Mother's Day - The Celtic Connection and Modern History
We now celebrate Mother’s Day in the United Sates on the second Sunday
in May because we all have mothers, and because of a joint resolution
passed by the US Congress in 1914. Mother’s Day is celebrated on many different
dates depending on the country and their traditions and much of this stems
from the efforts of one extremely dedicated individual Anna Jarvis of West
Virginia and later Pennsylvania. Anna Jarvis’s concept of Mothers Day
has changed radically here in the United States over the years – even
during her lifetime much to her dislike, but we will get to that part of the story
later, first – the Celtic connection.
The earliest Mother’s day celebrations can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. In the British Isles and Celtic Europe, the goddess Brigid, and later her successor the Christian St. Brigid (or Brighid), were honored with a spring Mother’s Day, connected with the first milk of the ewes. Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc, two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes or the “time of milking,†the flow of milk that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. It was a time of raising newborn animals and planting crops. Candles were lit in barns and dairies for luck and families with brindled (streaked), red-eared or pure white cattle in their herd during Imbolc were sure that the fairies would favor them with prosperity. Later, the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the Light-Bringer over lights both pagan and Christian celebrations.
SAINT BRIGID OF IRELAND
With the coming of Christianity, the powerful energy of the pagan goddess was transmuted into Ireland’s much-loved saint, second only to Patrick himself. Her transformation happened almost literally in Drumeague, County Cavan, at a place called “The Mountain of the Three Gods.†Here a stone head of Brigid was worshipped as a triple deity, but with the coming of Christianity, it was hidden in a Neolithic tomb. Later it was recovered from its burial-place and mounted on a local church where it was popularly canonized as “St. Bride of Knockbridge.†Though many legends are attached to her, there is certainly no firm evidence of her as a historical figure.
Saint Brigid was said to be the daughter of a druid who had a vision that she was to be named after a great goddess. She was born at sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold, and so "was neither within nor without." This is the state known as liminality, from the Latin, limen: a threshold – the state of being “in between†places and times. In Celtic tradition this is a sacred time when the doors between the worlds are open and magical events can occur.
Another legend tells how her mother was carrying a pitcher of milk at the time, with which she bathed her new-born child. As a child, Brigid was unable to eat ordinary food, and was reared on the milk of a special white red-eared cow. White animals with red ears are frequently found in Celtic mythology as beasts of the Otherworld. The pagan goddess owned two magical oxen of her own. In Celtic society, cattle were the most highly valued of all animals, revered as a symbol of plenty, and Saint Brigid was very closely associated with livestock in general, and dairy cows in
particular. As an adult, she was accompanied by a cow who also supplied her with
all the milk she needed.
When she became abbess of Kildare, she miraculously increased the milk and butter yield of the abbey cows; some accounts say that her cows produced a whole lake of milk three times a day, and one churning filled hundreds of baskets with butter. When Saint Brigid died, her skull was kept at Kildare after the pre-Christian custom of revering the head as sacred. Norman soldiers were supposed to have stolen it from the abbey and taken it to Portugal. Here it played its part in a spring ceremony where cattle were driven past it.
In Scotland she was invoked as “Milkmaid Bride,†or “Golden-haired Bride of the kine,†patroness of cattle and dairy work. Medieval Christian art often depicts her as holding a cow, or carrying a pair of milk-pails.
She also provided abundant ale-harvests: At one Easter-time, one measure of her malt provided ale for seventeen churches. Her miraculous powers changed water into ale and stone into salt. With boundless generosity she fed birds, animals, and the poor, and they all loved her in return. The bountiful mother goddess of the fruitful earth shines through the generosity of the Christian saint.
Like the goddess of old, Saint Brigid was renowned for her gift of healing. She wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland and wove into it healing threads which kept their power for centuries. Many healing wells and springs were named after her. Earlier this century, an old woman recounted her experiences at a well of Brigid’s on the west coast – one of many that are still active today.
SAINT BRIDE OF SCOTLAND
“Oh the blessing of Brìd on the child of my heart” - Scottish Lullaby
In Scotland Brigid was known as Bride and like her pagan predecessor reigned over fire, over art, and over beauty, fo cheabhar agus fo chuan (beneath the sky and beneath the sea). As she presided over the birth of spring, so legends tell that she was the midwife at Christ’s birth. She was called Muime Chriosd, “Foster-mother of Christ,†while the divine Child was known as Dalta Brìde, “the Foster-Son of Bride.†Sometimes Brigid was combined with the Virgin herself, for in the Highlands and Islands she was often addressed as “Mary of the Gael.â€
Her presence was invoked at childbirths, as Alexander Carmichael recounts: “When a woman is in labour the midwife…goes to the door of the house, and standing on the door-step, softly beseeches Bride to come in: ‘Bride, Bride, come in! Thy welcome is truly made,Give thou relief to the woman, And give thou the conception to the Trinity.’
