame: A Study in the Liminality of Women's Spiritual Power”.

Posted on Ohio State University's Monastic Matrix (a scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE), it was first published in Vox Benedictina: A Journal of Translations from Monastic Sources 8/2 (1991): 265-296.

An excerpt:

"Sometime in the 1180’s, the mediæval churchman, pilgrim, and story–teller Gerald of Wales visited Kildare in Ireland, made famous, he says, by the “glorious Brigid.” There, as he tells us in the controversial book he wrote after his tours of Ireland, he found Brigit’s fire, said to be inextinguishable:

"It is not that it is strictly speaking inextinguishable, but that the nuns and holy women have so carefully and diligently kept and fed it with enough material, that through all the years from the time of the virgin saint it has never been extinguished.

"Gerald of Wales, of course, was not the first pilgrim to visit Kildare, but he has provided us with one of the most vivid accounts of that monastic site and the legends associated with it centuries after the death of its foundress. Judging from his books on Ireland and Wales, he evidently discovered, as many of us do when we travel to foreign shores, that the holy places and the tombs of the saints often provide “a location for the healing, forgiving, and guiding powers of God.”

"Pilgrimage is one of the oldest spiritual traditions, shared by all the great religions of the world. The practice of pilgrimage has been a part of Christian spirituality since the first apostles, after the death of Jesus, returned to those places in Galilee associated with his memory and learned, as they fished and ate meals together on the seashore, that he was still very much alive. While pilgrimages may result in encounters with the Holy One, they can also be painful journeys into the unknown, far from family and friends and all those things that give us a sense of self–worth and identity. This experience of being in the wilderness, of being betwixt and between, is described by Joseph Campbell as characteristic of “liminality,” a state in which the person striving for maturity and wisdom crosses a threshold into the unknown, meets many obstacles as well as helping spirits along the way, and returns home as “master of two worlds” with a “treasure” or “blessing” that is shared with the community. According to Campbell, all the great myths of humankind have these elements describing how a person becomes a hero, which is to say, more fully human (and, from the Christian perspective, more god–like). Victor and Edith Turner, authors of Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, describe pilgrimage in those terms: as a “liminoid phenomenon,” a boundary experience that applies not only to foreign travel and rites of passage, but “to all phases of decisive cultural change.” “It has become clear to us,” they say, “that liminality is not only transition but also potentiality, not only ‘going to be’ but also ‘what may be.’

"With that understanding in mind, let us take a pilgrimage to Celtic lands and to the home of Brigit, who was considered the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims during the Middle Ages. As a soul friend with whom that ancient tradition of spiritual guidance is very much identified, she has something to teach us about women’s leadership as it emerged in the early Celtic Church. Her legends and stories also reveal much about the actuality and potentiality of women’s spiritual power in our own churches today. Brigit, the powerful Christian saint associated with a Celtic goddess, is a study in liminality, for she lives on the boundary between pagan mythology and Christian spirituality, between what was and what will be. Described in one of the most ancient Christian Celtic hymns as “ever excellent woman, golden sparkling flame,” and by the Irish poet Padraic Colum as “she who had the flaming heart,” Brigit will show us that not only is her monastery associated with flames of fire, but her life and ministry as well—a flame of holiness that continues to blaze and give us light even though the fires at Kildare of which Gerald of Wales wrote have now been extinguished."

For those who have the original version of Wisdom of the Saints and would like the updated introduction, this is available through Northumbria Community for four pounds. For an online article by Sellner on soul friendship (anam cara) visit the site of Aisling magazine.

Catholic Ireland DOT Net: Brigit Offerings

CatholicIreland.net is, rather self-explanatorily, a site for Irish Catholics and their admirers and friends. A quick search of the site yields a small number of articles on St. Brigit. To whit:

The rites of Brigid, goddess and saint

February 1st, the feast of Imbolg in the old Celtic year, marked the beginning of spring. It was Christianised and adapted as the feast of St Brigid and many rituals still associated with the feast are best understood in the light of their pagan Celtic origins. After a Foreword on the life of Brigid as told in the Leabhar Breac, Seán Ó Duinn describes these rites and explores their relevance for today.

236 pp, Columba Press, 2005. To purchase this book online, go to www.columba.ie

On this page are the table of contents, foreword, and a large section of the first chapter of the book.

