Imbolc

Imbolc fell around the first of February, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and marked the earliest stirrings of spring. Its name is generally connected to ewes coming into milk ahead of lambing, the first sign that the year was turning away from winter's scarcity.

The festival belonged above all to Brigid, goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft, whose feast day it became. Households marked the day with rites of purification and protection — cleaning the home, weaving Brigid's crosses from rushes, and leaving out food or a length of cloth for the goddess to bless as she passed on the eve of her feast.

After Ireland's conversion to Christianity, the festival's customs carried over almost intact onto Saint Brigid's Day, making it one of the clearest examples of an Irish deity's feast surviving under a saint's name rather than disappearing.