Brighid’s Cross – Draft
by: Rose Welsh (Cill Vervain)

A Christian King was dying. On his death bed he began lamenting that he’d forgotten the old ways of his youth. He had been born and raised a pagan but he had converted after he’d become King.

A servant girl overheard his cries, which were worried over and finally ignored by the priest. When the priest had gone to get his evening meal the servant girl she snuck into the Kings room and comforted him in her promise to help him remember the ways of his youth. To do this she pulled rushes from her apron and began weaving a four armed cross, she called Brigid’s Cross for the goddess of her people. She explained to the King that in the old days his people worshipped the sund for it’s life giving properities. Each arm of the cross represented a holy day on the old calendar: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnassad. She explained the importance of each holy day to the King.

Once the servant was done with her weaving and storytelling the king realized that in his conversion to Christianity he had lost his connection to the Land and his ancestors and the people. Realizing that he could not force a re-paganizing of Ireland, as Christianity had become a way of life for them, he called the priest in to his bedside and rescinded his order to banish all traces of the old ways from Christian practice. In fact, he ordered that the priest actively preserve what was left of the old ways in the Irish practice of Christianity. The priest, coming from Druid stock himself, was relieved and set about preserving what he could. This practice became known as Celtic Christianity.

As the king died, it is said that he held both the Brigid’s Cross and the Christian crucifix to his heart and that both Brigid and Jesus took him into the Otherworld.

This article is Copyright 2004 to Melody Dickinson (Rose Welsh), member of Cill Vervain. This article may not be reproduced in part or in whole. Please contact the webmistress so that she may put you in contact with the author of this work.

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