Saint Brigid & Glastonbury.

An Irish friend of mine has kindly sent me a St Brigid's Cross  (See photo) which reminded me that today is St Brigid's Day, so I thought I would promote a story I wrote last year about St Brigid to mark the occasion.........

February 1^st is the feast of Imbolc in the Celtic world. It is also known as St Brigid’s Day in the Christian calendar. It is one of four major Gaelic festivals. The others are Beltaine, Lunasa, & Samhain. Imbolc heralds the start of Spring and reawakening of the earth. Van Morrison fans will know that Samhain marks the start of the Celtic New Year. It is Saint Brigid that I want to talk about today. Along with St Patrick, Brigid is one of the two most important saints in Ireland. She is called Brigid of Kildare although she is thought to have been born near Dundalk, County Louth in 451 AD. In 480 AD she founded a monastery in Kildare on the site of an ancient pagan shrine dedicated to the goddess Brigid, from whom presumably she took her name. Here Brigid and her helpers tended an eternal flame. It was kept alight until being extinguished in the 16^th century and was restored in 1993. Brigid became known as ‘the keeper of the flame’ which leads me to another Van Morrison link because in his song Carrying A Torch Van sings ‘You are the keeper of the flame’. Did Van get this idea from the story of St Brigid? Probably not, but interesting anyway. Thanks to Brigid, Kildare became a great centre of religion and learning. She died in 525 AD.

What I have found personally especially interesting about Brigid is her links with the town of Glastonbury, which as you know is one of my favourite places. If you ever climb up Glastonbury Tor, just over the entrance to the tower you can see a carving of St Brigid milking a cow. 

On Glastonbury Tor.

St Patrick’s connections to Glastonbury are well documented and in St Patrick’s Chapel in the Abbey grounds there is a fresco depicting Brigid. The 12^th century historian William Of Malmsbury reported on her visit. He wrote, ’she left here some of her ornaments; that is to say, her necklace, bag, and implements for embroidering, which are yet shown in memory of her sanctity, and are efficacious in curing divers diseases’. In the 14^th century a Benedictine monk John Of Glastonbury also reported that there was a chapel dedicated to Brigid in the area of Glastonbury called Beckery also known as Little Ireland. Brides Mound in Beckery is named after Brigid and in 2004 two Brigadine sisters brought the restored perpetual flame from Kildare to a goddess conference ceremony in Glastonbury.

St Brigid in St Patrick's Chapel.

At the start of the 20th century a man in Glastonbury came across a tiny bell which experts found to be a Celtic bell, possibly 1,500 years old. It came eventually into the possession of Alice Buckton who thought it was likely to be St Brigid’s bell due to the similarity to St Patrick’s bell which was in the National Museum in Dublin. In 1913 Alice Buckton founded the Chalice Well in Glastonbury where she used the bell in ceremonies. One of her friends was Dion Fortune who wrote about her in her book Avalon Of The Heart. (Notice another Van Morrison link!) I visited Dion Fortune’s grave a few years ago and wrote a story about it. Alice Buckton died in 1944 and sadly the bell has not been seen since. I hope it is still hidden away somewhere in Glastonbury. 

Finally, In the centre of Glastonbury town there is a courtyard. I think it is called The Glastonbury Experience. There are little shops in there and a couple of statues. When I was looking for pictures to Illustrate this story, I remembered I had my photo taken in there with a female statue. She seemed to be wearing the right sort of Celtic type garb. I wondered if it was a statue of St Brigid. I googled ‘Brigid statue Glastonbury’ but could not see it. Even if it isn't her, which it probably isn't, I still like the photo, so I left it in.  Happy Imbolc & St Brigid's Day.