Goddess of Flame and Craft

Brigid

Brigid or Brigit ( BRIJ-id, BREE-id, Irish: [ˈbʲɾʲiːdʲ]; meaning 'exalted one'), also Bríg, is a goddess of pre-Christian Ireland. She appears in Irish mythology as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the daughter of the Dagda and wife of Bres, with whom she had a son named Ruadán.
She is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing and domesticated animals. Cormac's Glossary, written in the 9th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was "the goddess whom poets adored" and that she had two sisters: Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith. This suggests she may have been a triple deity. She is also thought to have some relation to the British Celtic goddess Brigantia.
Saint Brigid shares many of the goddess's attributes and her feast day, 1 February, was originally a festival called Imbolc. It has thus been argued that the saint is a Christianization of the goddess, or that the lore of the goddess was transferred to her, and that Imbolc was originally associated with the goddess.

Name
Middle Irish Brigit [ˈbʲɾʲiʝidʲ] evolved into early modern Irish Brighid [bʲɾʲiːdʲ] and, after a spelling reform in 1948, the spelling was standardised as Bríd [bʲɾʲiːdʲ]. The earlier form gave rise to various forms in the languages of Europe, starting from the Medieval Latin Brigida, and from there to English Bridget, French Brigitte, Swedish Birgitta or Birgit and Finnish Piritta.
The name comes from Proto-Celtic Brigantī and means "the high one" or "the exalted one". It is cognate with the name of the ancient British goddess Brigantia, with whom Brigid is thought to have some relation. It is also cognate with the Old High German personal name Burgunt, and the Sanskrit word Bṛhatī (बृहती) "high", an epithet of the Hindu dawn goddess Ushas. The ultimate source is Proto-Indo-European bʰr̥ǵʰéntih₂ (feminine form of bʰérǵʰonts, "high"), derived from the root bʰerǵʰ- ("to rise"). Xavier Delamarre, citing E. Campanile, suggests that Brigid could be a continuation of the Indo-European dawn goddess.…

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Encounters mentioning Brigid

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