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Bonnach Brìde
Although it still does not feel like Spring has come quite yet, ‘Imbolc’ or ‘Imbolg’ is usually falls on the first day of February and it marks the beginning of Spring. ‘Imbolc’ was originally a Pagan festival but it is now recognised as a Christian festival associated with Saint Bride. Bonnach Brìde is our phrase this week as traditionally a cake was made on the first day of Spring. Bonnach Brìde is in DASG’s Corpus na Gàidhlig stems from Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica.
You need to be careful when baking bannocks because the fairy folk may come into your house if you do not put a hole in the last cake, or break a piece off of it, of put a live coal on its top. If you don’t do these things, the fairy folk will sing the following:
Little cake
Without gap or fissure,
Rise and let us in!
...and they will be in!
(Ronald Black (ed.), The Gaelic Otherworld, 2005, p. 10)
We are sure that everyone will have lots of recipies and stories about the Bonnach Brìde and we would be very happy to hear them, so why not let us know through Facebook or Twitter?
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