EsoteriaA library of sacred & hidden knowledge
The Spellbook · Protection

The Spellbook · Christianity

Weaving a St Brigid's Cross to Protect the Home

How to weave a St Brigid's cross from rushes on Brigid's Eve and hang it to protect a home, with the Irish customs, the legend of Kildare and its history.

  • TraditionIrish Catholic household custom, attested from the 17th–19th centuries to today
  • ForProtection, Home & hearth, Blessings
  • DifficultyModerate
  • Time45 minutes to 1 hour
  • WhenOn St Brigid's Eve, 31 January, ready for her feast on 1 February (Imbolc)
Every St. Brigid's day, crosses are made from rushes. They are then displayed in the house until the next year, when they are replaced by new ones. Custom is that the old ones are burnt.
Every St. Brigid's day, crosses are made from rushes. They are then displayed in the house until the next year, when they are replaced by new ones. Custom is that the old ones are burnt.Deadstar · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The St Brigid's cross is a small cross woven from rushes, with a square at its centre and four arms ending in tied tips. In Irish households it was made on the eve of St Brigid's feast, 1 February, and hung over the door, in the kitchen rafters or in the byre to protect the house and its animals from fire, hunger and harm for the coming year. It remains one of the most widely made religious crafts in Ireland and is now a national symbol.

How to do it§

  1. Gather the rushes on St Brigid's Eve (31 January). In many districts they were pulled, not cut, and brought to the door by a member of the household who knocked and asked to be admitted on Brigid's behalf. Long straw from a craft shop works if you have no rushes; soak it to make it pliable.
  2. Start the centre. Hold one rush vertically. Fold a second rush in half around its middle so that the fold sits at the centre and the two ends point to the right.
  3. Turn and fold. Hold the centre tightly, turn the whole piece a quarter turn anticlockwise, and fold a third rush in half over both rushes now pointing upward, with its ends to the right.
  4. Repeat. Keep turning a quarter turn and folding a new rush over everything pointing up. The square at the centre will grow and the four arms will lengthen evenly.
  5. Finish the arms. When the cross has about four rushes in each arm, tie each arm firmly near its end and trim the tips so all four are equal.
  6. Bless it. Sprinkle it with a few drops of holy water or clean water and say a prayer for the house. A simple traditional-style wording: "May the blessing of God, Mary and Brigid be on this house and all who live in it." Many families said the Rosary on Brigid's Eve.
  7. Hang it. Place it over the inside of the front door, above the kitchen, or in a shed or stable. It is kept there all year.
  8. Replace the old cross. On the next Brigid's Eve take down last year's cross. Customs differ: some burned the old one in the hearth, others kept it with the new, so that several years' crosses hung together in the thatch.

Origins and history§

St Brigid of Kildare, who probably died around 525, is with Patrick and Columba one of the three patron saints of Ireland. Her earliest Life, by Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, dates from the mid-seventh century. The cross, however, is not mentioned in the early Lives. A popular legend — recorded only in modern folklore — tells that Brigid wove a cross from rushes on the floor while sitting with a dying pagan chieftain, and that he asked to be baptised when she explained its meaning.

Saint Brigid Church (Dublin, OH) - Pastoral Center (Hendricks Hall), stained glass, baptismal window
Saint Brigid Church (Dublin, OH) - Pastoral Center (Hendricks Hall), stained glass, baptismal windowNheyob · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Written evidence for the custom in households appears in the early modern period, and by the nineteenth century it was widespread. The Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection of the 1930s, in which children recorded customs from their own districts, contains hundreds of descriptions. Kevin Danaher's The Year in Ireland (1972) and Séamas Ó Catháin's The Festival of Brigit (1995) set out the regional forms: besides the four-armed "lozenge" cross described here there were three-armed crosses for stables, interlaced diamond shapes, and even a woven Brídeóg, a doll of the saint carried from house to house by young people.

Brigid's feast coincides with the old Gaelic seasonal festival of Imbolc at the beginning of spring. Many writers have linked the saint to a pre-Christian goddess Brigit, mentioned in Cormac's Glossary of about 900; others, including Ronald Hutton, emphasise that the evidence for that goddess is thin and that the household customs as recorded are entirely Catholic in form. Both views are found in modern scholarship, and both the Church and modern pagans now keep the day. In 2023 St Brigid's Day became a public holiday in Ireland. See Celtic religion, saints and relics and the wheel of the year.

Variations§

  • Three-armed cross: made for byres and stables in parts of Ulster, said to protect animals.
  • Brigid's mantle: a cloth left out on the same night; see Brat Bríde.
  • The Brídeóg: a figure of the saint dressed and carried by children on Brigid's Eve.
  • Modern pagan Imbolc: many contemporary pagans weave the same cross as a symbol of Brigid as goddess of hearth, poetry and smithcraft.

Safety and good sense§

  • Rushes grow in wet ground; take only a few, from land where you have permission, and leave plenty.
  • If you burn last year's cross, do it in a fireplace or fire-proof dish, never unattended; dry rushes flare quickly.
  • Hang the cross away from candles, stoves and lamps.
  • Folk protection for a house complements, but never replaces, smoke alarms and ordinary security.

Sources and further reading§