Note: I’ve updated this post many times over the years; this is the latest version.
I love the ancient feast days that once celebrated the turn of the seasons. Take the old Celtic spring “feis” (feast or festival) known as Imbolc, Imbolg, or Brigid’s Feast of Fire, one of my personal favorites. It inaugurated the light half of the year, personified as the goddess Brigid, who released the land and waters from winter’s icy grip.
Over the years, I’ve baked sunny lemon tarts, golden seeded cakes, braided bread, oat bannocks, and barley pies; I’ve fried golden pancakes, made fresh cheeses, savory soups, and side dishes; and concocted creamy libations, all inspired by the folklore of “Bright” or “Exalted” one and her Feasting Tables. Imbued with the power of the sun, butter, cream, fresh cheese, not to mention a wee bit of whiskey, these foods ensured Brigid’s blessing of fertility, health, and abundance for the land, water, animals, and the people.
I’ve come to believe there is more to these folkloric customs than sympathetic magic. The Celts understood how the movements of the sun and the moon affected the earth and waters below. Long before St. Brigid’s Day was fixed to Feb. 1st, the onset of spring occurred the moment Brigid begins her return to earth, the cross-quarter day (the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox).
This celestial moment is reflected by Ireland’s and Scotland’s megalithic landscape, passage tombs, earth mounds, and stone circles. While the Celts did not build these sites, according to Celtic scholar Ellen Ettlinger, they were once the location of important fire festivals/feasts such as Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasa. Imbolc was held near sacred places, such as the Irish Hill of Tara, where the inner chambers are illuminated by a shaft of light on the days just before, during, and after the cross-quarter day.
In Scottish legend, the old crone of winter, Cailleach, is the reputed builder of these megaliths, waits on Imbolc Eve for the first glimmer of dawn, then drinks from the miraculous well of youth, and is transformed into Bride, who turns the bare earth green again. Could this be more than a motif of rebirth and the continuing cycle of life, but a clue to an ancient life-enhancing “technology”? See more here.
In this post, I explore “alternative” geomantic research that reveals that as the sun touches the stones, they are charged with an electromagnetic energy field in the form of geospirals, which, in turn, release negative ions from the water. These shift the brain into deeply relaxed states of heightened creativity, inspiration, and intuition, and produce healing effects, such as increased cellular rejuvenation. Aspects all attributed to Brigid.
I also find it fascinating that studies of the multitude of seed remains found at megalithic sites around the world, many brought from vast distances, suggest these sites were used to enhance food production. During certain solar alignments, monuments such as passage tombs generate a fertilizing “spiral” energy, and seeds sprouting within these fields grew more quickly, produced more vigorous, larger plants, and doubled, if not tripled, crop yields.
Could this explain why Brigid was seen as an “embodiment of the supernatural cauldron of plenty,” as Kerry Noonan, author of Got Milk?: The Food Miracles of St. Brigid of Kildare suggests? Butter, bread, cakes, and milk also play a big role in the food miracles of St. Brigid, the patron saint of dairy. On Imbolc Eve, she wanders the land, and breads, oatcakes, and special cakes were left for her on the doorstep and in the barn. With St. Brigid’s blessings, the cows give double their usual yield; dairy churnings are increased to fill many vessels with butter, and the bread supply is always sufficient for guests.
Is this folklore the remnants of an ancient form of natural magic? Was Brigid a personification of solar fire, energizing the land and waters at this time? I think so. Today, her holy wells throughout the British Isles remain pilgrimage sites on St. Brigid’s Day. People wait till the sunlight strikes the water before bathing and drinking it in. In many places, butter is still tossed into holy wells at dawn to release the water’s healing power, allowing its fertilizing, warming properties to flow through the land.
And in a time when food stores began to run thin, the melting snow and first appearance of her swelling buds and green shoots was a time to celebrate the return of the season of plenty. So I invite you to join me in celebrating the old magic of ‘as above, so below’ – and you don’t need a megalith or a holy well. By observing the cross-quarter point, this year, February 3rd, you will be celebrating this magical day in harmony with the great cycles of nature that shape life on the planet. Seems to me this naturally ensures healing, fertility, and abundance!
