Sarasvati and Brigit continued (5)
The Cup of Sovereignty
As I have noted elsewhere, it has been suggested that Brigit is a Christianised version of Queen Medb of Connacht, whose name means 'She Who Intoxicates'. Medb has mythic associations with the goddess of sovereignty; in the stories she has many lovers and it appears that sexual union with her confers kingship upon them. But also in the old Irish tales kingship is sometimes conferred by drinking dergfhlaith, red ale or red sovereignty (there is a pun on the Irish word for ale, laith, and sovereignty flaith) which is offered to the potential king by a goddess or her representative. It is possible, therefore, that Brigit's connection with ale points not only to her functions as a mother goddess of plenty and fertility and a goddess of poetry, but also to that of sovereignty goddess. It has been convincingly argued that the Welsh word for king, brenin, originally meant consort of the goddess *Briganti and that its first use was in reference to the male leaders of the Brigantes.
Although Sarasvati is connected with the ritual drink which gave inspiration and immortality, she is not connected with sovereignty. This role falls to Sri Laksmi and to Sita. Sri Laksmi does not appear in early Vedic religion but the term sri is found there and has the meaning of beauty, prosperity, riches and rank. In an appendix to the Rig Veda the goddess Sri is associated with fertility and in the later literature she confers royal power, authority, fertility and prosperity upon those whose consort she becomes - Indra and Visnu (also husband to Sarasvati in some accounts) among them.
A Vedic goddess called Sita, 'furrow', associated with
the fertility of ploughed fields, is apparently the model for the
Sita of the Ramayana who, in her relationship with Rama, fulfills the
pattern of sovereignty goddess. This pattern reflects the
relationship between the sky-father and earth-mother seen in early
religions where the sky-god fertilises the earth-goddess with his
rain to bring about the fertility of the land. In ancient India, as
in ancient Ireland, the righteousness of the king was seen as
integral to the fertility and prosperity experienced by the land and
the people during his reign. The Hindu idea, and probably that of the
Celts also, is that the earth needed the virility of the king to
stimulate or activate the earth's fruitfulness just as the king
needed the fertility of the earth to grant him success in his reign.
The plough symbolised the male king entering the body of the female
earth and planting his seed which then grew into the crops that would
ensure the livelihood of his people, just as a man entered the body
of the woman and planted his seed which grew into children who would
ensure their livelihood. Without the activity of the male, the
fecundity of the earth remained potential but unmanifest, and
conversely, without the fecundity of the earth as a visible symbol of
his virility, the king was impotent, a king not worthy of the role.
Therefore he needed the goddess of sovereignty to smile upon him and
accept him as her consort.
It is worth noting that in the Lebor Gabála
Érenn Brigit is said to have had two oxen, which is suggestive
of ploughing, and the feast day of St Brigit marked the beginning of
preparations for the spring sowing. The seed grain was often obtained
from the sheaf that was used for the making of her crosses, or hung
up beside them.
Sarasvati also has her special day at the beginning of
spring when the weather begins to change. It is said to be her
birthday and I wonder whether the festival looks back to her earliest
appearance as the divine Sarasvati river, the bringer of fertility
and prosperity, since it is hard to see why a culture goddess should
be connected with spring.
Giraldus Cambrensis writing in the 11th century describes an inauguration ceremony carried out in Ulster in which the new king simulated sexual union with a white mare. The mare was then killed and the king ate the meat and bathed in and drank the broth made from it. Symbolically this ritual enacts the mating of the king with the land, or the goddess of the land, the white mare most likely representing the fertility and prosperity of the earth since the Continental Celtic horse-goddess, Epona, was associated with these qualities in peacetime (and with guardianship and protection in times of war).
The Vedic rite of Ashvamedha bears a strong resemblance to this ritual but is also fundamentally different. It was a three-day soma sacrifice but included other sacrifices, significantly that of a stallion as the high point on the middle day. The four wives of the king walked around the dead horse and the chief wife simulated sexual intercourse with it, after which it was dismembered and its blood given as an oblation or divine offering. This ritual celebrates and invigorates the power of the king by mediating the strength and power of the horse through a female consort, rather than giving him kingship by a symbolic mating with the mare as a symbol of the divine female power of the land.
A hymn in the Atharva-Veda for the election of a king proclaims "Thee the clans, thee these regions, goddesses five, shall choose for empire!" suggesting that the choice is a foregone conclusion that the goddesses don't actually have much say in. However, at the consecration of the king, the Rajasuya, he is sprinkled with the waters which impart brilliance and vitality to him : "The heavenly waters, rich in sap, flow joyously, (and too) those in the sky and upon the earth: with the lustre of all of these do I sprinkle thee." (21) This is a kind of Vedic version of the cup of sovereignty; the waters (which, as we have seen, are goddesses) endow him with the qualities necessary for a king.
Sacred Sound
As we have seen, in early medieval Ireland Brigit was described as a poetess adored by poets. A Gaelic hymn collected in Scotland at the end of the 19th century refers to her as 'my maker of song', suggesting that even down to comparatively recent times in traditional communities she had the ability to inspire, much like Sarasavati.
But we may also note that the three main references to Brigit or Brig as a goddess in ancient Irish literature connect her with sound. In the 12th century Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of Invasions of Ireland) which gives the mythological history of Ireland, we hear of:
Brigit the poetess, daughter of the Dagda, she had Fe and Men, the two royal oxen, from whom Femen is named. She had Triath, king of her boars, from whom Treithirne is named. With them were, and were heard, the three demoniac shouts after rapine in Ireland, whistling and weeping and lamentation.
Bríg appears again as one of the Tuatha De Danaan in the story of the Battle of Maigh Tuiredh (12th century but based on 9th century material):
Bríg came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Bríg who invented a whistle for signalling at night.) (22)
and in the Dindsenchas she is said to have instigated wailing and keening for the dead after Mac Gréine's death .
The repetition of weeping, shrieking, lamentation and whistling may point to a tradition concerning Brigit in which she is a goddess of sounds, those connected with grief and alarm, in the same way that the goddess known as the Morrígan is associated with the terrible noise of battle. Perhaps, given her position of poet and inspirer of poets, she was once associated with sound itself?
Although there is no evidence for it I also like to think that originally she might have invented the whistle itself (rather than just a whistle for signalling at night), much as the Greek muse Euterpe was said to have invented the flute. Irish folklore does associate musical and poetic ability. Ó hÓgáin tells a story of how the poet Carroll O' Daly received his poetic gift. (23) He saw a strange cloud float down into some rushes when he was herding cows for a farmer. The rushes then appeared to be on fire and were subsequently eaten by one of the cows. When the farmer heard this he asked Carroll to bring him the first pail of milk he got from that cow. After milking her, Carroll carried the bucket of milk to the farmhouse, but on the way he spilt some which splashed on his finger - naturally enough, he licked it off and immediately his appearance changed and he began to speak in verse. As he continued walking he made a pipe from some reeds and began to play it. When the farmer heard the wonderful music, he asked Carroll how he came to play so well and Carroll answered in verse. The farmer then knew that Carroll had drunk the wondrous milk.
