Winter Solstice: Connecting With The Cailleach

Awaken The Crone On The Darkest Night

Cailleach,
I call to you.
I enter your Sacred Cave with courage and trust.
Casting aside my worries,
Laying them down like the stones they are.
I come seeking
She who is Bringer of Winter,
And Keeper of the Fire.
Cailleach.
I seek renewal in your Sacred Cave,
Which shelters me from the storms of winter,
I light this candle to call you forth, Wise Woman.
I come to be nourished and blessed by your presence.
Cailleach.
I welcome you, Stone Mother.
I embrace you, Wise Woman,
With gratitude and openness.
For blessing me with your presence,
Hear my stories,
And grant me your wisdom.
Cailleach.

The Cailleach is the spirit of place. She is found in the land, sea, and sky. Older than time, she is The Crone who has seen all, from birthing mountains to her denigration. She brings winter, the time for the inward journey, finding meaning and connection.

When my arms are seen,
all bony and thin!
-the craft they used to practice was pleasant:
they used to be about glorious kings.

When my arms are seen,
all bony and thin,
they are not, I declare,
worth raising around comely youths.

The maidens are joyful
when they reach May-day;
grief is more fitting for me:
I am not only miserable, but an old woman.

I speak no honied words;
no wethers are killed for my wedding;
my hair is scant and grey;
to have a mean veil over it causes no regret.

To have a white veil
on my head causes me no grief;
many coverings of every hue
were on my head as we drank good ale.

- from “The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare.”

Far from being a simple granny, she is fierce with no patience for fools. Her beauty is found in her legacy, the very earth itself. We are all her children. She comes as The Cailleach, the Great Wise Woman, who created the mountains and brings the winter. She is called carline, crone and hag. We see her in the faces of our goddesses when they come to us in their ancient forms. Hail to The Cailleach in all her many forms. She of 1,000 names. She who was she before she had a name.

The Cailleach’s Message

In our time, we resist the harsh barrenness and storms of winter. We rage against the darkness of these months, unnaturally lighting up the world. Forgetting The Cailleach, we have created on the global scale the same false positivity that we can fall into in our personal lives. The Cailleach calls us to her cave so that we can return to our truth.

Within our lives, avoiding the dark places within us inevitably leads to unsustainability as well as we fall deeper into the energy of the shadow self. It is a curious thing that the only way we can heal our shadow is by not avoiding her, but by embracement. The dance of shadow and soul plays out not always under the burning light. We need the darkness for our wholeness. Call out to The Cailleach to teach you how to be a better dancer, a creator of balance and wholeness.

The Nourishing Darkness

As she has always sustained us, we can now nourish her by bringing her presence back into our lives. As we answer her appeals, her energy will grow leading to the correction within us that denies the necessity of darkness and in the larger world. Avoiding her winter darkness has gotten us in a lot of trouble. Isn’t it time to enter her cave?

The cave is the refuge from the harshness of reality, but only the brave will enter. They will be rewarded with nourishment and wisdom. How often do we choose to remain in a storm, ignoring comfort offered to us? There is a time for rest.

Entering The Cailleach’s Cave

While The Cailleach is as complex and diverse as they come, this ritual calls out to her to bring us nourishment and respite. Her home is deep in the heart of her mountains, where she restores her strength. Her cave offers a break from the storms of life and the harsh barrenness of the winter landscape. In many ways, winter comes for us as individuals and as society. While the only way to survive these storms is through them, there is a time for replenishment required. Enter into her cave to share your stories and to hear her wisdom. The sacred shared nourishment of connecting through the power of narrative awaits.

The Wise Woman Healer

Although the word “cailleach” simply means “old woman,” this term is generally used today to signify a witch-mother goddess who’s evolved through the tales told of her, often through the myths of particularly Ireland and Scotland. She heals through the wisdom shared in her stories. Her cauldron brings rebirth. She welcomes the sincere into her presence.

The Ancient Goddess

There are many tales regarding The Cailleach as the eternal wise woman healer. Sometimes denigrated as a mean-spirited hag, The Cailleach of various locations, such as the Cailleach Béara (Cally Berra), were Goddesses of Winter to ancient Celts.

The importance of place is central to the tales of The Cailleach, where she is historically often said to be based in a specific location, such as Béara. That she is linked to places signifies how deeply she is connected to the land and its people. She is of the earth itself. This connection of place also speaks to her message of reconnecting to the land, of treating the earth well so that we can be nourished.

The Cailleach Béara is the ancestress of many peoples in Ireland. To them, she is the sovereign queen who remembers the time before time, and the early eons when earth was water. Also representing the time before the freedom of the Irish was lost.

The Veiled One

In legends dating from the Christian period, she is sometimes portrayed as a nun, perhaps linked to the association of her name with veiling. She is The Veiled One, wrapped in shawls with her head covered in a scarf.

