Cailleach

, on the southernmost tip of the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. One of many locations named for the Cailleach. ('old woman' or 'hag' in modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic) comes from the Old Irish ('veiled one'), an adjectival form of ('veil'), an early loan from Latin , 'woollen cloak'. The Cailleach is often referred to as the in Irish and in Scottish Gaelic. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich believes this comes from a word meaning 'sharp, shrill, inimical' – or – and refers to the Cailleach's association with winter and wilderness, as well as her association with horned beasts or cattle. Nollaig Ó Muraíle mentions a colleague discovering a south-west Kerry dialect word used to designate "rocks on the sea-shore against which the sea breaks with great force" and suggests this as an original meaning. However, the earlier forms of the word has a slender ending, not a broad one: (Ó Muraíle), The 8th- to 9th-century Irish poem The Lament of the Old Woman says that the Cailleach's name is or . In Manx Gaelic she is known as the . The plural of cailleach is () in Irish, () in Scottish Gaelic, and in Manx. The word is found as a component in terms like the Gaelic ('nun') and ('owl'), A more obscure word that is sometimes interpreted as 'hag' is the Irish , which has led some to speculate on a connection between the Cailleach and the stone carvings of Sheela na Gigs. ==Legends==

, highest point in Argyll and Bute, home of the Cailleach nan Cruachan In Scotland, where she is also known as Beira, Queen of Winter (a name given by 20th-century folklorist Donald Alexander Mackenzie), she is credited with making numerous mountains and large hills, which are said to have been formed when she was striding across the land and accidentally dropped rocks from her creel or wicker basket. In other cases she is said to have built the mountains intentionally, to serve as her stepping stones. She carries a hammer for shaping the hills and valleys, and is said to be the mother of all the goddesses and gods. According to Mackenzie, Beira was a one-eyed giantess with white hair, dark blue skin, and rust-colored teeth. The Cailleach displays several traits befitting the personification of winter: she herds deer, she fights spring, and her staff freezes the ground. In partnership with the goddess Brìghde, the Cailleach is seen as a seasonal deity or spirit, ruling the winter months between Samhainn (5 November or first day of Samhain) and Bealltainn (1 May or first day of summer), while Brìghde rules the summer months between Bealltainn and Samhainn. Some interpretations have the Cailleach and Brìghde as two faces of the same goddess, : Coire Bhreacain - 'whirlpool/cauldron of the plaid') washtub of the Cailleach On the west coast of Scotland, the Cailleach ushers in winter by washing her great plaid (Gaelic: féileadh mòr) in the Gulf of Corryvreckan (Gaelic: Coire Bhreacain - 'whirlpool/cauldron of the plaid'). This process is said to take three days, during which the roar of the coming tempest is heard as far away as inland. When she is finished, her plaid is pure white and snow covers the land.), from the last sheaf of the crop. The figure would then be tossed into the field of a neighbor who had not yet finished bringing in their grain. The last farmer to finish had the responsibility to take in and care for the corn dolly for the next year, with the implication they'd have to feed and house the hag all winter. Competition was fierce to avoid having to take in the Old Woman. Some scholars believe the Old Irish poem "The Lament of the Old Woman of Beara" is about the Cailleach; Kuno Meyer states, "she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She had seven periods of youth one after another, so that every man who had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races." Ireland In Ireland, the Cailleach is associated with craggy, prominent mountains and outcroppings, such as Hag's Head () the southernmost tip of the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. , County Kerry, is associated with The Hag of Beara There is a rock on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork at Kilcatherine said to resemble the Cailleach. In mythology she is said to have leapt across the bay from Coulagh to its present location. The megalithic tombs at Loughcrew in County Meath are situated atop Slieve na Calliagh () and include a kerbstone known as "the hag's chair". Cairn T on Slieve na Calliagh is a classic passage tomb, in which the rays of the equinox sunrise shine down the passageway and illuminate an inner chamber filled with megalithic stone carvings. The summit of Slieve Gullion in County Armagh features a passage tomb known locally as the 'Calliagh Beara's House'. There is also a lake, where the Calliagh is said to have played a trick on the mythical warrior, Fionn mac Cumhaill, when he took on the physical appearance of an old man after diving into the lake to retrieve a ring that the Calliagh fooled him into thinking was lost. Aillenacally (Aill na Caillí, "Hag Cliff") is a cliff in County Galway. The Carrowmore passage tombs on the Cúil Iorra Peninsula in County Sligo, are associated with the Cailleach. One is called the Cailleach a Bhéara's House. William Butler Yeats refers to the Sligo Cailleach as the 'Clooth na Bare'. In County Sligo she is also called the Garavogue Cailleach. File:Cairns S(?) and T, Loughcrew.jpg|Remains of passage tombs on Slieve na Calliagh, County Meath File:11. Labbacallee Wedge Tomb, Co. Cork.jpg|Labbacallee wedge tomb or "The Hag's Bed", near Glanworth, County Cork Scotland The Cailleach is prominent in the landscape of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. In later tales she is known as the Cailleach nan Cruachan ("the witch of Ben Cruachan"). Ben Cruachan is the tallest mountain in the region. Tea-towels and postcards of her are sold in the visitor shop for the Hollow Mountain, which also features a mural depicting her accidental creation of Loch Awe. Legend has it that the Cailleach was tired from a long day herding deer. Atop Ben Cruachan she fell asleep on her watch and a well she was tending overflowed, running down from the highlands and flooding the valleys below, forming first a river and then the loch. The overflowing well is a common motif in local Gaelic creation tales - as seen in the goddess Boann's similar creation of the River Boyne in Ireland. Other connections to the region include her above-mentioned strong ties with the fierce whirlpool in the Gulf of Corryvreckan.) or Tigh nam Bodach, (Scottish Gaelic for house of the old men Roughly rectangular, the building originally measured 2m by 1.3m by 0.4m high with a stone roof. A replacement roof of a wooden pallet having collapsed and the whole building having become somewhat ruinous it was rebuilt by a local dyker in 2011. According to local legend the stones represent the Cailleach, her husband the Bodach, and their children and the site may represent the only surviving shrine of its kind in Great Britain. ==In popular culture==

