What did Brigid wear?

Along with “what language did Brigid speak“. “what did Brigid wear?” probably comes up a lot when people are learning about her. (For the purposes of this blog post, I will be focusing on the Neolithic/ Iron Age Brigid rather than the Medieval Christian one. )

And the truth is, we’re not sure. Particularly for Iron Age/ Neolithic Brigid. We have some fragmentary information. There are a few finds from across Europe, where we can make educated guesses. But anyone declaring they know for definite is going to raise eyebrows. My eyebrows anyway.

So what do we know?

The Bronze Age girl from Egtved near Vejle

Now, I’m not assuming ye’re all as geographically challenged as I am, but the map below shows the general area of the find.

Does this tell us what Brigid wore? Not necessarily. But it is entirely possible that she wore something very similar.

Certainly, woven textiles and corded textiles would have been available to people in Ireland pre-Christianity. Our ancestors were very inconsiderate in not leaving us significant works of art or writings or photographs (tongue firmly in cheek here for those not used to Irish sarcasm!) This means we are left with imaginings.

Finds in Ireland?

Not too many with regards to clothes. While you’d think the bog would preserve clothes as well as anything else, but this has not proven to be the case. Added to this, Irish bogs have, until extremely recently been worked to provide fuel for homes. So, many clothing finds might have been lost to the sleánte of days gone by.

That lovely turf smell? (It’s only peat to foreigners) Yes, harvested over generations from local bogs. Nearly every Irish child outside of major urban centres would have some bog stories. Certainly up to the mid-80’s anyway.

So, it’s circumstantial evidence only for what clothing Brigid might have worn based on Irish finds.

On the other hand, there are examples of spindles and some papers mention a burial that:

was also notable for the signs of dental wear and muscle strain that indicated the person who occupied the grave had frequently dragged “a narrow band of a relatively soft material between his clenched front teeth” which was not leather (Cahill and Ó Donnagháin 1988) and may be linked to a process of preparing fibres to make into thread

Privilege, C., Textile Lacunae: Prehistoric Ireland as a Test Case.

There are examples of burials and the types of equipment used to make clothing. There is supporting evidence from elsewhere on the continent that people wore this type of clothing. We have George Coffey’s 1907 paper telling us that the Bronze Age Irish didn’t pin their clothes together, but used buttons, following the “Mediterranean fashion”. (Nope, I didn’t know fashions travelled that far either…)

Now it should also be noted that people knew deer existed. And hunted them. So people almost certainly used deerskin for clothing. . As was leather. There’s a reason cattle are so important…

How about literature?

Ah well, here we have go leor (many) examples of fine raiment. In the Táin, when Medb and Ailill are gathering their great wealth to make sure they are exactly equal in all ways, we get this description:

There were brought to them their rings and their bracelets and their thumb-rings, their treasures of gold and their garments, as well purple as blue and black and green, yellow and vari-coloured and grey, dun and chequered and striped.

Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster (ucc.ie)

Elsewhere in the Táin, we have:

Green cloaks about them with silver brooches in them. Next to their skin they wore shirts of gold thread with red insertions of red gold.

They wore grey cloaks and pure white shirts next to their skins.

They wore purple embroidered cloaks with golden inset brooches over their breasts. They had smooth, long, silken shirts reaching to their insteps.

(There are also lots of description of hair as well, but let’s keep focused on the clothes for now.

So, we can tell that the Irish had style. Cloaks – although not what we’d imagine as 19th century cloaks, looms were a lot narrower in these times. Shirts (léine). Embroidery. Silken cloth. Gold thread. Richness and variety a-plenty.

To be more accurate to Brigid herself, I took a look at the Caith Maighe Tuireadh as well. Meagre offerings there. But, we have Ériu the daughter of Delbáeth describing Elatha mac Delbaith, king of the Fomoire (Bres’ parents). So, not a million miles from what Brigid herself might wear…

a cloak with bands of gold thread around it. His shirt had embroidery of gold thread. On his breast was a brooch of gold with the lustre of a precious stone in it.

Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired (ucc.ie)

(Of 17 mentions of gold in this text, 8 of them are in this passage. His hair is described as golden as well. 8 more are talking about how the Dagda got fed Creidne gold as the “best bit” of his dinner. Last one is when the TDD went to talk to Bres about his inability to pass out gold again after taking up the tributes…)

Now, Brigid, being the daughter and wife of a king (not the same king) would have been dressing more in the upper echelon you’d think.

But we also have this description of the Dagda on his emergence from the Formorian camp after eating a horrendous amount of porridge:

His appearance was unsightly: he had a cape to the hollow of his elbows, and a grey-brown tunic around him as far as the swelling of his rump. 

Now, this is obviously not meant to be “good” clothing. He is explicitly described as “unsightly”. There is a leaning here towards this clothing being definitely not of the expensive sort. And it’s possible that Brigid might have had old clothes of course. No one could wear the special, gold-threaded, fringed stuff all the time right?

Conclusion

Remember, I’m trying to base this on pre-Christian, so it’s hard to tell exactly what clothing Brigid might wear. But the options given by the Danish girl found in Egtved are a definite possibility.

Equally, our descriptions above come from texts written down post-Christian Ireland, so it’s possible modern-at-the-time fashions coloured the descriptions. We just don’t know and there are so many papers out there conjecturing, I’m not sure what else to say.

I’ll take a look at the early Christian period next week, just for fun!