Imbolc

Old Irish Imbolc, Oímelc

See it on the Wheel of the Sky

When it comes round

North of the equator: traditionally Mon, 02/01/2027. The Sun reaches 15° Aquarius, the astronomical Imbolc, on .

South of the equator, where the seasons are reversed, the Wheel of the Sky keeps Imbolc in the same season, half a year later or earlier: traditionally Sun, 08/01/2027, and astronomically when the Sun reaches 15° Leo, on .

The fire festivals sit halfway between a solstice and an equinox: 15° of a fixed sign. The traditional day comes first; the Sun reaches the halfway point a few days later. Worked out with the same Sun calculation as the calendar and the Wheel of the Sky.

The festival on February 1 that began spring in the Gaelic year, and became the feast of St Brigit.

In history

The name probably means “milking,” and the festival seems to have been a feast of purification for farmers, compared with the Roman lustrations (Britannica). The Wooing of Emer, which spells it Oimolc, calls it “the beginning of spring” and offers two explanations: “different (ime) is its wet (folc),” the wet of spring and the wet of winter, or else it is “the time in which the sheep come out and are milked.”

Imbolc was associated with the goddess Brigid, and after Christianization the day became the feast of St Brigit (Britannica). Her feast on February 1 is kept with crosses woven from rushes, reeds or straw, usually on the evening before, then blessed with holy water and hung in houses or at the threshold as a sign of welcome to Brigid; they often stay up all year for her protection. Special masses and pilgrimages to places linked with her, among them her holy wells, are part of the day too (Britannica, “Saint Brigit”).

More about Brigid in the Goddess Encyclopedia →

In modern practice

In the modern Wheel of the Year, Imbolc is the sabbat of February 1 or 2 (Britannica, “Wicca”). The eight-festival Wheel of the Year itself is modern: Wicca, which emerged in England in the 1950s, typically keeps eight seasonal festivals, called sabbats, based on traditional celebrations drawn from different periods of British and Irish history, and many Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere move them to fit their own seasons (Britannica, “Wicca”).

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