The Cailleach : Celtic crone and goddess of winter (Folklore and Mythology) 

I completely agree, and like your interpretation. Of course we can get caught up with definitions. Animist principles blend into nature spirits which bleed into deities in the more classical sense. All of this is compounded by the fact that we don’t know how old the Cailleach really is. But I like your interpretation. It makes sense.

@@TheStoryCrow Thank you for being so open to this interpretation. Where I live, in Canada, there was also a large glacial sheet during the last ice age. There are huge boulders scattered through the forest that I come upon while wild crafting plants. Just dropped out of the retreating glacier thousands of years ago. Much like the Cailleach drops stones out of her apron. Can you imagine the sound cracking of the ice cracking and breaking during the time it was living? Much like the sound of a huge hammer or mallet. Then there were the environmental conditions created by the large field of ice. It's personality, very harsh and unforgiving, if you were caught out in it unprepared. Much like the cronish personality of the Cailleach. Blue, her color like the thick blue ice of a glacier. Her whirlpool at Corryvreckan, a symbol and what is left of the profond, and hard to comprehend, turbulence and power, of the awe inspiring amounts of rushing water that flooded the land as glacial ponds and seas were suddenly released. Sometimes , on the landscape, I realize that I am looking at massive erosion caused by those melting waters of the glacier here. Gaps out into the sea, hundreds of feet high, created over the course of not years, but days and weeks. The Cailleach is not here where I live. She is unique to the Atlantic Islands, but I understand her in my blood and I have been seeking to connect with the Nature Spirits here for more than a decade. She has been a great guide to me in my search.

@@beenforet5391 Yes I know fully what you mean regarding connecting with the spirit of the landscape. My native Wiltshire is similar to how you describe (on a smaller scale probably) huge glacial valleys carved millennia ago, littered with saracen stones used to make the megaliths of southern Britain such as Stonehenge. When I walk these hills, like the flank of a great dreaming animal, I know I'm walking in the footsteps of my ancestors. I've always wanted to visit Canada though. Beautiful, vast, wild country. You must be very lucky, carrying the gods of europe in your blood as you say, but also being close to the spirit of the land of that great country and the incredible mythos of the First Nation peoples. I often find amazing similarities between Celtic and Norse mythology and that of Native Americans. Particularly Labrador, Newfoundland and their Trickster figures. Loki and Wolverine would get on like a house on fire in my view. Anyway. Thanks for watching and sharing your story.

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Yeah I think you are right, the etymology is not dissimilar and the two are tantalisingly familiar. I just wonder if the link (if any) is an ancient one or a relatively recent one, as Ronald Hutton suggests. Could be either I suppose. I prefer the ancient connection personally 🤷‍♂️ 😅

Yes, Kali The Destroyer and the Cailleach represent transformation through destruction.

​@@TheStoryCrow a lengthy video on Kali and her connection as Mother Goddess in other cultures. I thought you may be interested. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K92BlPwz-7c.htmlsi=Jk9rIGTOFJLEJF0a

'Kali' is how you pronounce both the genitive form of Cailleach and the vocative form - so for example - Sliabh na Cailligh (the mountain of the witch/hag - or in modern Irish sliabh na caillí) is pronounced 'shlee-av na Kali' . The vocative form is "a chailligh" pronounced Khali (with a slight throaty-ness to the k). Is it possible that the name travelled but that the 'grammar' did not, or that it got 'lost in translation', and so in the Vedas, they just naively used the genitive or vocative form, unaware that it actually was a specific grammitical form? Bearing in mind that in everyday speech, twhen speaking of rituals, dances etc. associated with the Cailleach, and when addressing the Cailleach directly, these vocative and genetive forms would be far more common than the word cailleach itself .... Likewise we can see in Scotland how the name Hamish became a name its own right. But Hamish is actually the vocative form of Séamus ... ie A Shéamais... pronounced 'a Hamish' - same phenomenon, where a vocative form has been mistaken for the name itself.

Pleased to hear that, welcome and thanks for watching 🙏🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇸

Thanks for stopping by. New Celtic deity video coming at the weekend 🙏👍✨🌳

I honor her at the winter solstice, she and the Holly King are ascendant.

Thank you, I should do more deity tracker videos …

A pleasure friend. Thanks for stopping by. I’m driving to your country soon. Looking forward to it 🙏 🌊 🇮🇪

Same here friend 🧙🏾‍♀️

What a lovely comment, thanks for sharing it, and for stopping by. 🙏

Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. Not the first time I’ve heard the Veiled One being described as a cultural memory of the glaciers once smothering Europe. I’d just never heard such a visceral description of it from nature. Thank you also for your kind words. 🙏✨

Minnesota was once covered in glaciers, too - which melted into a giant glacial lake. I’m of “Celtic” descent, so maybe She recognized my blood and knew I’d understand here across the pond.

Sounds more like the Banshee you heard.

That’s a lovely thing to hear, thank you. Mythology I feel always has a personal or psychological level. We live in myth, not the other way round. I think anyway 😅

Thanks for writing. Everything happens for a reason, as my mum used to say. I’m sorry you lost yours. I never really stop thinking about it… Much love to you, wherever you are 🙏

Same to you! 🕯️ 👰🏻 🌱 ❄️

@@TheStoryCrow why have you called yourself ‘Crow,? I ask out of curiosity as I’m currently working on a project about crows. Do you have any stories involving them?

