31st January - Bridget’s Eve - Brat Bríd

Written by Anne Newman 31st January 2020

It’s Bridget’s Eve so remember to leave out your Brat Bríd (a strip of cloth/ribbon/scarf/ handkerchief) tonight.

Different areas traditionally use different colours. white, blue green or red flannel.

This can be hung up on the washing line, left on a bush or window sill or tied to the door knocker.

It is said that Bridget wanders the roads at night and blesses the Brat with healing powers.

The Brat is then kept as a healing object and will protect it’s keeper.

This cloth would be used for fertility and for curing headaches or other illness throughout the year. Some say the older it is the more potent it becomes. Others say it should be burned after a year if it has been used for healing.

I leave a cloth out each year and then tear strips off it and give to friends and neighbours. The Brat Bríd will give them protection throughout the year and can be used for healing when needed. These pieces of cloth can also sewn into the clothes for protection.

A piece white cloth about the size of a shawl is left out over night to collect dew is called Brighid's Cloak /Bratach Brid. The dew is thought to have healing properties.

This is set out each year and the Bratach Brid can become quite powerful over time. It is used for fertility and safe childbirth and for healing by placing it over the patient and asking for Brigit's help.

Martin shared this in 2022. Buddha does Brigit. At Tara Celebrations we often combine traditions to evoke a sense of spiritual wholeness in the observer or participants. Here Buddha is wrapped in a Brigit's mantle symbolising balance in yin and yang, promotion of the middle path, healing gentleness and compassion.

Bernadette Mac has a piece in her blog which is repeated below: Magic of the Land

Brat Bhride Cloth 31st January 2020 - Blessings to all on the eve of St Bridget. My cloth is out in my back garden this year. There is a wind rising out there so maybe Bridget has a real strong force of healing this spring.

One thing I love to do is on the eve of St Bridget's day is, in the past, I went to the Hill of Tara to the well and left out a brid cloth in a safe place overnight. And the same in An Tobar where I have left the cloth in the woods or on the labyrinth. I would tell the staff in An Tobar not to take it up. I leave it there because on the Eve of St Bridget's day it is said she wipes the land and blesses it with the morning dew and the cloth left out.

It has been used for healing. As the story goes, her healing energy is on it. I then cut it into strips and it has been used in my personal life for healing and I pass it onto those who are in need of it also - some in hospitals and meditation groups and some in parts of the world I have visited in the past.

I have tied some on trees in Egypt, Jordan, all around the Middle East, UK in Sherwood Forest, as well as the hill of Tara and other places around Ireland and sometimes in my own back garden.

It said to bring healing magic for the higher good of all.

I also use it when I meditate and have some under my bed when I sleep. It has surely helped me over the years at different times of my life when I needed healing and it give me so much hope knowing its been blessed by a special lady.

Click these links for more information Brigid's Cross and Bridget's Life, Wells and Customs.