Whitby Imbolc

Where:	Whitby Brewery on East Cliff near the Abbey
When:	Sunday near February 1st
Time:	4 pm (ish)

Imbolc marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and already there may be signs of the change in the season. It’s an ancient Celtic festival and is celebrated on 1st or 2nd February, the name deriving from words connected with ewes being in milk ready for lambs to be born. It also marks the feast of the Goddess/St Brigid (spellings vary including Bridge and Bridget) and is associated with fire, healing and cleansing; some aspects of the older festival are believed to have been incorporated into the Christian saint’s day. An old tradition (rather like that for Groundhog Day in the US) states that if the day is fair and bright, Brigid is out gathering sticks to prepare for further winter weather, whereas if it’s dark and damp it means winter is ending so she doesn’t have to bother. At Whitby, the team who organise the Krampus Run and John Barleycorn Must Die mark the date on the nearest Sunday to the feast with a procession at dusk to the Brewery. There’s lots of drumming, smudging with sage, games relating to the gathering of sticks and other associated participatory artwork and events, masking, drawing and of course a bit of fire. When we visited, the focus of the year was on the Crone or Cailleach, and her representative was wheeled up to the entrance in a special cart. It’s a smaller and less ritualistic event than the others mentioned, and is quite ad hoc and relaxed, with fairly flexible timings, and much of the event takes place indoors as the East coast can be nithering in February..