This week, I felt the promise of the Cailleach’s energy. She is coming. As I stood in Loughcrew on the Autumn Equinox and watched the blood-orange sun rise up to greet me on Sliabh na Caillí, ‘The Cailleach’s Hill’, while the waning moon hung behind, it felt like she was coordinating this cosmic dance preparing for her return. Her light filled Cairn T, a 5,000 year old passage tomb and ritual complex, illuminating its central chamber, the Cailleach’s womb.

On The Celtic Creatives blog one of the decorated entrance stones to Cairn T illuminated by Wednesday morning’s sunrise. — ***One of the decorated entrance stones to Cairn T illuminated by Wednesday morning’s sunrise.***

THE VEILED ONE

Cailleach (“KAL-yach”) means ‘Veiled One’ in Old Irish. It is also the modern Irish word for a ‘witch’ but the English translation does not serve fully, as even in its modern form, Cailleach is imbued with the essence of ‘divine hag’.

We have no creation myth in the Irish tradition, lost to the realms of time or perhaps to the censorship of Christian monks who first captured our oral tradition in written word. But it is said that the Cailleach created the cairns, the mountains, their infant hills; this land by dropping rocks out of her apron.

She is as old as time. She is our creator deity, our ancestor deity, our weather deity. She is our Bean Feasa; our wise, curing woman. She is a Sovereignty Goddess, a fierce protectress of this land that she shaped. Arriving through the portal of Samhain and reigning over winter until Brigid comes at Imbolc. She is a shapeshifter. Often appearing in the form of a hare, a magical animal that possesses the gift of superconception - the ability to get pregnant while pregnant.

‘The Cailleach of Loughcrew’ by Shelly Mooney, Tales from the Wood — ***‘The Cailleach of Loughcrew’ by*** ***Shelly Mooney, Tales from the Wood***

THE OLD WOMAN OF BEARE

One of the oldest known expressions of the Cailleach comes from the Beara peninsula in the southwest of Ireland, in the form of the 8th century poem, ‘The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare’. Its composer is thought to be the historical woman poet, Digde. The prose introduction to the poem reads:

‘The Old Woman of Beare, whose name was Digde, was of the Corcu Duibne [a tribe of Western Co. Kerry]... This is why she was called the Old Woman, the Nun of Beare: she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She passed into seven periods of youth, so that every husband used to pass from her to death and old age, so that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren were peoples and races. And for a hundred years she wore the veil…’

So we can see here the allusion to the Cailleach as a Creator Goddess, as mother of peoples and races. The reference to fosterage is notable as it is a key theme in Celtic mythology and is reflective of the practice in early Irish society. Children were fostered by Goddesses and Gods and mythical mentors who would teach them skills to amplify their human gifts and their supernatural capacities.

Photos I took on Dursey Island (Oileán Baoi) in 2019

A LAMENT FOR THE GODDESS

What is even more fascinating is the poem itself, where the dance of polarities at this time of year is reflected in the Old Woman of Beare’s own body. It is the 8th century, Christiany is now in Ireland three centuries and growing. The ancient ways of the Goddess are dissolving, relegated to a ‘pagan’ past. And so, the old woman laments:

Ebbtide to me as to the sea; old age causes me to sallow; although I may grieve thereat, it comes to its food joyfully.
I am the Old Woman of Beare, from Dursey; I used to wear a smock that was always new. Today I am become so thin that I would not wear out even a cast-off smock.
Bitterly does my body seek to go to a dwelling where it is known; when the Son of God deems it time, let Him carry off his deposit.
When my arms are seen, all bony and thin! - in fondest fashion they acted, once; they used to be around glorious kings.
When my arms are seen, all bony and thin, they are not, I declare, worth raising up over handsome boys.
They girls are joyful when they approach Maytime; grief is more fitting for me: I am not only miserable, I am an old woman.
Woe is me indeed - every acorn is doomed to decay - to be in the darkness of an oratory after feasting by bright candles.
I have had my time with kings, drinking mead and wine; today I drink whey and water among shrivelled old women.
My flood has guarded well that which was deposited with me; Jesus, Son of Mary, has redeemed it so I am not sad up to ebb.
Happy the island of the great sea; flood comes to it after ebb; as for me, I expect no flood after ebb to come to me.
Today, there is scarcely an abode I would recognise; what was in flood is all ebbing.

Through her poignant expression, we learn that the Old Woman of Beare desires to die, to be carried off when the Son of God deems it time. And yet, she was once a God, a Goddess herself, not a shrivelled old woman. She sits in an oratory of darkness but she used to drink mead and wine with glorious kings, wrapping her arms around them.

Here, she laments the Banais Ríghí (“BAN-ash REE-ghee”), meaning, ‘Wedding-feast of Kingship’. This was the highest form of ceremony in Ancient Ireland. A marriage between the king who represented people and culture, and the Sovereignty Goddess who represented nature and the land. In this ritual, the Goddess would offer the king a wedding libation (liquid or grains poured from the cup of a deity) to indicate her approval of the marriage and the king’s legitimacy to rule. This was the perfect union of the masculine with the divine feminine.