A Tale for Imbolc

 This Irish story is not set at Imbolc specifically (or at any obvious juncture of the year in the versions I've read of it), however it does feature the goddess Brigid who is especially associated in both Pagan and Christian - through her association with St Brigit - imagery with the festival in early February that marks the lambing season an the emergence of early plant life after the worst of winter.

The feast of Imbolc focuses mainly on three sister-goddesses, all called Brigid and essentially  facets of the same complex entity. One sister is the goddess of the forge fires of the blacksmith, another of the healing fires (used to boil potions and sanitise surgical tools, such as those found in the archaeological site at Colchester), and the third is fiery inspiration of the poet. I strongly suspect that there would have been a longer version of the short account of Ruadan's death in the surviving text, which linked these aspects of Brigid to the events in the tale. Poetry does not feature much, but smithing certainly does, and keening has a therapeutic role.

In an attempt at making peace between the warring Tuatha De Danann and the underwater horrors that are the Fomorians, the goddess Brigid marries one of the very few Fomori that is attractive rather than hideous, Bres the Beautiful. This political alliance is intended to seal the peace between the two tribes, which it does for a while before Bres shows that - regardless of his face - his heart is truly Fomorian. The union results in a child, Ruadan.

As an adult Ruadan comes to a crossroads in his life where he must choose between his two families and his own conflicted nature. The choice he makes leads to a terrible decision and ultimately seals his own fate.

Horror-struck with grief, his mother Brigit begins to keen (the Anglicised spelling of caoine) - the very first time such a thing was done in Ireland, and by extension anywhere in the world. The English implies discordant wailing, but in the original sense is a plaintive, ululating song of grief traditionally sung by women whose hair is covered during the period of mourning. It formed part of funeral rituals for hundreds of years, and similar practices can be found in many other parts of the world.