Cailleach: Queen of Winter
Countless tales of the Cailleach, known as the most ancient of the pre-Celtic goddesses of Scotland and Ireland, portray her as the primordial power of the land itself. Sometimes known as the Veiled One or the Queen of Winter, the Cailleach determined the winter’s length and harshness.
As archetypal mother-goddess, she births life and fertility. As ‘divine hag,’ she represents the dark side of the Mother who brings death (and rebirth). In a more familiar guise, she appears as the local healer, called bean feasa ‘wise woman.’
Sometimes known as the Veiled One or the Queen of Winter, the Cailleach determined the winter’s length and harshness. Innumerable stories describe her as the spirit of the land itself, as the force of the elements of wind and water, which is especially apparent in winter storms. Some of the wildest places in nature are named for her. Her face is seen in the stormiest of headlands, such as on the farthest cliffs of Moher, called Hag’s Head, Ceann na Cailleach.
Her tools of creation and destruction included her hammer, with which she was able to control storms and thunder. In some legends, she also controlled a well that would occasionally overflow and flood the land.
The Cailleach is not confined to any one venue, but is the creator of hills, lakes, and islands in many locations. At Loughcrew, Slieve na Caillaigh, the ‘Hills of the Hag,’ this landscape of hilltop stone cairns is said to have been made by the Cailleach dropping stones from her apron as she bounded across the hills. These Neolithic cairns are burial mounds, but they might also have been sites of ancestor ceremonies. With their long passages into interior chambers, such as Loughcrew Cairn T, these cairns have been thought of as symbolic wombs, especially when Cairn T and the great cairn called New Grange at Brú na Bóinne, are pierced by a shaft of sunlight — as witnessed at the equinoxes and at winter solstice.
The Cailleach was both ageless and immortal; as winter gave way to spring, she would take a drought that returned her to youth. In Manx legend, she spent half the year as a young woman and the other half as a old crone—she was only known as the Cailleach during the latter half.
The Cailleach was also a goddess of grain, a key resource in surviving winter. The last sheath of grain harvested was dedicated to her, and used to begin the next planting season.
