Discovering The Sidhe In The Belly?

While the rest of my modules for the ‘Ogham Prompts’ course rolls out, one per day for a few more days, to paid subscribers, to catch up with that first cycle … here’s another edition for you wonderful free subscribers.

This may seem a few days after the event but it is still in conversation. I am going to talk about the ‘Imbolc’ and ‘Imbolg’ words.

My first ‘exposure’ to the word was from conversations from and with ‘new age cult’ people during the 70s. Well before home computers and the internet grabbed our attention and lives.

Back then, nobody seemed to be clear about what they were talking about with Imbolc and Imbolg though, as they were also throwing in other words, such as Oimelc, Ostara, Eostre, and muddling up between February, Vernal Equinox and Easter. Milk and Eggs were getting mixed up too, so it was just as well the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Day was active around that time too, and all that symbolises.

Anyway, moving on from the cult gatherings and their wisdom doctrine ways of the 70s, through the 80s too, along comes public internet, websites and blogs through the 90s. Mythology and folklore sites became very abundant such as Shee-Eire, which is still active, and similar.

These sites being a magnet for megalithic sites and ley line hunters also looking for juicy stories to match their passions. There seemed to be some Imbolc chat on those sites too.

Then we had social media through the ‘naughties’ until now, that has been extremely active during the past 16 years. 

16 years, and especially the past 8, years of social media seems to have totally re-shaped, and even re-invented, folklore and mythology. Many sentences, posted on social media, include these three words, ‘pagan’, ‘druid’, ‘celtic’.

Sometimes the words ‘neolithic’, ‘ancestors’ and ‘shaman’ are added too. 

I was prompted to write this Imbolc feature after recent postings by two people I admire, Michael Fortune of folklore.ie and  Simon Tuite of Monumental Ireland.

Folklore.ie top, Monumental Ireland below

Michael has recently posted that he has never heard of Imbolc mentioned and celebrated with people he has interviewed, and there is no firm reference to Imbolc in the Duchas archives. 

Simon has picked up ‘fragments’ of Imbolc that follows a lot of what I interpret and think I understand from the word. 

I mentioned my first hearing of ‘Imbolc’ was during the 70s, but it seems the followers of Gerald Gardener, the Wiccan people have been onto this since the 50s.

Their interpretation, and other interpretations since, especially during recent social media years, is that "Imbolc" means ‘in the belly’ or to extend that, ‘in the belly of the Mother’.

Though the Imbolc word may not be as ancient as people are eager to believe, its a lovely visual interpretation as this is the time when the seeds of spring are beginning to stir in the belly of Mother Earth. 

Another near word ‘oimelc’ is interpreted and meaning ewe's milk because around this time many animals give birth to their first offspring of the year and  are producing milk. 

‘In the belly’ also helps us to visualise what we may interpret as the ‘Goddess Brigid’ that we talk of as being the inspiration and guide to the woman who became St. Brighid’ whose story is of this time and 1st February.

Stories of Brighid do include milk, the home, and babies.

One of the huge shifts in our culture that seems to have been overlooked is how very few of us are farmers any more. As a child of the 50s it seemed like well over 50% of the population worked on farms. In ancient times it seems just about everyone was a farmer, except a bunch of elite scholars.

So the origin of folklore was very much based on the seasons of farming. 

At this February time, ploughing used to be a main farming activity for this time. So I am sure there were a lot of blessings of ploughs.

Today, much of what was ploughed land is now just grazing land as food from ploughed land comes from elsewhere. Plus polytunnels and hydroponic growing has taken over a lot of food production too.

Also, this is the start of what was lean food times. Winter stocks of food from the past harvest will be running out. So to be nourished a lot of foraging for the nutritious young shoots that are sprouting from the ground, hedges and trees at this time. 

Today, this is not an issue for many of us as things like avocados, fresh berries, potatoes, and more, are in our supermarkets to buy all year round. I remember this early Spring time being a lean food time when we were raising family during the 70s. There was not all the year round food in shops and supermarkets then.

