I dedicate this one to Mike (Faemike55) since this is a tradition our fairy people belong to. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! This is a detail of the bonfire with the flying old hag: she represents the old year and death, who is re-born as the young goddess of good things.We don't know exactly what was her name among the Italian Celts, but her cult was similar to that of the other Celts beyond the Alps. In Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid (exalted one) was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She had two sisters, also named Brighid, and is considered a classic Celtic Triple Goddess. Her British and continental counterpart Brigantia seems to have been the Celtic equivalent of the Roman Minerva and the Greek Athena, goddesses with very similar functions and apparently embodying the same concept of 'elevated state', whether physical or psychological. She is the goddess of all things perceived to be of relatively high dimensions such as high-rising flames, highlands, hill-forts and upland areas; and of activities and states conceived as psychologically lofty and elevated, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection, high intelligence, poetic eloquence, craftsmanship (especially blacksmithing), healing ability, druidic knowledge and skill in warfare. In the living traditions, whether seen as goddess or saint, she is largely associated with the home and hearth (the Roman goddess Vesta). Stories and symbology that survive in the persona of Saint Brigid may be related. St. Brigid was associated with perpetual, sacred flames. The Latin Diana was also conceived as a threefold unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess, and the goddess of the nether world, Hekate. A Venetic goddess, Reitia, was related to these cults and especially worshipped in the areas of Padova, Vicenza and Rovigo and Belluno. She is known from numerous inscriptions, the word deriving from rectia or regetia (ruler or builder). The Romans identified Reitia with their goddesses Juno, Diana/Artemis and Minerva. She was a Ruler of Animals, and presided over healings, writing and wild as well as domestic animals. She was also connected with the cult of the horse, since the Veneti were famous horse breeders quoted in Homer's Ilyad for that. Her cult as well as that of the Celtic goddess of Northeast Italy lasted for a long time. The Benandanti (Good Walkers) were an agrarian fertility cult in Friuli and Eastern Veneto in the 16th and 17th centuries. Between 1575 and 1675, the Benandanti were tried as heretics under the Roman Inquisition, and their witchcraft assimilated to Satanism. They used their powers to fight malignancy, decay, corruption, or anything symbolizing poor harvest or harsh weather. At some point, groups of these Shamans became the 'bad walkers' who had been influenced by Christianity. Although dubbed 'satanists' these worshippers of nature are still present in our countryside, as some of my students told me about in secret. Thank you for your kind comments.