Brigid's Cloak: A Ritual for Imbolc

Imbas Dispatch #16

A Chairde, Friends,

We are crossing the threshold into Imbolc, Brigid’s time and so I’m sending this Imbas Dispatch a week early in honour of our Bríd, Goddess and mystic Saint… and purveyor of magical cloaks.

Enchanted mantles are not just reserved for the school population of Hogwarts, they are alive in our ancestral traditions in the Celtic Isles. In Old Irish, the word bratt or brat means, ‘cloak, mantle, covering, a cloth’. As a side note (just because this is fascinating), there’s an Old Irish term for placenta, bratt boinne, which roughly translates as cloak or mantle (as above) and ‘torrent, flood, stream, current, wave’. The placenta cloaks the wave of lifeforce flowing from a mother to her babe. How magnificent is that? And of course, Brigid is a deity associated with midwifery and childbirth.

OK, back to the magical cloak…

There are many examples of magical cloaks in Celtic mythology, and what’s intriguing here is that they tend to embody the essence of their wearer. Whatever essence you hold, your mantle will reflect this.

For example, Manannán Mac Lir, God of the Sea, possesses a wondrous cloak that can take on the iridescent colours of the sea and in doing so, makes him invisible. This is important because Manannán, like the Greek god Hermes, is a psychopomp; he guides the soul to move between worlds—to move between our waking reality and his invisible islands in the Otherworld. We only really see these islands when we're invited to make an otherworldly quest.

Manannán can shake his cloak to induce a mist that causes memory loss, in ways like the dreamscape. In our night dreams, we journey deep into the waters of the unconscious and are offered guidance for our lives through image and symbol that can dissipate like mist when we wake. The job with myth, dreams and all of soul work is - to remember.

We encounter another magical cloak with the divine herbalist of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Airmid, who comes from a lineage of healer gods. Following the death of her brother at the hands of her jealous father, Airmid grieves holy tears over her brother’s body, causing 365 herbs to emerge from his corpse.

She then spreads her mantle, collecting and organising these sacred herbs. Afterwards, her father comes and mixes them up so that no one can know their healing properties. This knowledge is already embodied in Airmid’s cloak as an extension of her being, which makes her the only one in Ireland who knows the true secrets of our native plants.

There are multiple tales about Brigid’s magical cloak (Brat Bhríde), here’s one from our national folklore collection:

There was a king in the Curragh of Kildare long, long ago in the time of St. Brigid. He had two horse’s ears and he was so much ashamed of them that he wore his hair very long to cover them. Any one who cut the king’s hair had to be put to death for fear the barber would reveal the secret. St. Brigid shaved his hair and by a miracle when she had finished, the king put up his hand and found he had two ears like every other person. The king was so delighted that he said he would give Brigid anything she would ask. She said all she wanted was only as much land as her cloak would cover. She put the cloak on the ground and it spread and spread until a large part of the plain was covered. Here she founded a church and a convent and thousands used to come for alms and those who were sick came to be cured.

Dúchas, The School’s Collection, Volume 0367

There are variations of this tale where the king, chieftain or farmer scoffs at the size of Brigid’s mantle, and basically says, yeah go on have whatever land your cloak covers. Brigid uses her magic to grow her cloak so large that it covers enough land for her to build her dual-monastery at Cill Dara, ‘Church of the Oak’, now the modern-day county of Kildare. This became a flourishing centre for learning, creativity and the arts, which may have existed on a pre-Christian temenos, perhaps once dedicated to the Goddess with Brigid incarnate continuing the work of the divine as a mystic Saint.

Brat Bhríde Ritual

‘Under a cloak of invisibility, at the behest of a god, in the alchemist’s laboratory, at night under the influence of “unsettling dreams” or wrapped up in a cocoon, the radical changes wrought by metamorphosis come about through intense incubation and release of libido.’

Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS)

Cloaks are symbols of shapeshifting, transformation and metamorphosis. They release libido in the sense of new lifeforce, of the greening power of viriditas, especially in this time of spring. That’s why the cloak reflects the energy of the wearer.

And so, what lifeforce are you channelling into your life as we cross this threshold into Imbolc? What seeds that incubated in Samhain’s soil are now ready to spring? It’s time to ask Brigid for healing so that these shoots can burst forth into fruition.

This Irish tradition is called the Brat Bhríde, meaning, yes, you guessed it, ‘Brigid's Cloak’. The mantle is a little piece of cloth or ribbon you leave on your windowsill, beside your door, or in your garden for Brigid to bless as she travels by with her coven of holy women and her white cow with red ears, a Celtic symbol of the Otherworld and of the Goddess.

It is believed that this ritual will ward off illness for both the human and animal world for the year ahead by creating a healing strip to use when needed. It is said to be an especially effective remedy for headaches, toothaches, fever, to comfort women during bleeding, for fertility and childbirth, but it can be used for any healing from Brigid.

On Oíche Fhéile Bhríde, ‘Brigid’s Eve’, 31st January, or any day around this time, this is an invitation to:

1. Light a candle to represent Brigid’s perpetual flame.

2. Hold your piece of cloth in your hands, close your eyes, breathe, and with your breath blow your healing petition into your Brat Bhríde.

3. Place the cloth on your windowsill, outside your front door, or on a tree or plant.

4. Invoke your request with your energy by speaking it out loud.

5. The following morning, pick up your cloth. Spend sacred time in silence meditating with it.

6. You can then place your Brat Bhríde on your altar or keep it in a specific place to use as required. Some folk like to carry it with them, whatever feels true for you.

Wishing you a glorious crossing into this season of Imbolc. 💚

Croí isteach,

Jen x