Imbolc, also known as Saint Brigid’s Day, Ladies’ Day, Oimelc, Candlemas, and Groundhog Day, traditionally begins on the evening of February first, and continues through to February second. It falls halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, and marks the time when signs of the Earth’s first “quickening,” or tiny signs of new life after the winter, can be perceived.
Imbolc is a fire festival and is also associated with fertility. Ancient Celtic celebrations involved bonfires, hearth fires, divination (especially weather divination), and visits to holy wells to pray for fertility and bounty. The name, Imbolc, comes from the Old Irish imbolg, which means, “in the belly.” The alternative Pagan name, “Oimelc” means “Ewe’s milk.”
Ewes ovulate in the fall of the year, their bodies responding to the diminishing hours of daylight after Mabon, the Autumn Equinox. They remain pregnant for five months, giving birth to new lambs in the early Spring, before Ostara and the Spring Equinox. It is only in the final weeks of pregnancy that a ewe grows round in the belly and begins to show. In olden times shepherds could not be sure which of their ewes were expecting until around early February, or Imbolc—in the belly! This was a time for celebration, for it meant new life in the form of lambs, which would increase the flock or be slaughtered for tender meat to eat with young spring greens, and the ewe’s milk was used to make cheese.
Where I live, in the Alpine foothills in Italy, the period around Imbolc coincides with the return of the shepherds and their flocks.
When we first moved here I had no idea there would be traveling shepherds, so I was utterly delighted and surprised when one February day, I found myself inside my car, stopped in the middle of a country road between one village and another, surrounded by over a thousand baaing and milling sheep.
The situation, not to mention the appearance of the shepherds, seemed like something from several centuries earlier. They were all wearing loosely fitting, dark-colored work clothes, wool caps, thick boots, and gloves, and most shepherds had abundant facial hair and rather long, unkempt head hair, and carried staffs. Some of the older ones still wear a thick woolen cloak called a “tabarro” in inclement weather, and some wear gaiters with their boots. All of them looked dirty and wild, as if they’ve been walking and camping out for months—which, in fact, they had.
Shepherding is an ancient profession, usually passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. Where I live, the shepherds have been using the same system of cooperative “alpeggi” and transhumance for over eight centuries. In the Middle Ages, there were thousands of shepherds in these parts. Now there remain only sixty transhumance shepherds in Lombardy. Transhumance means the shepherd travels from one place to another, and back again, seasonally.
The Lombardy shepherds and flocks have their alpeggi, or summer resting places, in the high mountains in the Orobian Alps behind Bergamo, where they stay for a hundred days between June and September. When the nighttime temperatures start to drop, the shepherd, or his collaborator, starts the trek down the mountain with the flock. In recent years, many shepherds have begun using trucks and campers to move from place to place, but there are still some who complete the entire transhumance on foot.
Following woods paths, old mule trails, country roads, and green spaces between small towns and villages, the shepherd moves the flock slowly southward, as far as the lower plains south of Milan, around Pavia, over the course of about three months, arriving in the temperate southern area at the coldest time of year. They may stay there with the flock for a few weeks before starting the circular path northward, heading up toward the Italian lake region. By about Imbolc they reach my area, already headed homeward, to the Alps, as the frozen ground thaws and the first leaf buds start to appear on the trees.
I have seen flocks of thousands of sheep grazing in grassy divisions between highways, although most of my encounters with them have been in the woods and fields around my home, whilst on horseback.
February is usually a delightful time for horse riding in the woods here. Dangerous ground ice has melted away, but there are not yet any insects in the woods to bother the horse. The horses are happy, frisky, and full of energy, sensing the odors of tiny newborn greenstuffs growing, shedding away their heavy winter coats, feeling their own hormone sap rising with the lengthening of daylight. I love the tinkling water sounds of thawed streams and brooks, and the early birds’ songs, and the occasional warmer layer of breeze in the air, rustling the new pussy willows and the hazelnut catkins as we trot along, our view through the trees not yet impeded by thick foliage.
Along with all these little heralds of impending springtime, I see bits of white wool fuzz on the lower tree branches, left behind by traveling sheep.
One Sunday in February a few years ago, I was out riding with a friend and fellow horseman, enjoying a canter through the awakening woods as the late-afternoon sun cast long glinting shadows between the tree trunks. We were headed toward home, and slowed to a walk to cross a muddy place on the path. I noticed thousands of little cloven hoofprints in the mud, and then—we both heard it—the plaintive bleating of a newborn lamb.
To our left was a wide flat expanse of chestnut woods, last year’s brown leaves and empty hulls making a noisy carpet at the trees’ bases. I spotted the lamb first. All alone, tiny, and white as snow, at first I thought she was a plastic bag or other litter. And then she moved, rustling the brown ground cover. She bleated again.
We halted our horses and watched her. Why was she alone? How had this fluffy white preemie been left behind?
