Now the Southern Celts look for the first signs of the return of light and warmth following the dark and cold of Alban Arthan. Candles are lit to dispel the darkness at the Southern Feast of St Brigid - traditionally in threes for the triple nature of each of our Celtic goddesses. We are an agrarian and pastoral people - that is our origins. The three symbols of our people; The Sun, The Plough and the Hazelnut Tree. This time is the time of lambing and the suckling of the new-borne lambs by the ewes - a common sight in rural New South Wales at this time. Bolg means to swell - it symbolises pregnancy and fertility. Here in Sydney city, ringed by bushland, the first signs that Spring is coming are the masses of pink flowering Sydney Boronia followed by Eriostemon and now the "sun-gold' of Sydney Golden Wattle. We celebrated it here with "Wattle Day" on August 1.

Brigid is a triple goddess, her name meaning 'exalted one', and she was associated with healing, fertility, crafts, poetry and learning. The daughter of the Daghda and wife of Bres. She became a Christian saint.

See the Wiki article Imbolg.

Imbolg is one of the four main festivals of the Celtic calendar. Note this Wiki article documents the obvious continuity of Celtic culture down from Megalithic times, but fails to reach the logical conclusion that the Megalithic period was just an ealry cultural phase of Celtic culture. See my main article on this at Megalithic Celts. To quote from the Wiki article:

"That Imbolc was an important time to the ancient inhabitants of Ireland can be seen at a number of Megalithic and Neolithic sites, such as at the Loughcrew burial mounds and the Mound of the Hostages at the Hill of Tara. At these sites in County Meath the inner chamber of the passage tombs is perfectly aligned with the rising sun of both Imbolc and Samhain, similar to the Winter Solstice phenomena seen at Newgrange, where the rising sun shines down the passageway and illuminates the inner chamber of the tomb."

For our North American readers the Wiki article sees a possible origin of Grounghog Day in the date and nature of the festival::

"Imbolc is traditionally a time of weather prognostication, and the old tradition of watching to see if serpents or badgers came from their winter dens is perhaps a precursor to the North American Groundhog Day. A Scottish Gaelic proverb about the day is:

Thig an nathair as an toll
La donn Bride,
Ged robh tri traighean dh’ an t-sneachd
Air leachd an lair.

The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground."

Click on the link below to Shawn McLaughlin's travel pictures we site to see the snake engraving at the Bryn Celli Ddu Celtic Megalithic monument on Ynys Mon - henge built at site at 3,000 BC with tomb built at 2,000 BC - that shows the remarkable cultural continuity of us Celts. In our tradition, the snake is associated with fertility just as with our Goddess and Saint Brigid:

http://www.qsov.com/UK2003/Photos/23BrynCelliDduextpillar_tif.jpg

This picture is from Shawn's 2003 trip to Ynys Prydain and Cymru - see his other pictures from this trip of Proto-Insular-Celtic Neolithic settlements such as Old Sarum from 3,000 BC and Stonehenge from 4,000 BC (see Robin Hood's Ball) at:

http://www.qsov.com/UK2003/UK2003.html

From another trip to Alba he has excellent pictures of a Proto-Insular-Celtic Neolithic monument famous in the ancient world - the winged moon temple at Callanish which has raised agricultural beds nearby:

http://www.qsov.com/UK2007/UK2007.html

As the Wikipedia article explains:

The stones in folklore and popular culture

Local tradition says that giants who lived on the island refused to be converted to Christianity by Saint Kieran and were turned into stone as a punishment. Another local belief says that at sunrise on midsummer morning, the "shining one" walked along the stone avenue, "his arrival heralded by the cuckoo's call." This legend could be a folk memory recalling the astronomical significance of the stones [and of the great Proto-Celtic Megalihtic Civisisation].

More continuity of Celtic culture from many thousands of years ago from the Early Neolithic and even earlier. Read my articles for more information on this:

http://www.celticheritage.org/MegalithicCelts.php

http://www.celticheritage.org/SteveJones.php

Shawn has inspired me to put up my own pictures of Proto-Celtic Megalithic sites from Breizh (including the massive 4,800 BC chambered tomb at Barnenez), Alba and Eireann - stay tuned for more...

Bob Jones July-August 2009