(Left, sometimes pilgrims hammer coins into the bark of a tree instead of tying clooties onto them. Photo © 1999 Shae Clancy.)

Imbolc: Feeding the Body & Soul

By Francine Nicholson

Imbolc is one of the four major festivals of the Celtic year. Celebrated today on 1 February, Imbolc marked the beginning of spring and coincided with the lambing season and the first ploughing in many areas. The success of all these events was of great importance to economies that relied on herding and farming. The earth must be reborn from its cold sterility if the crops were to be sown and succeed. Warm weather and soft rain were also essential.

The beginning of lambing season also brought fresh milk at the time of year when cow’s milk was generally unavailable, and the winter stores of root vegetables, grain, and meat were getting very low. Many of the Imbolc rituals focused on ensuring a steady supply of food until the harvest six months later.

In addition with the association with food production, Imbolc was also associated with rituals designed to promote human fertility and health. As the end of winter, Imbolc rites also focused on the increasing light and warmth.

Imbolc and the Celtic Year

When considering the characteristics of the ancient Celtic year, it’s important to recall that the ancient Celts used a calendar different from what we use today. The evidence for the original Celtic calendar derives chiefly from the inscriptions on a bronze plates found at Coligny (Burgundy) in 1897. The plates show a lunar calendar of twelve months, each consisting of 29 or 30 days. To bring this calendar into line with the movements of the sun, an extra month was inserted each third year. Months were marked either mat (good or auspicious) or anm (for anmat, inauspicious). Each month was split in two, perhaps according to the waxing and waning of the moon.

The ancient Celtic year was divided into four seasons - winter, spring, summer, and harvest - based on the needs of a herding and farming culture rather than the position of the sun. Each season began with a festival: Samhain (1 November), Imbolc (1 February), Beltaine (1 May), and Lughnasa (1 August). Pliny noted that the Celts began their months on the sixth of the moon (Mac Neill, p. 276) which suggests that the Celtic feasts would have originally been considered movable in terms of the fixed, solar-based Julian calendar imposed by the Romans. However, with the adoption of the Julian calendar and the later Gregorian calendar, the Celtic feasts were stabilized, at least nominally, at the so-called quarter-days. In practical fact, MacNeill notes that in more modern times, the feasts tended to be celebrated on the Sunday closest to the quarter-day.

The year was thought of in two halves: gam (cold, winter) and sam (warm, summer), which also corresponded to dark and light, rest and work, female and male. (Paterson, p. 117) The Celtic year began at Samhain with the cold, dark portion, just as the Celtic day began at dusk. Winter was associated with death, but it was also seen as the time of rest and regeneration necessary for rebirth. (Rees & Rees, 85-89)

The Social Roles of the Quarter-Days and Seasons

Specific agrarian tasks and special customs were associated with each feast. In the Christian period, the feasts were reassigned to church festivals and various saints became the focus of the rituals. Recent folklore studies have shown how much of the ancient practices survived well into this century, especially in rural areas.

What Nerys Patterson notes about early medieval Ireland also applies to other Celtic areas in northern Europe:

"underlying the social organization of time lay the cyclical rhythms of the animals that sustained human life. Of these the sheep seem to have played the leading role because of the narrow time-frame and inflexibility of two of its basic biorhythms, namely upland migration in spring and ovulation shortly after midsummer." (Patterson, p. 147)

Lambs were born around the time of Imbolc. At the same time, farmers began to plough the land in preparation for planting, or, in some areas, actually began planting. At the beginning of summer, Beltaine (1 May), after most crops had been planted, the sheep and cattle were moved to upland pastures, exploiting the sheep’s natural tendency to do so. This migration often entailed a separation of the household members with unmarried women and older children accompanying the animals for the summer, not to return until after the harvest.

Ewes were separated from lambs at midsummer to coincide with ovulation and encourage readiness to breed. Near Lughnasa (1 August), ewes and rams were reunited to breed a new generation of lambs. Lughnasa also marked the beginning of harvest.

By Samhain, harvest was complete; any grain and vegetables still left in the fields were abandoned as what was due to the spirits of the land and nature. Flocks and herds had returned from the upper pastures and surplus male animals were killed and butchered. Those who had been tending the flocks also returned home so that households were reunited before winter set in. Hunting ceased and, in medieval times, warriors stopped their raiding and warring until spring. Samhain was a time to enjoy with feasting on the harvest plenty, but it was also a time of supernatural instability. When one year ended and anotehr began, the boundaries between the worlds thinned and blended, and inhabitants from each world crossed back and forth, sometimes unintentionally.