So, whether we’re talking creamy dairy and rich butter, toasty oats and barley, honey, eggs, wild berries, wild greens, or aromatic sun herbs – not mention a splash of red ale and Irish whiskey, here is my round-up of some of the most magical foods of Imbolc – with links.
Let’s begin with dairy, called bánbhia, white food or white meats, which were the mainstay of the Irish diet before the potato arrived in the sixteenth century. Consumed fresh, cultured into buttermilk, cream, curds, cheese, and butter, bánbhia are among the most important foods in Irish feasts. The word Imbolc is said to derive from the Old Irish Imbolg, meaning in the belly, a time when pregnant ewes began to provide the first of the season’s milk, known as “Oilmec” or “new milk”. Symbolizing purity, rebirth, and renewal, this first milk was offered to Brigid by pouring it upon the earth, nourishing, purifying, and preparing for the new life to come. It was made into special cheeses and featured in milk dishes and drinks for the feast.
Butter was another important ritual food. According to historian Kevin Danaher in The Year in Ireland, butter served on Brigid’s Feast Day had to be churned on that day. This may have been because, according to this wonderful source of Imbolc folklore and history, the churning of butter with a dash (a staff or plunger) was necessary for the fertilization of the Brídeóg (a doll or effigy of Brigid). See more on the Bridey Doll here. In some areas, an effigy of Brigit was made out of a butter churn handle and taken from house to house.
Bees and honey were sacred to Brigid. Honey was golden and filled with the power of the sun, and was always included with fresh bread and butter on the Imbolc table. Seeded cakes, bread, and buns were also on the Imbolc menu as seeds symbolized the growth of new life. During Imbolc, ancient grains such as oats and barley (grown in Ireland since the Neolithic) were made into round bread, cakes, and desserts, often featuring sacred foods such as butter, milk, and eggs baked inside, as in the recipes below.
The Bonnach Bride (in Ireland) or Bannock of Bride (in Scotland) was a kind of unleavened oatcake left out on Imbolc Eve as an offering to Brigid and to gain her blessings of fertility, prosperity, and good health. Bannocks were also eaten in the fields so that a piece could be thrown over the shoulder to honor Brigid and nourish the land.
It was also common to save the last piece in a cupboard to ensure there would be enough flour to last out the year. And it was possible to avert any bad omens or bad luck by serving the cake with plenty of butter to your guests without asking.”
Pancakes were another common food eaten because they were round and golden like the sun. This promised an abundant wheat harvest, and saving the last pancake in the cupboard ensured there would be enough flour to last out the year. Wishes were made on Shrove Tuesday, while flipping a pancake in the air, and trinkets were also placed into pancake batter as a way to divine one’s prospects for the forthcoming year.
Pancakes and crepes are also an official food of the Christian Feast of St. Brigid, a fantastically popular figure in the Middle Ages. During Candlemas, Feb. 2nd, a “mass” of candles is held – hence the name Candlemas. Much of Brigid’s mythology (and her pancakes) was absorbed into the cult of St. Brigid.
St. Brigid was believed to be a healer and teacher of ‘herbcraft,” so many plants and flowers sacred to her (such as sage, heather, chamomile, bay, and rosemary) have become part of the Imbolc food lore. Rosemary and sage bring their powers of purification and cleansing, so ritually important at this time of new beginnings.
These herbs were originally introduced by the Romans, as were poppy seeds, symbolising fertility and plenty. Today, poppy seeds are often included in modern Imbolc celebrations—perhaps a lingering legacy of Roman culinary traditions.
