A beautiful tradition, a holy and potent symbol woven from the rushes of Irish rivers and thought to ward off evil and hunger for generations of Irish people.

St Brigid is one of Ireland's patron saints, who was an abbess and mother of the church, presiding over an abbey in Kildare, Ireland. The story of the first St Brigid's cross comes from a story about an old pagan lord on his deathbed whose servants summoned Brigid to his side to calm him. She held vigil there, comforting him, and in an effort to make him understand the new faith, she picked some rushes from the floor, and wove an intricate cross. So moved by her care and her words that he asked to be baptised before he died.

However, the legend of Brigid is likely much older than Christianity. Brigid was a goddess, one of the race of Irish gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann. The cross of rushes may indeed be an adaptation of an older woven symbol, which along with Brigid, may have been transfigured into a Christian saint by early Irish pilgrims to ease the conversion or Irish pagans to Christianity.