“I’m going to try to get her,” my friend said.
“We can bring her back to the shepherd. He must have just passed through.”
We both dismounted, and I held the horses and watched while he approached the lamb.
She scampered away. He tried again, approaching slowly, speaking softly. As soon as he was within a few feet of her, she ran off on her little spindly legs. After several more failures, my friend, who is neither lithe nor quick, returned for a lead rope he had brought with him. Using it as a sort of lasso, he finally managed to capture the wriggling lamb and carried her back to where I stood with the horses.
I helped him remount with the lamb in his arms, then I mounted my own horse and we left the woods, following in the direction of the sheep’s footprints.
We came to an asphalt road and were able to follow the trail of mud and sheep droppings around the corner, onto a second road, and into a large field. The shepherd and flock had been there, but were there no longer. We re-entered the woods, easily following the sheep trail, and continued down the path for a while. In the meantime, the lamb was bleating with ever more desperation, obviously hungry. She was sucking at my friend’s little finger but found no satisfaction there.
My friend, who has a small farm, with chickens, rabbits, and a pig, said he’d had experience with lambs before.
“Why don’t you take her back to your place and feed her? I’ll go on looking for the shepherd.”
“Okay. If you find him, tell him to stay put, and I will bring the lamb in my car.”
We parted ways, and I went on searching for the shepherd and his flock until it became too dark to see well, and I had to return home without finding him. I telephoned my friend, and he said he had fed the lamb with supermarket goat’s milk, and he would keep her overnight and go by car to try to find the shepherd first thing in the morning.
Later the next day he called to tell me he was on his way to work when he saw the flock from a distance in a field. He spoke to the shepherd, who said he hadn’t even noticed a ewe giving birth. My friend then rushed back home, got the lamb, and happily brought her back to the shepherd.
Along with the thousand or two of sheep, a shepherd brings five or six donkeys or mules and the same number of working shepherd dogs with him. These animals accompany the flock for the entire transhumance, and each has a job. The donkeys are used to carry newly born lambs, still too weak and young to walk so far alone. The dogs keep the flock cohesive, and are essential when crossing highways, busy streets, and through towns to prevent the sheep from straying, and to keep them moving at a decent clip.
Equines start to really feel their oats as the days lengthen, right around Imbolc. Mares will have their first heat period, and impassioned stallions will not fail to rise to the occasion, in all senses of the phrase. The donkeys that accompany the shepherds’ flocks are no exception; they, too, like to have a little fun.
One weekday afternoon I was driving my daughter home from school. We were coming up a hill toward the entrance to a bicycle path bordered on both sides by pastures, when my daughter suddenly squealed in glee.
“Wild donkeys!! Look!”
I slowed, and then stopped the car, as we watched three, then four, then five, six, donkeys of varying sizes run out from the bike path onto the road, and, shaking their heads and snorting, trot merrily up hill. I drove on slowly, wondering where their flock was, but it was nowhere to be seen. I suppose they had lingered behind, enjoying the sunshine and the grass.
The next morning, on horseback, I unexpectedly came upon the shepherd and his flock, and all the donkeys, in a field. There was no way for me to get home but to creep along the edges of the flock, making my way into the woods.
“Hey!” the shepherd yelled at me. “Is that a mare you’re riding?”
I turned in the saddle and looked at him.
“No, he’s a gelding!” I called out.
“Good. Because I have a donkey stallion here.”
He gestured toward a tall, dark, good-looking donkey, one leg hobbled to his neck with a ragged cord.
I waved and departed into the shadows of the woods.
The following day I took my mare for a ride, trying to avoid the areas where the flock had been or might be.
It was early afternoon, and the sun’s warmth and light on the tree trunks was lovely. I stopped a minute, dismounted, and put my ear to a wild cherry tree’s trunk, to hear the glug-glug-glug of its rising sap, like a heartbeat.
Once remounted, I noticed that my mare’s ears were pricked, and she was frozen, staring. I looked where she was looking, and, to my horror, saw the tall, dark donkey stallion running, with a limp, toward us. The hobble rope didn’t slow him down much. My mare’s body tensed and then she sprung into a canter, and, as the donkey chased her, a gallop. I had a terrible vision of being mounted while still mounted, and I did not really want a baby mule.
Suddenly I had an idea. I pulled my mare to a halt, turned her to face the donkey, and yelled at him, “Go away!”
Understanding my alarm, my horse pinned her ears back, kicked up one front leg threateningly, and let out a mean sound to let the donkey know she wasn’t interested. Rejected, the donkey turned and trotted away, back to his flock.
Although the first faint signs of nature’s awakening may not always be easy to detect at Imbolc, they are there. Sometimes all one needs to do is go for a long walk in the woods, or a city park. Even if you do not run into a flock of sheep, there are many other little signs of impending spring that will reveal themselves to you.