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Yes, the first of February is Imbolc, but we call it Brigid's Day here. Tomorrow Beira, the Queen of Winter, chooses whether we will endure more of the season. If she decides to make us suffer, she will go to gather firewood, and will keep the sky fine for her labours, and then winter will cling to the land for another turn of the moon. So we hope for rain and foul weather. It does sound strange doesn't it? But that's the way of things. There's another song for Brigid too, we say 'Early on Brigid's morn shall the serpent come from the hole. I will not harm the serpent, nor will the serpent harm me.' You knew that? We have neddres here. They are vipers, but we are taught to be careful. They mean no harm.
So tomorrow we will celebrate the fat bellies of our ewes, we will hope for healthy lambs, we will share our longing for the taste of sweet fresh sheep's milk and sing to each other and grow giddy with joy at the promise of cheese. The days will grow longer, the buds will bloom, Brigid will wave her birch wand and the crofts will green again, and we will replenish our stores. The ground will be soft anew underfoot.
That is why today I am away to gather the rushes for Brigid. Why has my mother sent you with me? The path goes down to the river. I have taken it many times before. The water is fast there. It is where we wash our linens come summer, when we must pin the cloth tight to make sure they are not swept away. The rushes grow by the shore. My mother and sisters and I will weave them into the four-armed cross, to place above the doors, and give to our neighbours.
Are you an abbot? Is that why you've come here? Our priest says we are wicked and must call Brigid a holy woman. But here we do not do everything that our priest says. We keep the old ways. My grandmother will lay a bed for Brigid in the barn, a blanket, a candle, a dolly of last year's corn. I hope one day to see her, we all do, but we only find marks in the ashes of the fire, and once I found a long red hair.
Come on, hurry. I've been talking too much again as mother always says. Through the gate just here. This is where we fodder the pigs at Mabon. They're beech woods, you see, the pigs eat the mast.
Mind your footing, the ground is frozen. Eithne turned her ankle here and was limping like an old ewe for a full week! Take my hand. I may be small, but I am strong.
———
Mother he took my hand and it was like the spring had come, but inside my own body. I felt everything, I felt every speck and bundle of life in that wood reaching its soul toward him, I felt his strong hand and the warmth reached through me from my feet to the tips of my ears. Aye just from the touch of his hand. And then, oh. A magpie flew over us and into the low branches and she stopped and cocked her head at him. Yes! Just one and I know what that means. I'd turned my head away to spit and— oh I swear it. Brigid was there. Away down the path. There was a woman there in a dark, dark gown, so tall, with beautiful red hair all combed down her back. But she was looking at him. She knew him, mother. And I could see her eyes— her eyes were russet like the neddre. And where our hands were still joined I felt— Oh I felt the bitterest sorrow. As if I would be left alone all my long life. She was the only thing in that wood to flee from him.
