The Genealogy of Bride

When I was writing the last Raven Newsletter it was just at the end of January, just before the festival of Imbolg. The logical thing to write about would have been the Goddess associated with this festival: Brigit, Bride, the White Goddess, or even Mary of the Gaels. But I decided against it as I thought I have written about her loads of times, and very often at this time of year.
     So instead I limited myself to a couple of pieces about Bride from the Carmina Gadelica collected by Alexander Carmichael, one of which is:

The Genealogy of Bride

The genealogy of the holy maiden Bride,

Radiant flame of gold, noble foster-mother of Christ

Bride the daughter of Dugal the brown

Son of Aodh, Son of Art, Son of Conn,

Son of Crearer, son of Cis, son of Carina, Son of Carruin.

Every day and every night

That I say the Genealogy of Bride

I shall not be killed, I shall not be harried,

I shall not be put in a cell,  I shall not be wounded

Neither shall Christ leave me in forgetfulness.

No fire, no sun, no moon shall burn me,

No lake, no water, nor sea shall drown me,

No arrow of fairy nor dart of fay shall wound me

And I under the protection of my Holy Mary

And my gentle foster-mother in my beloved Bride

The Genealogy of Bride is a very Celtic prayer. It reminds us of the time before writing, when one of the functions of the Druids, the Celtic priesthood, was to remember the genealogy of the kings and nobles of the tribes. The Genealogy of Bride quotes nine generations, which would be memorised and added to as children and grandchildren were born. How many of us can go back more than a couple of generations in our own families, without doing lots of research on the internet etc? Yet here we have nine generations listed which tie Bride closely into her Celtic ancestry.
       But this is essentially the christian version of Bride, the saint who took over all the attributes of her Pagan self. Even so there are some strange anomalies in the legend of this 'person' Bride who became a saint. She is called the 'noble foster-mother of Christ' which would be a physical impossibility for a human born in the 5th century c.e., yet there are many references to her helping or accompanying the Virgin Mary, and in some cases she takes over the attributes of the Virgin and is known as Mary of the Gaels.
     These all reveal a very ancient and well loved Goddess who simply could not be suppressed when christianity became the dominant religion.