Cailleach
the Winter Goddess
Cailleach is a goddess in the Scottish
Celtic pantheon. Descriptions of her looks and personality run the
gamut from ugly monster or beautiful protector of the land. This
split personality goddess is the winter counterpart to the beautiful
Bride (Bridget), the goddess of spring.
Living in the Otherworld after the
Celts have stopped worshipping the old ones, Cailleach has let
herself go to seed. She spends her days attempting to make sense of
the hags’ potion in MacBeth (Double, double, toil and trouble).
When she hears that a witch has come into the Otherworld, she begins
to scheme. If Cailleach can only steal the witch’s magic, she can
be young and powerful again. But the crone is cautious, she sends her
minions out to learn more about the witch and to lead her to the
goddess. While waiting for news, she learns that yet another witch
has entered the Otherworld, but this one doesn’t make any sense.
Cailleach determines this being is male, thus a warlock, but also
smells of vampire. She decides to draw in this one like she plans for
the first. But first, she decides to do a little homework.
She sends Bodach, the black giant, to
give a message to Glaistig, the only Scottish vampire, to scope out
just exactly who or what this male is: warlock, vampire, or both.
She is depicted as as having an eye in the middle of a blue-black face, long red teeth, and matted hair. In several stories she appears before a hero as a repulsive hag and suddenly transforms herself into a beautiful girl. At winter’s end, some accounts say the Cailleach turned into a grey boulder at Beltane until the warm days were over. The boulder was said to be “always moist’, because it contained “life substance’. The Cailleach Beara is ever-renewing and passes through many lifetimes going from old age to youth or flesh to stone in a cyclic fashion.
The Cailleach is seen as a seasonal deity or spirit, ruling the winter months between Samhain (October 31st) and Beltaine (April 30th), while Bride rules the summer months between Beltaine and Samhain. Some interpretations have the Cailleach and Brìde as two faces of the same goddess.
She is a bringer of snows, death, and sharp storms. On Samhain the Cailleach leaves her mountains and walks the Land. The Cailleach then proceeds to "wash her plaid". Her plaid represents the sand. When the Cailleach is done the plaid is white and the Land is covered with snow. She is said to ride on the back of a wolf carrying a wand made of human skin, that she uses to strike down all signs of growth. Behind her follows cold winds, blizzards, and ice. In Scotland, where she is also known as Beira, Queen of Winter.
It’s easy to see why Cailleach is so interested in regaining her strength, to become what she had been in the olden times.
Excerpt:
Cailleach groaned
when she leaned over and lifted her bare foot high enough to clip her
toenails with the gardening shears. She looked up and sniffed twice.
The hag dropped her bare foot, stuffed it into her flipflop, and
shuffled to the door. Throwing it open, she held her head high,
closed her eyes, and sniffed some more.
“Drat! Not
another witch.” She sniffed again. “Wait, a warlock. No, a
vampire. Hmm.” She closed the door and slumped into a chair. “This
is confusing. Maybe there are two.” She went to the woodshed door.
Cailleach rapped three times and then stood back as it creaked open.
Bodach, her
roommate and minion, dragged his crippled body out of the small
hatch. “Yes, Mistrezz,” he slurred, casting one protruding eye
upwards.
“We have
another foreigner in the swamp. Get out there and find a skrat to
check. No, not a skrat. I smell vampire. Find Glaistig and send her
to investigate.” Cailleach patted him on the head. “There’s a
good boy.”
“Can you tell
me where Glaistig is hiding?” Bodach examined his armpit and
sniffed.
“Go to the
standing stones on the north side of the loch. She has a cave there.”
“Yes,
Mistrezz.” Bodach dragged his limp legs behind him. He began to
unfold in a way the eye could not follow. When he reached the door,
he needed to bend and shuffle through sideways to fit.
“Bodach, stay
with Glaistig and do as she says. She might need some muscle.”
“Yes,
Mistrezz.” Bodach ducked and went to seek Glaistig, the Gray Lady.
Cailleach closed
the door behind the giant and sat again. She twanged the long hair
protruding from the wart on her chin. “This is all very disturbing.
Two foreigners stomping around in my bog within hours. This second,
though, he’s strange. Yes, male. That much is clear. But I smell on
him both warlock and vampire. Very odd, indeed.”
She went to the dusty bookshelf beside
the fireplace. As she tapped each book with her gnarled finger, it
spoke its title aloud. The Compleat Book of Bats. Care and Feeding
of Monsters. Selling Love Potions on the Internet. Vampires: The
Myths and the Facts. She took this one off the shelf and flipped
through the pages. An occasional groan or scream emitted from the
book, depending on the chapter topic.
“Ah, here it
is. ‘Vampire Half-Breeds.’ Hmm. ‘Cross breedings with
werewolves, ghouls, and Sasquatch have been cited, although most of
these stories are second-hand accounts at best. It is believed that
vampires could breed with any species; however, it is most likely
this only occurs when the other creature is in an altered form. The
werewolf, for example, must be in its wolf mode, not its human
aspect.’”
Cailleach stuck
her finger in the book to hold her place and plopped down on her
rocking chair. She must be mistaken about the invader. This was a
scholarly work, although a little dated having been written in 1549.
But it seemed to deny the possibility of a warlock-vampire mix. She’d
have to study this a bit more. Still, the vampire smell was strong.
Without her power, all she could do was wait for Glaistig to report.
The only known true vampire in Scotland, Glaistig wouldn’t waste a
minute of darkness beating feet to catch up to the male, determine
what he was, and report back.
Satisfied she could do nothing more,
she leaned back in her rocker, intending to read the rest of the
chapter. But sleep overtook her, and she was soon snoring in her
chair.
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