Feb 2 is St. Bride's Day

Feb 2 is the Feast of St. Brigid (Secondary Patron of Ireland) and Lá Feabhra - the first day of Spring. Brigit, seen here as a 'female smith', was one of the great Triple Goddesses of the Celts. She appeared as Brigit to the Irish, Brigantia in Northern England, Bride in Scotland, and Brigandu in Brittany. Brigid also aids any woman about to be married or handfasted and the woman is called “bride” in her honor. The sun is unlucky on Feb 2, and the Irish look for foul weather on Imbolc/St Brigids, because good weather means that the hag goddess, Cailleach, is looking to gather a lot of fire wood, meaning that she knows winter will last a lot longer. This may be will the idea of the groundhog and his shadow comes from.

Feb 2 is also known as Candlemas, Imbolc, Oimelc, Brigid's Day, Groundhogs Day. It is a pre-agricultural solar festival and one of the four great Celtic Holidays, which are Feb 1 (Imbolc), May 1 (Beltaine), August 1 (Lammas/Lugnasad), Nov 1 (Samhain Or Halloween). These are "quarter days" - falling halfway between the Solstices and Equinoxes. Feb 1 is a "female fire festival", as Halloween is a 'male' fire festival. At a number of megalithic and neolithic sites in Ireland, the inner chamber of the passage tombs are perfectly aligned with the rising sun on both Imbolc and Samhain. Similar to the phenomena seen at Newgrange, the rising Imbolc sun shines down the long passageway and illuminates the inner chamber of the tomb.Imolc is a (pronounced "Im-melk") probably means "in milk" - meaning pregnant sheep will begin to lactate, as lambs will be born in March. As a former sheep-farmer, it makes perfect sense as a holiday marker, as those animals which survived the winter will produce new life, and the sun will come back, and we will survive another year. I well remember long cold winter nights when Richard slept in the barn with the lambing ewes, and how exciting it was in the darkness of winter when the new lambs arrived. It's too early for the cows to be in calf, and ewes milk is a fresh source of food (and cheese) in the dark winter.