St. Bridget’s, or St. Bride’s day (_Feill Brìde_, _Brithid_) is the first day of spring, consequently the middle of the _Faoilleach_, the 1st of February, O.S., but the 13th New Style. It is frequently confounded with Candlemas, but that day is the 2nd February, whereas St. Bride’s Day is the 1st—this mistake is made by Martin (_West. Isl._, 1716, p. 119). He says that on the 2nd of February “the mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats, and dress it up in woman’s apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid’s Bed; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, Briid is come, Briid is welcome” (Brand, i. 56). The custom is long extinct in the parts of the Highlands with which the writer is acquainted and the only particulars connected with it he has heard are, that on St. Bride’s Day a bed of birch twigs (_leaba bharraich_) was made by the women, and that they then cried at the door, “Bride, Bride, come in, your bed is ready” (_Brìde, Brìde, thig astigh, tha do leaba dean-te_). As in the case of many Gaelic festivals, ceremonies, and other antiquities, the origin of St. Bride’s Day is to be traced directly to Ireland. St. Bridget, we are told, was the first nun in Ireland, and founded her first cell where the city of Kildare now stands, in 585. She was a native of Ulster, and, after building monasteries and performing miracles, became Patroness of Ireland. In 1185 her body was found in the same vault with those of St. Patrick and St. Columba. A well near her church in Fleet Street, London, gave its name, Bridewell, to a palace given by Edward VI. to the city, for a workhouse and a house of correction. The honoured name of St. Bride, who during many ages was celebrated for her sanctity and piety, has thus by accident become associated with the criminal population. It is a sign of the approaching spring that on this day the raven begins to build, and larks sing with a clearer voice. It has been explained in another part of this work, that there was a belief, the serpent had to come out of its hole seven days previous. The rhyme regarding the raven ran: “A nest on St. Bridget’s day, An egg at Shrovetide, And a bird at Easter; If the raven have not these, Then it dies.”[58] The corrections of the observations which it embodies is confirmed by White (_Nat. Hist. of Selborne_), who gives Feb. 14-17 as the period at which the raven builds. In Tiree this was the day on which cock-fighting was practised, and gratuities were given to the schoolmaster. In the evening it was customary to have a ball. The period from _Nollaig_ to _Feill Brìde_, was reckoned at one month and three days. SPRING.