I started this channel just going to do crow stories, but it kind of grew into wider folklore. But I do really love crows and corvids. I’ve raised a few orphaned daws and have a crow tattoo on my leg. I guess they’re my totem animal.

The crone is a sacred time. The most sacred 🙏✨

Glad you enjoy it, thanks for watching 🙏

Good point 🙏❄️

Are they really the oldest? Interesting. I know the rockies are young, but didn’t know about the apple a’s. And I’m glad they’re being reforested. Many British ranges are barren due to grazing and we don’t see them like they once were. Green and verdant. 🌳 🌳 ⛰️

Thanks friend 🙏

I agree. A lot of these concept tend to run into each other and overlap. Perhaps the oak and holly king being on the solstices represents more Germanic paganism and the cailleach and bride being on Beltane / Samhain represents more Celtic paganism but I have no idea. Even the concepts Germanic and Celtic paganism seem to be rather modern classifications. But the basic metaphysical structure seems to be very old, whatever we label it. Thanks for watching!

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That’s a good idea, thanks for the suggestion. Wishing you well for the new year! 🌞 ❄️🧝‍♀️

Thanks and same same to You and yours. 🎄🌥️🕯️✨ Your answer is my best present. Say by the way “when” if you would like to dive together. It’s a bit of a “dark” matter… (hitten by the Christian munks who wrote the very small passages down several hundred years after Denmark / Scandinavian for Christianised).

🙏✨thank you

Yes I would certainly put Persephone in the same archetypal image basket, and variations of the theme do just keep emerging from the collective unconscious (if you will). I think your suggestion that this might actually be a pre - indo European hangover is spot on. It’s funny, I’m thinking a lot about the horned god for my next deity tracker video and I think exactly the same thing has happened there. Earlier imagery reincorporated and repackaged. Great observation. Thanks for sharing 👍

You are most welcome 🙏

I wonder if the Maiden, Mother and Crone were the source of the Christian Trinity, or visa versa.

@@jturtle5318 They would most likely have been, tho as 'The Church ' (regardless of which), are all patriarchal, it would been changed to the male terms of each...

Oooooh. Great place. Went there in the van this year. Have fun 🧙✨😊

I don’t actually, that also include weather, that’s a neat concept

@@TheStoryCrow I wrote that wrong. I mean, do you know of any good books on folklore regarding flora?… and do you know of any good books that relate folklore to weather? I do have one on weather/folklore… when I find it, I’ll let you know what it’s called. I just hoped you might have some good recommendations other than my two books. Cheers 🍻

So Robert graves the white goddess. It’s dated, sometimes wrong, but still somehow brilliant. Then I have a book called botanical folk tales of Britain and Ireland. It’s a bit fluffy and overwritten, but sweet. Those two off the top of me head!

@@TheStoryCrow I’ve had that Robert Graves book on my shelf for years and not read it yet. Guess it’s time I did 🤭 And thanks, I’ll grab a copy of the other one soon as I can 👍🏼

@@TheStoryCrow Almost forgot… when going through my books boxes, I found the Weather Lore book I mentioned… “Weather Lore” by Richard Inwards AND… I found a book I forgot I had “Tree Wisdom - the definitive guidebook to the myth, folklore and healing power of Trees” by Jacqueline Memory Paterson. I really must focus on getting more bookshelves to accommodate my library. 🙄

I agree. But you know… Etymologists 🙄😂🤷‍♂️

Thanks for that. That was great. 🙏

@@TheStoryCrow May be fair to say yourself and Liam Ó Maonlaí are cut from the same celtic cloth...

@@TheStoryCrow Translates as "She is your mother, she is your mother, she is your mother, the hag with the money! "

Great comment. You’re right. So many variations of the Cailleach legends across these islands. Love the ones about the islands being formed by two such crones fighting. I also love the one about the islands and mountains dropping from her apron - so prosaic! I do also agree that the term Land Spirit does feel more apt in this case. I suppose we can get a little bogged down in semantics 🤷‍♂️ I also agree with your mentioning of the psychological aspects of these deities existing within us. Where I don’t agree with you is the goddess of three being mainly a new age Wicca / neo pagan phenomenon (although it is present there, of course) it is well attested in both the archeological and folk record as well. Especially in Britain and Ireland. The 3 ‘mothers’ and the three ‘hooded ones’ of Roman Britain for e.g. Obviously we don’t know their identity now, but the cailleach shares a tantalisingly similar etymology (hooded) as well as having folkloric similarities to other virgin / mother / crone triptychs in Celtic folklore. I would guess there may be a link there 🤔 Anyway. Ramble over. 😂 thanks for stopping by 🙏

Yes, I use the Triple goddess in some aspects, it feels like a modern interpretation of Hecate.

Wikipedia describes her as similar to Badb Catha, Battle Crow. My thoughts went to The Morrigan too.

I agree, but god works better on the algorithms 😂 thanks for the Scottish Gaelic tip, I’m not a native speaker 🙏

Could be an old link there, certainly in the darker, more crone like aspects 🤔

@@TheStoryCrow I was just noticing that Danu was also a creator, and mother to the gods. And her folk ended up going underground to live, as Cailleach goes underground to sleep after drinking from the fountain of the green isle. Geographically similar locations, altho I'm not sure where on the timeline they both turned up.....just a thought.

@@TheStoryCrow I really enjoyed your presentation and hope you will continue to do more.

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I know my Irish pronunciation is hilarious. 😅 Luckily Cailleach is also a word in Gallic, Scots and also English - so I’ve lots of opportunities to mispronounce it 😂