In early February I wrote of the Celtic goddess Brighid and her Catholic counterpart Saint Brighid. To most sources the Celtic goddess was so popular that the church could vilify the popular figure and made her into a saint.

When Scottish and Irish indentured servants came to Haiti they brought the popular character with them. As with most saints brought to the Caribbean she became blended with the various African deities brought to the New World during the slave trade. With Brighid, she became identified as Mamma Brigette, a guardian of the cemetery and the spirit world. She is also the bride of the better known Baron Samedi.

Since Samedi was such a ghoulish figure it was often left to Mamma Brigette to offer blessings. She was said to be the deity to petition to seriously ill children. She was also called upon to help in legal matters, and when someone needed ready cash. Since she holds court over the spirits, she also governs legal matters. Her favorite colors are black, purple, and violet. Her sacred trees are the Elm and the Weeping Willow. Her spirit is said to live in trees growing in the graveyards.

Like many voodoo deities, Mamma loves all manner of offerings. She loves coffee, red wine, rum, rice and most notably red hot peppers, which she enjoys added to her meals. Her favorite flowers are violets and purple irises. She loves purple eggplants as well.

For St. Patrick's Day I decided to do one of my signature Irish vampire articles. Irish folklore tends to focus more on fairies than the undead. But there is some vampire folklore among the Irish with certain fairies having some of the characteristics of the vampire. One such Irish vampire was the Dearge Due, which was a blood-thirsty fairy whose very name translates to "red blood sucker". This vampire fairy can be traced further back then the Celts, and was also a revenant of an undead corpse that can only be stopped by piling on heavy stones on its grave.       

One tale of the Dearge Due was that of the restless spirit of a beautiful woman whose remains lie in a churchyard under a tree known as Strongbow's tree. It should be noted that the two authors, Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu, were Irish and lived near the graveyard where the vampire woman was buried. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, and Sheridan La Fanu wrote Carmilla, both classic vampire stories.

The Leanhaum-Shee or 'Fairy Mistress' was a destructive vampire fairy who used her feminine charms to seduce vulnerable young men. The only way to distract this vampire was to find another young man for her to prey on so the previous victim could escape. Many of these Irish vampires most likely had their origins as bloodthirsty goddesses who wandered over battlefields drinking the spilled blood of the wounded and dying men. With the advent of Christianity the idea of ancient gods and goddesses dwindled down to ghosts, fairies, and blood thirsty-vampires. The famous Banshee is likely a relic of these goddesses of war and death.