Open the door
for Bridget, and let Bridget come in.' After these words were
repeated, the rushes were strewn on the floor by way of a carpet or
bed for St. Bridget. A custom very similar to this was also observed
in some of the Out-Isles of the ancient Kingdom of Man." In these
Manx and Highland ceremonies it is obvious that St. Bride, or St.
Bridget, is an old heathen goddess of fertility, disguised in a
threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she is no other than Brigit,
the Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the crops.
Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring, though not
directly represented, is implied by naming the human representative
of the spirit, "the Bride," and dressing her in wedding attire. Thus
in some villages of Altmark at Whitsuntide, while the boys go about
carrying a May-tree or leading a boy enveloped in leaves and
flowers, the girls lead about the May Bride, a girl dressed as a
bride with a great nosegay in her hair. They go from house to house,
the May Bride singing a song in which she asks for a present and
tells the inmates of each house that if they give her something they
will themselves have something the whole year through; but if they
give her nothing they will themselves have nothing.
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