Savillum was an ancient Roman cheesecake sprinkled with poppy seeds. Made with a simple mixture of soft, fresh cheese, flour, eggs, and honey, it would be equally at home on Bridget’s Feasting Table. I created the version above for Brigantia, sister to the Irish Brigid and the Scottish Bride, whose name also stems from the Proto-Celtic root Brigantī, meaning the “Bright,” “Exalted,” or “Queenly” One. (Recipe available here)
The word “bride” has etymological roots in growth and flourishing, and in the Middle Ages, Bride Pies were essential to a couple’s future happiness, fertility, and prosperity. They contained many ingredients, including butter, cream, egg yolks, honey, seeds, dried fruits, nuts, and spirits, still used in many traditional wedding cakes. In the 15th century, St. Bride’s Wedding Steeple was said to have inspired today’s iconic tiered wedding cake.
It’s also probable that the new greens and early spring herbs were also part of Brigid’s Feast. Wild garlic has been used as a herb since the days of the Celts. According to this amazing book, nettles, chickweed, burdock, sheep sorrel, wood sorrel, yarrow, wild mustards, and winter cress were common potherbs consumed in the UK in spring pottages and stews.
Here on Vancouver Island, many of the first wild plants, herbs, and blossoms to emerge in spring (dandelion, wild onion, wild mustard, cowslip, gorse) were originally native to Ireland and are part of Irish cuisine. Many other food plants have native relatives here and were part of the diet of First Nations of Vancouver Island: edible seaweeds, salmon, bog cranberries (mónóg in Irish), blackberries, huckleberries (known as bilberries (fraochán in Ireland)), crabapples, wild strawberries, elderberries, and hazelnuts.
The hearty wild onion soup (pictured below) is inspired by Brotchan Foltchep, considered the most traditional of all Irish soups, and the key element was usually oatmeal. Foltchep is a word for leeks, but before they were cultivated, wild leeks and wild onions were used -so my version is inspired by local versions of wild onion, such as Allium Vineale.
In the late 16th century (when the potato first arrived in Ireland), a dish called Colcannon, made of mashed potato, cabbage, herbs, greens, butter, and wild onion, was added to the list of now-traditional Imbolc dishes. And it was customary for the whole family to be involved in the mashing!
Dandelion is another plant associated with Imbolc. In Gaelic Irish, dandelion is called lus Bhríd (Brigid’s plant) or Bearnán Bríd (indented one of Brigid), where “lus” is the Irish equivalent of the English “wort,” or “plant.” She was also known as the Flame of Brigid, no doubt due to her sun-like corona of golden flowers. I used the first tender leaves for these savory and serpentine pastry spirals.
Blackberries were sacred to Brigid and used in both protection and prosperity magic, and luckily, I had loads in the freezer. Back in the day, they were probably used dried or infused in spirits to preserve them.
Saint Brigid is said to have founded the famed monastery in Ireland called Kildare or Cill Dara, means ‘Church of the Oaks suggesting it was once a pre-Christian sanctuary. Legend has it that in ancient times, Brigid’s eternal flame was tended by 19 priestesses and dedicated to women’s mysteries, forbidden to men. In the Middle Ages, the churchman Gerald of Wales visited Kildare and wrote, “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.2”
Today, whether it’s in honor of the old Goddess or the Saint ( or some combination of both!), women in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales still light candles in their windows so that Brigid can find her way to their door. They set a place at the table for Brigid and placed an oatcake on the doorstep in thanksgiving for the plenteous crop and good luck during the following year.
I cannot tell you how much these old food customs delight me. While I have no Irish blood (of which I am aware), the Celts migrated from France (particularly Brittany), home to many of my ancestors. I’m deeply inspired by the rolling green hills, rocky outcroppings, and mild moist climate of Vancouver Island -which share many similarities to the island of Ireland. So while the rest of Canada may be buried under snow, as in Ireland, the first shimmering of new life and spring appears just in time for Imbolc.
The idea of food magic may seem strange, but I understand that for our ancestors, it was an act of faith in blessings to come. That’s what I love about these old-world rituals. In sympathetic magic, “like begets like,” so fires create warmth, light increases light, golden round pancakes bring on the sun, and feasting begets more feasting! A cause for culinary celebration indeed!
So here’s to the coming of the light. Raise a toast to the sun, bake a golden cake, and welcome the arrival of the Goddess of Spring! Then sit back and enjoy – let your blessings roll in!