Mothering God

The Irish in the Middle Ages had an intriguing way of expressing devotion to the Child Jesus. And it was more than mere fancy, writes Gilbert Márkus.

This article, which first appeared in Spirituality, a publication of the Irish Dominicans, explores the idea of Brigit as the Mother of God, and extends it other Christians as well. It ends with the observation:

"Many nations and cultures, not only the Gaels, explored this imagery of the Christian disciple as the mother of God. The application of the Gaelic title már Choimded máthair to Brigit, ‘mother of the great Lord’, is not some kind of weird error or deviation. It is a natural flowering of the creative mind in love, part of that ever unfolding process of finding new ways to express the love poured into our hearts."

A woman for our times: St Brigid of Ireland

Brigid of Kildare is a patroness of those who have a care for the earth, for justice and equality, for peace and she is a model for a contemplative life. Brigidine sister Rita Minehan profiles her here.

"A great resurgence of interest in all aspects of our Celtic heritage is leading many individuals and groups to rediscover - and draw inspiration from - the lives of the early Irish saints. St Brigid, the patroness of Ireland, is emerging as one whose life has relevance and inspiration for us as we try to face the issues that confront our country and our world at this time. When we look at the life of Brigid and at some of these issues we can see more clearly why she continues to be relevant to us today."

The article looks at the many sides of spiritual life that St. Brigit models - carer, inspirer, etc.

For the full text of these articles, follow the links or go to http://brigitssparklingflame.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_archive.html

Brigit Gwers (OBOD lesson) by Susa Morgan Black

Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids member Susa Morgan Black offers online her 38 page lesson on Brigit, looked at from many aspects and supported with lots of notes, images, and resources. Below is a brief sample.

Druid Goddess
Brigit is a “pan Celtic” goddess, who was worshipped by both the Goidelic4 and Brythonic5 Celts in the British Isles and beyond. She is a solar deity, who once hung her mantle on a sunbeam.

In Celtic mythology, Brigit is the daughter of the Morrighan and the Dagda6, the Good God and
Chief of the Tuatha de Danaan, the ancient fairy race of Ireland, and the sister of Ogma, who
invented the Ogham alphabet. She was the wife of Bres, King of the Fomorians (who were at
war with the Tuatha de Danaan). Brigit was said to have been the mediator of peace between
the two ancient warring tribes. She was the mother of the Three Gods of Danu – Ruadan7,
Iuchar and Uar8. These three Gods were said to have married the three princesses of Ireland –
Eire, Fodhla and Banbha.9

In other sources, Brigid is the daughter of Boann, the Goddess of the River Boyne in Ireland.
Boann (bo fhionn) means “white cow”, an association she shares with Brigid.

Brigit is primarily the patron Goddess of poets, healers and smiths. She is also a patron of other
womanly arts – midwifery, dyeing, weaving and brewing, and the guardian of children and farm
animals – particularly cows.10 The island of Ireland itself is said to be the green mantle of Brigit.

She is also said to be the patron of travelers, sailors, and fugitives.

She is specifically a patroness to the Druids in her aspects of poetry (Bards), healing and
prophecy (Ovates) and blacksmithing.11 (Druids).


Notes:

4. Goidelic – Gaels: Irish, Scots, and Manx Celts
5. Brythonic – British: Welsh, Cornish and Breton Celts
6. In other versions, Dagda is the son of Brigit; White Goddess, page 101. Dagda is the patron god of the Druids. In some
versions, he is the consort of Brigid.
7. In some sources, it’s Brian, Iuchar and Iuchurba (White Goddess, page 101)
8. Article on Brigit on the OBOD webpage, by Winter Cymres (http://www.druidry.org/obod/deities/brigid.html)
9. White Goddess, page 102
10. Kindling the Celtic Spirit, pg. 47
11. Blacksmithing is the art of transformation of metal, and they were considered great wizards and mages in ancient times,
which relates them directly to the transformative (alchemical) arts of the Druid.

Mothering God: Gilbert Márkus

Mothering God

The Irish in the Middle Ages had an intriguing way of expressing devotion to the Child Jesus. And it was more than mere fancy, writes Gilbert Márkus.