Highland women also invoked Brigid’s presence at the hearth-fire, the center of the home. The hearth was not only the source of warmth and cooking but also symbolized the power of the sun brought down to human level as the miraculous power of fire. Every morning the fire was kindled with invocations to St. Brigid, the “radiant flame†herself: I will build the hearth As Mary would build it. The encompassment of Bride and of Mary Guarding the hearth, guarding the floor,
Guarding the household all.
MODERN MOTHER DAYS
In Britain “Mothering Day†was celebrated beginning in the 17th century on the fourth Sunday of Lent and was a day when apprentices and servants could return home for the day to visit their mothers. They often would bring gifts, often a “mothering cake†– a kind of fruit cake or fruit-filled pastry known as simnels. A sweetened boiled cereal was frequently served at the family dinner during Mothering Sunday celebrations.
By the 19th century the holiday and accompanying traditions had almost died out.
In the United States the earliest known Mother’s Day, or Mothers’ Work Day
(plural of “mothersâ€), was initiated in 1858 in West Virginia by Anna Reeves Jarvis, a local teacher and church member, who wanted to work for improved sanitation in her town. During the Civil War, she extended the purpose of Mothers' Work Days to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides in the conflict. After the Civil War, she worked to establish reconciliation between people who had supported the two sides in the war.
Julia Ward Howe also tried to establish a Mother's Day in America. Howe became known as the author of the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but was horrified by the carnage of the US Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. In 1870, she tried to issue a manifesto for peace at international peace conferences in London and Paris. In 1872, she began promoting the idea of a "Mother's Day for Peace" to be celebrated on June 2, honoring peace, motherhood and womanhood. In 1873, women in 18 cities in America held a Mother's Day for Peace gathering. Boston celebrated the “Mother's Day for Peace†for at least 10 years. The celebrations died
out when Howe was no longer paying most of the cost for them, although some
celebrations continued for 30 years. Howe turned her efforts to working for peace and women's rights in other ways. A stamp was issued in honor of Julia Ward Howe in 1988 -- no mention of Mother's Day, though.
Anna Jarvis, daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had moved from Grafton, West Virginia, to Philadelphia, in 1890, was the power behind the official establishment of Mother's Day in the United Sates. She is said to have sworn at her mother's gravesite in 1905 to dedicate her life to her mother's project, and establish a Mother's Day to honor mothers, living and dead. A persistent rumor is that Anna's grief was intensified because she and her mother had quarreled and her mother died before they could reconcile. In 1907 she passed out 500 white carnations at her mother's church, St.
Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia -- one for each mother in the congregation. On May 10, 1908: this first church, St. Andrew's in Grafton, West Virginia, responded to her request for a Sunday service honoring mothers. Also in 1908, the first bill was presented in the U.S. Senate proposing establishment of Mother's Day, by Nebraska Senator Elmer Burkett, at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association. The proposal was killed by sending it back to committee, 33-14. By 1909 the idea of Mother's Day had spread and services were held in 46 states plus Canada and Mexico. Anna Jarvis gave up her job -- sometimes reported as a teaching job, sometimes as a job clerking in an insurance office -- to work full-time writing letters to politicians, clergy members, business leaders, women's clubs and anyone else she thought might have some influence. She was able
to enlist the World's Sunday School Association in the lobbying campaign, a key success factor in convincing legislators in states and in the U.S. Congress to support the holiday. In 1912, her home state West Virginia became the first state to adopt an official Mother's Day. In 1914 the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it, officially establishing Mother's Day, emphasizing women's role in the family (not as activists in the public arena, as Howe's Mother's Day had been). As time went on Anna Jarvis became increasingly concerned over the commercialization of Mother's Day, "I wanted it to be a day of
sentiment, not profit." She opposed the selling of flowers and also the use of
greeting cards as "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write."
Anna Jarvis continued to promote her concept of Mothers Day and what it should mean. In 1923 she filed suit against New York Governor Al Smith (and future Presidential candidate), over a Mother's Day celebration; when a court threw the suit out, she began a public protest and was arrested for disturbing the peace. She also criticized Eleanor Roosevelt in 1931 for her work with a Mother's Day committee that was not Jarvis' committee. Anna Jarvis never had children of her own. She died in 1948, blind and penniless, and was buried next to her mother in a cemetery in the
Philadelphia area.