• In Scottish Gaelic literature, the Cailleach was famously used to personify the internal literary critic of 18th-century poet William Ross. Despite being widely viewed as a, "love-lorn romantic who died of unrequited love", due to the poet's many versifications of his loss and heartbreak over the 1782 marriage of his beloved Mòr Ros, Ross was also capable of poking fun at himself, as in the self-flyting poem Oran eadar am Bàrd agus Cailleach-mhilleadh-nan-dàn ("Exchange of Verses between the Poet and the Hag-who-spoils-poems"). • According to American ethnomusicologist Amy Murray, the Gaels of the Outer Hebrides sometimes referred to Queen Victoria as ''"A' chailleach a-stùiradh"'' ("The Hag that's steering"). • Morna Young's dramatisation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, produced by the Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh, in November/December 2023, conflates the characters of Beira, Queen of Winter, and the Snow Queen. • A character named Cailleach appears in two episodes of the fourth season of the British BBC television series Merlin. According to the plot, Cailleach is a powerful deity in the Old Religion. She serves as the Gatekeeper to the Spirit World. • A version of the Cailleach appears in the 1978 Doctor Who story The Stones of Blood, impersonated by a long-lived alien and worshipped by a modern druid cult. • Cailleach is a Russian neo-folk music band performing in the genres of pagan folk, folk rock, medieval folk, and fantasy folk. The Cailleach music band was born in 2020 from the work of the Alruna music band, which existed for 8 years on the Russian stage, based on the myths and legends of the northern and Celtic peoples, as well as the legends of old Britain. They have a YouTube channel called Cailleach Folkband. • Cailleach is the main character in Megan Barnard's 2025 novel, The Winter Goddess. ==See also==

• "The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare", ed. and tr. ==Further reading==