An old Irish way of exploring a gospel text: Here in Erfurt the Irish, when they’re drunk, state that among the saints the first one on the list is Saint Brendan, and that the God of gods supreme is Brendan’s brother, and that Brigit is God’s Mum. These lines were written by an anonymous German poet in the thirteenth century, mocking the Irish monks who lived in Erfurt at that time. He went on to describe how most folk think the Irish are completely mad (not to mention blasphemous) in saying such things. He repeats the kind of argument that the monks might use to prove their strange theory. ‘Whoever does my Father’s will,’ Jesus said, ‘is my sister and brother and mother.’ And if they are brother and mother of Christ, they are brother and mother of God. Deviant Irish monks It’s clear from the mocking tone of the poem that the Erfurt poet has no time at all for this kind of argument. ‘What else would you expect,’ he seems to ask, ‘from a bunch of Irish drunks?’ He wasn’t the only German to see the Irish monks abroad as a pretty deviant mob. One wrote to suggest that if a married woman disappeared, the first place you should go to look for her was among the Irish monks. At first sight the German might seem to be right: why would anyone want to describe Brigid as the ‘mother of God’? Surely that title can only be applied to the Virgin Mary. And yet the Irish did speak of Brigit, their own great female saint, in exactly this way, and before we dismiss the idea as the German poet did, we should ask just what they meant. Mothering the Infant Christ An early Gaelic hymn prays: ‘May she destroy within us the taxes of our flesh,/the branch with blossoms, the mother of Jesus.’ But this is a hymn about Brigit, not about Mary. Another Brigitine hymn says of her that she did not love the world, but she perched in it ‘like a bird on a cliff’ and that: ... the saint slept a captive’s sleep for the sake of her Son. Not much to blame was found in her with the noble faith of the Trinity. Brigit, mother of my Lord… In this hymn Jesus is referred to again a little later as Brigit’s son: A tree that the host could not lift at another time – excellent tidings – Brigit’s Son brought to her… Elsewhere, in an Old Irish Life of Brigit, she is referred to as ala-Máire már Choimded máthair, ‘another Mary, mother of the great Lord.’ Enough has survived of this devotion to Brigit as ‘mother of the Lord’ to show that there was something in the Erfurt poet’s accusation. The Irish did seem to have an unusual way of expressing their devotion to Brigit – and not just when they were drunk, as the poet suggested. But though it may have been unusual, it is not at all unorthodox if we read it in the devotional sense in which it was intended. Of course, no one believed that Brigit had actually given birth to the child Jesus, but the image was a powerfully suggestive way of thinking about her sanctity. Medieval Irish writers explored this imagery in which motherhood was used to express Christian devotion – not only speaking of God as the mother of the Christian believer (an image which has always been part of the Christian repertoire), but by speaking of the Christian as the Lord’s mother, nursing the infant Christ. And they did this not only for Brigid, but also for other saints. Jesus against one’s heart A tenth century poem written in honour of Saint Ite, put into her mouth words that reflect exactly this image of the nursing mother. It is little Jesus who is nursed by me in my little hermitage. Though a cleric have great wealth, it is all deceitful save Jesukin. The nursing done by me in my house is no nursing of a base churl. Jesus with heaven’s inhabitants is against my heart every night. Little youthful Jesus is my lasting good: he never fails to give. …Though little Jesus be in my bosom (im ucht), he is in his mansion above. The poem is put into the mouth of a woman, here a sixth century nun, and it was written to be sung by women. And we might imagine that it would naturally be of more interest to women readers – especially perhaps women in monasteries whose work would very possibly include fostering and caring for abandoned children and others. Two other nuns have a similar story in the Martyrology of Oengus: ‘Eithne and Sodelb used to nurture Christ … and Christ used to come in the shape of a babe, so that he was in their bosom, and they would kiss him, and he baptised them.’ What better validation of their work could there be than the belief that the love such women poured out on children should join them to Christ? Men in a ‘maternal’ role But it is not only women who are shown taking Christ in their bosom and acting out this ‘maternal’ role. Adomnán, the ninth abbot of Iona, is seen in his Life in the same posture: ‘At another time when Adomnán was on Iona, he fasted in his closed house for three days and nights and did not come into the monastery. A few of the faithful went to the house to see how the cleric was. They looked through the keyhole and saw a very beautiful little boy in Adomnán’s lap (in-ucht). Adomnán was showing affection to the infant in a manner which convinced them that it was Jesus who had come in the form of a child in order to bring solace to Adomnán.’ We hear a similar story about St Moling after he has given assistance to a leper. The sick man disappears, and Moling thinks he may have been deceived and declares that he will neither eat nor drink till the Lord comes to him. An angel asks him, ‘In what form would you prefer your Lord to come and hold speech with you?’ And Moling replies that he wants to see him as a child. Some time afterwards Christ sat in his lap (ina ucht) and Moling caressed him until the morning. So both women and men were able to express their closeness to Christ through this imagery of nursing or caressing a child, and perhaps through the ordinary and everyday practice of caring for children in their own households, or their own monasteries. A perfectly natural picture of maternal affection is given new depth when it is seen as an image of the soul’s union with God – not the more usual one of the psalmist who says of his soul, ‘A weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul.’ This is a reversal: now it is God who is pictured as the child, and the Christian as the mother, protective, nourishing, playful. In a sense it is an unfolding of Christ’s teaching about welcoming children: ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me’ (Mark 9:37). Doing the Father’s will The same kind of language is also found in an early scholarly text with Irish connections, the Catechesis Celtica. Here the author looks at the story of the woman who cried out to Christ, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that gave you suck.’ Or as the author understood her to say, ‘If only you were my son!’ He notes Christ’s actual reply, ‘Blessed, rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it,’ and he combines these words with Christ’s words elsewhere: ‘Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Matthew 12:50) In other words, the author claims that Jesus is saying, ‘You can choose to be my mother, for it is within your reach. For if you keep the word of God, you will be my mother and you will not envy Mary. For Mary is blessed more in her having faith in Christ than she is in holding him in the flesh.’ Here there is less stress on the physical gestures of affection, the dandling and nursing of the child, and more on the Christian response to Christ in faith and love – doing the will of the Father. But it still points towards the same image of the Christian, male or female, as the Mother of the Lord. If at first sight the cult of Brigit as ‘mother of God’ looked a little strange, as it did to the Erfurt poet, on a deeper reading we begin to discover a certain richness in the idea. We find a sense that in caring for children, the weakest people in any society, men and women draw close to God. We always need images for our faith, ways of imagining the unimaginable. Here we find a new and fertile image of God, where feelings of tenderness and playfulness might offer a counterpoint to, for example, the holy fear of the just Judge, and an interplay with such images as the Potter, the Father, the Shepherd. Not just the Irish And we should also note that it is not an entirely novel image that the Irish invented, drunk or otherwise. Augustine offers an initial exploration of this very imagery in his short book On Holy Virginity. There he writes: ‘So they are mothers of Christ, along with Mary, if they do the will of the Father. … So every devoted soul is also his mother, as it does the will of his Father in a most fertile love...’ It was not only among the Gaels that this kind of imagery was popular, and in the middle ages women especially were to find ways of articulating their experience in the context of their faith in this kind of way. As Caroline Walker Bynum writes: ‘Secular society expected women to be intimately involved in caring for the bodies of others, especially the young, the sick and the dying… To some extent women simply took these ordinary nurturing roles into their most profound religious experiences. … Not only did female mystics kiss, bathe and suckle babies in visions and grieve with Mary as she received her son’s dead body for burial; they actually acted out maternal and nuptial roles in the liturgy, decorating life-sized statues of the Christ-child for the Christmas crèche.10 So we find examples outside the Gaelic world of simple and tender images such as those in this anonymous English poem in which the mother laments that she has no cloth to wrap up the infant Jesus to protect him from the cold, and instead she will hold his little feet against her breast. Jesu, sweete, be not wroth, Though I n’ave clout ne cloth Thee on for to fold, Thee on to folde ne to wrap, For I n’ave clout ne lap; But lay though thy feet to my pap And wite thee from the cold. Many nations and cultures, not only the Gaels, explored this imagery of the Christian disciple as the mother of God. The application of the Gaelic title már Choimded máthair to Brigit, ‘mother of the great Lord’, is not some kind of weird error or deviation. It is a natural flowering of the creative mind in love, part of that ever unfolding process of finding new ways to express the love poured into our hearts. This article first appeared in Spirituality, a publication of the Irish Dominicans.