Bride (the effigy of St Brigit, the "hag" turned "bride", winter turned spring), which is paraded around Ireland on Imbolc, 1st of Feb, the first day of Gaelic spring, was made from the stick or dash from butter churn, which was dressed as a bride...
In the past, at Imbolc, St Bride's "bannock" "pan cake", was baked and given to the young girls as a blessing...I talked about this in my post "Bannock"...
In Scotland they made bannock not on Imbolc, but on Pancake Tuesday....At the same time when Slavs celebrate their ancient beginning of spring festival Maslenitsa (butter day)...When they bake and eat pan cakes. Which symbolise the sun...
Oh, and on Maslenitsa, the festival that celebrates the death (end) of the witch (winter), people also parade the effigies of Marzana (goddess of death and winter) which are dressed in white, like brides...Because Imbolc/Maslenitsa is time of year when winter ends and spring begins and the hag of winter turns into a maiden of spring...I talked about this in my post "Snow-white"...
The effigy is then burned (rising temperature) or drowned (snowmelt, flowing water), or both, to be sure to be sure 🙂, to symbolically end (kill) winter (hag) and give birth to spring (maiden). This can give us the clue who Brigid originally was...I talked about this in my post "Gryla"...
BTW, there are also some who believe that the word Imbolc, could be derived from im = butter...Would make a lot more sense than the official etymology...
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