Celtic Priestess/Goddess Brigid
By Morgaine

Brigid has taken on several incarnations, including Goddess, daughter of a Druid, Priestess, as well as Catholic saint and nun. According to the Catholic Church, Brigid/St. Bridget was the daughter of pagan man and slave woman. The story goes that she was a strong girl who was very generous and determined to lead a life that did not include marriage. Brigid is noted as being a goddess of generosity, too. Coincidently, the saint became a nun at the very monastery that once was a shrine to the Goddess Brigid -or was it a coincidence?

The shrine of Brigid at Kildare, Ireland was a learning center for herb-lore, agriculture, and blacksmithing. At the site of the shrine, there was an ancient Oak that was so sacred, anyone visiting the site could not bring weapons.

In addition to being an agricultural learning center, the shrine of Kildare was a place where priestesses trained. It was a vigorous erudition that spanned thirty year and included guarding sacred wells, groves, hills of the Goddess Brigid and to oversee the education of other priestesses-in-training.

Another very important duty for the priestesses of Kildare shrine was to guard a perpetual flame to the Goddess Brigid that came up from a stone, known as the Stone of Brigid. Perhaps the incarnation of this tradition is in the Christianized Candlemas festival that is celebrated on the same day as Brigid's feast. Like early worshippers of Brigid, parishioners use fire as a symbol of faith. Nonetheless, nineteen priestesses took turns guarding the flame for nineteen days. On the twentieth day, Brigid tended to the flame herself.

Supposedly, when the shrine of Brigid became the St. Mel's monastery roughly around 492, nuns took over where priestess left off in tending to the flame. The flame is supposed to still be burning even to this day at St. Bridget's Church in Kildare, the original site of the shrine to Brigid. 

Perhaps when the site became a monastery, the image of Brigid was incarnated from Goddess to saint or perhaps more intriguingly from priestess to nun. In any event, one cannot ignore the parallelisms between the metamorphosis of the shrine at Kildare and that of a certain convent ruin at Glastonbury, England.

Friend, Pat. "St. Brigid of Kildare: Generous, Handsome and Brave." 2005. 28 Jan. 2006. http://allaboutirish.com/library/people/brigid.shtm

"Brigid, Goddess of Fire." The Goddess Path. 2005. 28 Jan. 2006.
http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/celtic-goddess-brigid.htm

Other sites of interest:

Brigid, the Celtic Goddess: http://druidry.org/obod/deities/brigid.html
Brigid's stone: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Brigid.htm
Brighid, Goddess and Saint: http://www.brighid.org.uk/