One of the earliest references to the hag is in the late 11th–early 12th century satire "
Vision of Mac Conglinne", in which she appears in a list of eight people about whom lays are sung, as
Caillech Bérre bán "a white nun, of Beare". The untitled
Middle Irish medieval poem of 35 verses, known as "The Lament of the Hag of Beara", has been described by folklorist
Eleanor Hull as "a beautiful example of the wide-spread idea that human life is ruled by the flow and ebb of the sea-tide, with the turn of which life will dwindle, as with the on-coming tide it waxes to its full powers and energy". The narrator is clearly unhappy with her lot, and remembers that in her youth she spent her time "with kings, drinking
mead and wine", but she now lives a lonely life in "the gloom of an
oratory" among "shrivelled old hags". The introductory text before the poem, recounts a few details. It tell us her name was and that she was of the
Corcu Duibne, about whom Finan (perhaps
Finan Cam) prophesied that their race "should never be without a famous illustrious woman", mentioning other famed women of the Corcu Duibne: "Brigit, the daughter of Iustan,
Liadain, the wife of
Cuirither and
Uallach, the daughter of Muinegan". She is called "the Old Woman of Beare" because she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She had seven periods of youth, one after the other, outliving every man that lived with her, so that her descendants were tribes and races. For a hundred years she wore the veil (Old Irish ) blessed by Cuimine, thereupon old age and infirmity came to her.
Kuno Meyer identified this Cumine as "probably
Cummine Fota, Bishop of Clonfert, who died in 661". Hull suggests that this blessed veil is a Christian appropriation of her hood, "for, as in many other cases, the pagan goddess reappears in later days as a Christian nun." Two copies of the poem are found in the manuscript 1337/1-4 (H 3.18) held at
Trinity College Dublin. Meyer published a critical edition of the poem and a full translation in
Otia Merseiana in 1899. Eleanor Hull published a 19-verse poetic translation in 1912 and
Lady Augusta Gregory contributed a 21-verse translation in 1919. The following example verses are taken from Meyer.
Patrick Pearse's poem
Mise Éire, composed in 1912, mentions the
cailleach in the opening and closing verses: ==Landmarks==