The major shift that seems to have happened during these recent social media years is that there are far more people making their indoor Brighid and Imbolc altars than actually working on farms or their gardens.

Even more remarkable, I feel, is describing these altars as ‘connecting with nature’.

One reason that many people are very assertive at claiming ‘Imbolc’ and ‘Imbolg’ as being ancient words of ancient rituals going back to neolithic times is claiming that ancient sites like the Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara and Cairn L at Slieve na Calliagh, Loughcrew being exactly aligned to the Imbolc Cross Quarter sunrise. 

Some archeologist question this. Very knowledgeable Mairtin O’Broin, moderator of the Irish Megalithic Research Group questions why people are so ‘solarcentric’. He believes that megalithic sites are more aligned to the Moon because they were built by farming people more aligned to lunar positions than solar ones.

I notice within a lot of social media driven articles and memes there is reference to the word ‘Imbolc’ coming from 10th century poetry. So I looked into this a bit further.  

There is ‘chat, about the scribing of ‘Cormac's Glossary’ around the 9th century that includes an entry for ‘Oímelc’. The description for this being of the beginning of spring, and this evolved from ‘oí-melg’ translating out as 'ewe milk'. So the translation moved into ‘the time that sheep's milk comes’. But what people are extracting here are later translations and not the 9th century original, also known as ‘Sanas’.

Within the Dindshenchas poetry, the ‘Táin Bó Cúailnge’ Cattle Raid of Cooley some people quote a phrase, ‘iar n-imbulc, ba garb a ngeilt’, that is around the Christian Candlemass. That may be regarded as a 10th century scribed poetry reference, but most people are actually referencing much later translations. 

Though I never really heard the Imbolc word until the 70s, but Wiccan people have probably used it since the 50s, and most people from social media memes from about 2015, the ‘rebirth’ of the words Imbolc and Imbolg probably started among the intimate academic geeks meeting circles during the 19th century.

It is amazing how much mythology and folklore we have adopted during the past 15 years, originates from ‘Celtic Pagan Druids, or Shamans, during the Neolithic Age’. Its those words in a sentence again!

Most of this folklore and mythology stuff we learn only goes back as far as the 19th century ‘Celtic Revival’, academic geeks. They seem to have retranslated fragments of all kinds of ancient scribings to suit their ‘Romance’ visions. And their visions took on new translations since the 70s, and especially through modern social media memes. 

Through all of this, going back to the possible 9th century Cormac’s glossary referring to ‘oí-melg’ it seems that even during Medieval times this was regarded as ‘geeky’ and did not capture mainstream acceptance.

Go to any farmer today and mention ‘Imbolc’ and they will either not have a clue about what you are saying, or regard it as ‘hippy talk’. Mention St. Brighid’s Day to farmers, and that means something to most of them. 

Of course this is due to up to 1500 years of being umbrellered by Christian culture and huge faith and belief in the ‘saints’.

More and more people today wish to be disconnected from the Christian church, and especially the stubborn patriarchal culture of it. So words like ‘Imbolc and Imbolg’ help us to carry identity away from the ‘church’. But we try to do this with a firm belief that this was the ancient way that Christians destroyed … but that’s where we trip up.

For a start, as I said earlier, there are more of us building ‘altars’ today than working farms and productive gardens. So I think it is important to carry a reverence of ‘Imbolc’ and ‘Imbolg’ today but accept this is part of our present and the organic formation of folklore to be. ‘Imbolc’ and ‘Imbolg’ words and attempted meaning will never be accepted by the folklore compliance people, well not for at least 200 more years. 

We are not doing ourselves any favours or blessings by trying to falsely enforce Imbolc to be of ancient ways. The closest I think we can go is relating to the astronomical calculations of the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox. But for 100s to 1000s of years this has been geeky and only shared among a very minority of people.

One last thing, is why am I putting this edition into my ‘Discovering The Sidhe’ series? As I am over the word count limit for this article I will briefly say I feel this is an important thought to carry in relation to the seasonal changes of the ‘flow of life’ that I relate to the Sidhe too. Maybe I can explain this more in the next Part of this ‘Discovering The Sidhe’ series?  

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