The Goddess of Winter and Storms

On The Isle of Man, she is called Caillagh ny Goamagh (Grumpy Old Woman) and Caillagh ny Gueshag (Old Woman of the Spells), where she is a spirit of winter and storms. The Cailleach Uragaig, of the Isle of Colonsay in Scotland, prevents a young woman from being with her beloved. In a similar story, the Cailleach imprisons the beautiful young Goddess Bride (Brigid) inside of a mountain over the winter. At Bride’s release, spring comes to the world.

The theme of The Cailleach holding spring captive is found in many of her stories. She arrives at Samhain, dismissing the youthful exuberance of Bride (Breegh). The Gracious Old Lady of Scotland (The Cailleach Bheur) is a blue-faced crone in winter but transforms to young and lovely in the spring.

Goddess of the Sea and Stones

The Cailleach, like many goddesses of winter, is strongly associated with not only storms, but the sea, such as the Cailleach Na Mara (Of The Sea).

The Cailleach an Mhuilinn (Of The Mill) appears in many myths as well. She is both helper and foe, a seer and shapeshifter. To the ancients who revered her, the mill symbolized the power of creation through the wheel which spun the water to create the necessary friction. The association with the mill illustrates her connection to ponds and lakes. The grist stone stands in for the Wheel of Time. The Cailleach as the Maker of Mountains and her connection to millstones demonstrates her primal nature. She existed before time and created the stones and the earth itself.

Interestingly, “Cailleach” itself is an epithet that described a variety of embodiments of The Crone (and even sometimes younger women) in Ireland and Scotland. “Caill” means “covering,” perhaps referring to her veiled appearance.

The epithet Bheur (beura or bheura) ‘shrill, sharp, cutting,’ evoking her often stinging wisdom, and also her association with the cold weather and storms of winter.

I first started writing about The Cailleach several years ago, and she makes an appearance in Entering Hekate’s Cave:

“There is a story, told in many different versions, about a young selkie who lost her seal skin and thus had to live on land because the man who wanted her for his wife kept her precious pelt from her. Over the years, however, caring for her husband and child couldn’t extinguish her yearning for the natural joy she had felt in her shiny skin, which had allowed her to swim down into the ocean’s depths. So, she chose to leave the darkness that wasn’t nourishing her to dive back into her true self so she could swim in the deep waters that had given her life. She did this knowing that the journey back would be difficult. When she finally retrieved her pelt, however, it was dried out and brittle.

With great endurance, and in the spirit of determined despair, she made her way to the Cailleach, who told her that the only way for her to become whole again was by venturing into a cavern. After being restored by the Cailleach’s tea, the selkie set out again. Once inside the cavern, she was shocked to discover that all her family had been slain there. Steadfast in her resolve to put things right, she again sought the Cailleach’s advice and was told to sing a secret tune. One by one, her loved ones were reborn and her pelt—her soul suit—was restored. Reunited, the whole family danced around the fire in the cave and then dove into the ocean depths.”

You can find our more about The Cailleach in that book, and in Covina, where she remains one of our primary expressions of the divine feminine.

Watch: The Cailleach Conversation and Meditation

Christen and I delve into the lore and meaning of The Cailleach, and then I guide us through a meditation.

Conversation

We explore the significance of The Cailleach in Celtic folklore, highlighting her role as a symbol of winter, wisdom, and the land. With our personal connection to her, we reflect on how she is the earth itself - land, sea, and sky. She is primordial, she before she had a name, and offers us deep attunement to her wild, natural world. We discuss our annual winter solstice ritual that honours the Cailleach with stone and story offerings. We encourage everyone to find and decorate stones, write letters sharing their stories, and engage in community discussions about their experiences, fostering a deeper connection to this powerful figure, and the power of place.

Meditation

Embark on a meditative journey to The Cailleach’s Cave. Sacred smoke from juniper and pine resin sets the tone for reflection and connection. Attune the three selves and journey into her Cave, offering stones as symbols of burdens and gratitude to the Cailleach, the Stone Mother and Bringer of Winter. The meditation invites wisdom and insights from winter’s challenges, fostering a deeper connection to nature and personal growth before concluding with a renewed sense of purpose.

You can watch this episode wherever you get your podcasts, including right on the Keeping Her Keys website.

Learn more about Destination Crone, and other programs offered in Covina:

Notes and Resources

Note: There are many different English translations of the many Cailleach, so there can be spelling variations. This also applies to her name: Cally, Cailleach, Callach, etc.

As for pronunciation, there are also many ways to call her: Cal (like in California) EEE Ack is the easiest for my tongue to say. Hear the Irish and Scottish ways to say her name here.

I was greatly inspired by The Cailleach Chant. Listen to it here.

An Apron Full of Rocks: The Cailleach (An Introduction) by Sorita d’Este will inevitably lead you to purchase her fascinating book (co-authored with David Rankine).

“She is ancient…” by Rachel Patterson contains an excerpt from her book on The Cailleach.

This is a peculiar and profound short film demonstrating the message of The Cailleach in our modern times. Just watch it all the way through. A bunch of us in the coven have been watching it repeatedly as we prepare for our journey to meet her. There is magic in this film