Celebrated on or around February 1, Imbolc is also known as Oimelc or Brigid's Feast. This mid-Winter feast day symbolized the first stirring of the Earth from its icy sleep and was the time for caring of the sheep in ancient Ireland. Brigid was an incarnation of the Great Mother--reborn each spring at the navel of the earth, the sacred Oimelc, or Well--she was patroness of poetry, healing and metalsmithing: she rekindled the fire in the Earth, preparing it for new life, which was manifested by the first milk of the ewes, a few weeks before the lambing season. Brigid was seen as a young Virgin, and Celts came to associate her with the Virgin Mary, leading to such names for the feast as Gwyl Mair Dechrau'r, "The Feast of Mary of the Beginning of Spring", also known in the Church as Candlemas, when candles-in ancient connection with the fire goddess-were brought to Church to be blessed.