St Brigid shrine photo CC courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishfireside/196492935/
Now after the spear had been given to him, Ruadan turned and wounded Goibniu. But he plucked out the spear and cast it at Ruadan, so that it went through him, and he died in the presence of his father in the assembly of the Fomorians. The Brig came and bewailed her son. She shrieked at first, she cried at last.
So that then for the first time crying and shrieking were heard in Erin. Now it was that Brig who invented a whistle for signaling at night.
- The Second Battle of Moytura.
In the modern western world the majority of us live in consumer oriented societies where ‘new’ products are constantly appearing to enrich our lives and longstanding brands seem to change to suit ‘new’ markets. The thatched cottages and wind blasted landscape aside, as a youth I inhabited a world shaped by markets and the ‘latest’ products.
During my youth I noticed three defining brand changes, or changes that at least meant something to my juvenile mind. Two of those changes were the names of chocolate bars. Marathon took on the cool American name Snickers; Opal fruits, the multi coloured super sugared toffee textured fruity greatness, became Starburst. The two products basically remained the same but regional marketing was swapped for a more uniform global brand model. The third thing that changed was something I considered far less important than chocolate; as I looked at spirituality for myself I noticed how something that to me had always been a boring bog standard Christian saint, all be it with some fun handicrafts associated with her, become a cool Pagan goddess.
When we as Neopagans look to legitimize our beliefs we tends to look towards history, to a time before our own. Maybe without considering it we hold a belief that older is more sacred – it is certainly a trait of ‘Celtic’ religion in Ireland. Here the vast majority of the traditionally sacred sites or fairy forts are usually antique medieval farms. But in many ways times before our own may not be devoid of many of the things we associate with our modern era. An example may be marketing where the pagan goddess and Saint Brigit are concerned, we may find that the Christian church of the early medieval employed very modern methods to win over our people towards a new religion.
When we look at the Saint and the famous Piseog – Saint Brigit’s Cross – as a form of non christian secular or pagan belief that survived attached to Christianity, it may be the case that the church took the Pagan goddess and very loosely rebranded her as a Christian to help convert people. Marketing under the circumstances may not be the modern thing we imagine it to be. Marathon bars were mundane and local but when they were renamed Snickers they became cool to a younger audience while keeping them to the same basic recipe kept the loyalty built up among older consumers. Maybe the Brig became Saint Brigit in the same way. A Christian rebranding of a deity that kept some old traits so she would still be familiar enough to attract Pagans.
Alternatively since marketing and consumer culture are modern things, are we projecting our modern lives onto the past in assuming that the Brig, a Pagan deity, is cognate with the Christian intercessor, Saint Brigit? In that case we as Neopagans in modern consumer cultures would be rebranding the Saint using an understanding gained from life in our era.
The Brigit’s Cross is one sedate version of many Piseogs in Irish culture, certainly it has a non-Christian element to it but far less then a Piseog bag filled with carefully chosen feathers, animal parts and stones that may be hung from a tree by someone wanting to curse you. It may just be as common an expression of Irish culture as preventing bad luck by saying ‘god bless the work,’ no more Pagan than a hurling match or visiting a friend to play cards at night.
If that is the case rather than Christians rebranding a Pagan loosely it would be we who are rebranding a Christian saint as loosely Pagan and we who preserve Christian traditions in our NeoPaganism.
A great portion of being Neopagan is educating ourselves so when we are faced with many choices we can make informed decisions. The issue of whether a saint is Pagan or not is one of those times when we all have to choose for ourselves. Without placing a value judgment on either view I think its interesting that a Pagan goddess, whether in the past or the modern world, became a popular brand name.