We now celebrate Mother’s Day in the United Sates on the second Sunday
in May because we all have mothers, and because of a joint resolution
passed by the US Congress in 1914. Mother’s Day is celebrated on many different
dates depending on the country and their traditions and much of this stems
from the efforts of one extremely dedicated individual Anna Jarvis of West
Virginia and later Pennsylvania. Anna Jarvis’s concept of Mothers Day
has changed radically here in the United States over the years – even
during her lifetime much to her dislike, but we will get to that part of the story
later, first – the Celtic connection.
The earliest Mother’s day celebrations can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. In the British Isles and Celtic Europe, the goddess Brigid, and later her successor the Christian St. Brigid (or Brighid), were honored with a spring Mother’s Day, connected with the first milk of the ewes. Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc, two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes or the “time of milking,†the flow of milk that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. It was a time of raising newborn animals and planting crops. Candles were lit in barns and dairies for luck and families with brindled (streaked), red-eared or pure white cattle in their herd during Imbolc were sure that the fairies would favor them with prosperity. Later, the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the Light-Bringer over lights both pagan and Christian celebrations.
SAINT BRIGID OF IRELAND
With the coming of Christianity, the powerful energy of the pagan goddess was transmuted into Ireland’s much-loved saint, second only to Patrick himself. Her transformation happened almost literally in Drumeague, County Cavan, at a place called “The Mountain of the Three Gods.†Here a stone head of Brigid was worshipped as a triple deity, but with the coming of Christianity, it was hidden in a Neolithic tomb. Later it was recovered from its burial-place and mounted on a local church where it was popularly canonized as “St. Bride of Knockbridge.†Though many legends are attached to her, there is certainly no firm evidence of her as a historical figure.
Saint Brigid was said to be the daughter of a druid who had a vision that she was to be named after a great goddess. She was born at sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold, and so "was neither within nor without." This is the state known as liminality, from the Latin, limen: a threshold – the state of being “in between†places and times. In Celtic tradition this is a sacred time when the doors between the worlds are open and magical events can occur.
Another legend tells how her mother was carrying a pitcher of milk at the time, with which she bathed her new-born child. As a child, Brigid was unable to eat ordinary food, and was reared on the milk of a special white red-eared cow. White animals with red ears are frequently found in Celtic mythology as beasts of the Otherworld. The pagan goddess owned two magical oxen of her own. In Celtic society, cattle were the most highly valued of all animals, revered as a symbol of plenty, and Saint Brigid was very closely associated with livestock in general, and dairy cows in
particular. As an adult, she was accompanied by a cow who also supplied her with
all the milk she needed.
When she became abbess of Kildare, she miraculously increased the milk and butter yield of the abbey cows; some accounts say that her cows produced a whole lake of milk three times a day, and one churning filled hundreds of baskets with butter. When Saint Brigid died, her skull was kept at Kildare after the pre-Christian custom of revering the head as sacred. Norman soldiers were supposed to have stolen it from the abbey and taken it to Portugal. Here it played its part in a spring ceremony where cattle were driven past it.
In Scotland she was invoked as “Milkmaid Bride,†or “Golden-haired Bride of the kine,†patroness of cattle and dairy work. Medieval Christian art often depicts her as holding a cow, or carrying a pair of milk-pails.
She also provided abundant ale-harvests: At one Easter-time, one measure of her malt provided ale for seventeen churches. Her miraculous powers changed water into ale and stone into salt. With boundless generosity she fed birds, animals, and the poor, and they all loved her in return. The bountiful mother goddess of the fruitful earth shines through the generosity of the Christian saint.
Like the goddess of old, Saint Brigid was renowned for her gift of healing. She wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland and wove into it healing threads which kept their power for centuries. Many healing wells and springs were named after her. Earlier this century, an old woman recounted her experiences at a well of Brigid’s on the west coast – one of many that are still active today.
SAINT BRIDE OF SCOTLAND
“Oh the blessing of Brìd on the child of my heart” - Scottish Lullaby
In Scotland Brigid was known as Bride and like her pagan predecessor reigned over fire, over art, and over beauty, fo cheabhar agus fo chuan (beneath the sky and beneath the sea). As she presided over the birth of spring, so legends tell that she was the midwife at Christ’s birth. She was called Muime Chriosd, “Foster-mother of Christ,†while the divine Child was known as Dalta Brìde, “the Foster-Son of Bride.†Sometimes Brigid was combined with the Virgin herself, for in the Highlands and Islands she was often addressed as “Mary of the Gael.â€
Her presence was invoked at childbirths, as Alexander Carmichael recounts: “When a woman is in labour the midwife…goes to the door of the house, and standing on the door-step, softly beseeches Bride to come in: ‘Bride, Bride, come in! Thy welcome is truly made,Give thou relief to the woman, And give thou the conception to the Trinity.’