Celtic society was organized as a system of clients - landed farmers - who depended on more powerful, wealthier lords for protection from enemies and sustenance in times of great need. In turn, clients owed a percentage of their crops and herds to their lords and, when called, participated in raids, hostings, and battles, generally during the summer.

Winter was the time when clients were expected to receive their noble lords as visitors, and pay their dues. Nobles took the opportunity to evaluate and re-establish alliances, negotiate marriages, and plot military strategy for the next summer.

By the time of Imbolc, winter supplies were getting low. The new food made available from milking ewes and newborn lambs could be crucial to a household’s survival until the new crops came in. (Patterson, pp. 119-147)

Though the quarter-days became associated with saints, as Patterson notes,

"The Church could not totally efface the indigenous social calendar because this was linked to important agricultural practices. The year’s round of human activities followed the overlapping cycles of growth in several living resources - grain, vegetables, fruit, flax, nuts, cattle, sheep, pigs, game, and bees, to name only the most important." (Patterson, p. 120)

The rituals at each quarter day were intended to ensure the success of the human and agricultural activities that would occur during the coming season.

The Etymology of Imbolc

Scholars have suggested several possible meanings for the word Imbolc, and all the suggestions correspond to aspects of the festival.

Hamp argues that the best meaning is "milking" (Ó Catháin, p. 7), but he also supports Vendryes’ suggestion that Imbolc comes from the Celtic verb folcaim, "I wash" and was related to ritual purification at the festival. This would also relate to the house cleaning, house blessing, and well devotions associated with Imbolc in recent folk practices.

Another possible explanation is "in the belly" which may relate to the processions held around the fields, often seen as th body of goddesses in which the grain and other crops would grow. This would also reflect the general association with rebirth of nature that was beginning at the time of Imbolc. (Berger, p. 70)

It may be worth noting that the Irish verb imbolgaid means to blow a bellows. Smithing was another aspect of Brigid, the goddess and saint often associated with Imbolc. One could visualize a ritual image of blowing the bellows to increase the fire that would warm the cold earth.

Imbolc and Brigid

Most of the Imbolc customs collected by folklorists are specifically associated with St. Brigid, the reputed founder and abbess of the double monastery at Kildare in Ireland. Modern popular writers have followed the lead of scholars such as Mac Cána and Sjoestedt in suggesting that these customs were originally associated with a pre-Christian Celtic goddess named Bríg or Bríd, and that such a goddess was one of the dominant figures in pre-Christian Ireland. More recently, scholars have questioned whether the pre-eminence of St. Brigid was due more to the vigorous public relations efforts of the medieval rulers of Leinster and the leaders of the monastery at Kildare than to the pre-Christian role of the goddess. (Herbert, p. 146) It is also likely that many of the known Imbolc ritual sites and customs were originally focused on other goddess figures, possibly the various forms of the Cailleach. The relation between the Cailleach and Bríg continues to be discussed.

Most of the folk customs depend on the belief that St. Brigid passes through communities on the eve of her feast, blessing homes and objects left out for her, acknowledging offerings of grain and food designated for her. In some places, it is believed that she joins the family meal, in others that she rests by hearths, perhaps leaving a mark of her favor. Clearly, Brigid was and is seen as a vital presence with active concern and compassion for those who call on her.

References

Pamela Berger, The Goddess Obscured, Beacon Press, 1985; ISBN 0-8070-6723-7

Máire Herbert, Iona, Kells, and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba, Four Courts Press, 1996; ISBN: 1-8518-2244-5

James Mac Killop, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, Oxford Univ Pr: 1998; ISBN: 0198691572

Máire Mac Neill, Festival at Lughnasa, Oxford Univ. Press, 1962

Séamas Ó Catháin, The Festival of Brigit, DBA Publications, 1995; ISBN 0-9519-6922-6

Nerys Paterson, Cattle Lords and Clansmen, Univ. Notre Dame Press, 1994; ISBN: 0-2680-0800-0

Alwyn & Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage, Thames & Hudson: 1989; ISBN: 0500270392

This article in the Celtic Well E-Journal is © Copyright 1999 by Francine Nicholson. Sections may be freely quoted, provided the author is properly cited with the URL and the words"electronic version." You may link to this site, but please do not copy this web page and its dependent web pages without contacting one of the Celtic Well List moderators.