Imbolg

The Oxford Companion to Irish History | 2007 | 632 words | Copyright

Imbolg (1 Feb.), the first day of spring and one of the four traditional ‘quarter days’, important in the calendar customs of Goidelic‐speaking areas up to the present century. The name's derivation is uncertain; medieval etymologists fancifully explained it as oí‐melc (‘ewe‐milk’): ‘that is, it is then that sheep's milk comes.’ Since the later Middle Ages the day has been known as Lá Fhéile Bríde, ‘St Brigid's Day’: the saint's great popularity is doubtless responsible for the disappearance of the older term.

John Price Carey

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