Highland women also invoked Brigid’s presence at the hearth-fire, the center of the home. The hearth was not only the source of warmth and cooking but also symbolized the power of the sun brought down to human level as the miraculous power of fire. Every morning the fire was kindled with invocations to St. Brigid, the “radiant flame†herself: I will build the hearth As Mary would build it. The encompassment of Bride and of Mary Guarding the hearth, guarding the floor,
Guarding the household all.
MODERN MOTHER DAYS
In Britain “Mothering Day†was celebrated beginning in the 17th century on the fourth Sunday of Lent and was a day when apprentices and servants could return home for the day to visit their mothers. They often would bring gifts, often a “mothering cake†– a kind of fruit cake or fruit-filled pastry known as simnels. A sweetened boiled cereal was frequently served at the family dinner during Mothering Sunday celebrations.
By the 19th century the holiday and accompanying traditions had almost died out.
In the United States the earliest known Mother’s Day, or Mothers’ Work Day
(plural of “mothersâ€), was initiated in 1858 in West Virginia by Anna Reeves Jarvis, a local teacher and church member, who wanted to work for improved sanitation in her town. During the Civil War, she extended the purpose of Mothers' Work Days to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides in the conflict. After the Civil War, she worked to establish reconciliation between people who had supported the two sides in the war.
Julia Ward Howe also tried to establish a Mother's Day in America. Howe became known as the author of the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but was horrified by the carnage of the US Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. In 1870, she tried to issue a manifesto for peace at international peace conferences in London and Paris. In 1872, she began promoting the idea of a "Mother's Day for Peace" to be celebrated on June 2, honoring peace, motherhood and womanhood. In 1873, women in 18 cities in America held a Mother's Day for Peace gathering. Boston celebrated the “Mother's Day for Peace†for at least 10 years. The celebrations died
out when Howe was no longer paying most of the cost for them, although some
celebrations continued for 30 years. Howe turned her efforts to working for peace and women's rights in other ways. A stamp was issued in honor of Julia Ward Howe in 1988 -- no mention of Mother's Day, though.
Anna Jarvis, daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis, who had moved from Grafton, West Virginia, to Philadelphia, in 1890, was the power behind the official establishment of Mother's Day in the United Sates. She is said to have sworn at her mother's gravesite in 1905 to dedicate her life to her mother's project, and establish a Mother's Day to honor mothers, living and dead. A persistent rumor is that Anna's grief was intensified because she and her mother had quarreled and her mother died before they could reconcile. In 1907 she passed out 500 white carnations at her mother's church, St.
Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia -- one for each mother in the congregation. On May 10, 1908: this first church, St. Andrew's in Grafton, West Virginia, responded to her request for a Sunday service honoring mothers. Also in 1908, the first bill was presented in the U.S. Senate proposing establishment of Mother's Day, by Nebraska Senator Elmer Burkett, at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association. The proposal was killed by sending it back to committee, 33-14. By 1909 the idea of Mother's Day had spread and services were held in 46 states plus Canada and Mexico. Anna Jarvis gave up her job -- sometimes reported as a teaching job, sometimes as a job clerking in an insurance office -- to work full-time writing letters to politicians, clergy members, business leaders, women's clubs and anyone else she thought might have some influence. She was able
to enlist the World's Sunday School Association in the lobbying campaign, a key success factor in convincing legislators in states and in the U.S. Congress to support the holiday. In 1912, her home state West Virginia became the first state to adopt an official Mother's Day. In 1914 the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it, officially establishing Mother's Day, emphasizing women's role in the family (not as activists in the public arena, as Howe's Mother's Day had been). As time went on Anna Jarvis became increasingly concerned over the commercialization of Mother's Day, "I wanted it to be a day of
sentiment, not profit." She opposed the selling of flowers and also the use of
greeting cards as "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write."
Anna Jarvis continued to promote her concept of Mothers Day and what it should mean. In 1923 she filed suit against New York Governor Al Smith (and future Presidential candidate), over a Mother's Day celebration; when a court threw the suit out, she began a public protest and was arrested for disturbing the peace. She also criticized Eleanor Roosevelt in 1931 for her work with a Mother's Day committee that was not Jarvis' committee. Anna Jarvis never had children of her own. She died in 1948, blind and penniless, and was buried next to her mother in a cemetery in the
Philadelphia area.
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