When the Celts arrived in Ireland The Cailleach was already there. No one knows for certain where She came from. Her name means “Veiled One” & She is very old. Depicted as a giant with a bow-legged stride, She leaps across mountains & plains with a power to shape & transform the landscape, rocks falling from Her gathered apron. Bet HanrahanĪs a veiled Crone, with one eye & pale blue/grey skin, The Cailleach or twilight hag, has been feared & revered across Celtic cultures for over 3000 years. She also determines the length & harshness of the season, which begins on October 31st, the Samhain festival, peaking just before the Cross-quarter of Imbolc, but often extending up till the Spring Equinox. She strikes the ground with her staff, a Druidic white wand of power, made of birch, willow, bramble, or broom, causing the earth to be covered with a blanket of frost. It ends with key lessons Patterson takes from the Cailleach, along with a list of suggested offerings and ways to commune with the goddess through ritual and meditation.The Cailleach (KAL-y-ach) is the Crone Goddess of Winter & transformation, said to control the weather & the winds. However, the book overall is a somewhat repetitive, disjointed collection of stories rather than a cohesive narrative.

It also suggests intriguing wider parallels, such as the Hindu goddess Kali's similarity to Black Annis, a Cailleach-like hag from English legend.

This brief book gives a strong sense of the variety of region-specific traditions about the Cailleach. That accounts for her contradictory associations: on the one hand she is described as a benevolent midwife ushering in the seasons, while on the other hand she appears as a sinister trickster who rides a wolf and leads a spirit army by night. Originally linked with creation, the Cailleach was envisioned as a giant who formed geographical features like whirlpools and standing stones, by, for instance, 'dropping boulders from her apron.' Yet, at some point, Patterson observes, the Cailleach was given the ' Hollywood' treatment' and turned into a villainous hag, blue-faced and one-eyed. Patterson (Grimoire of a Kitchen Witch), a practitioner of witchcraft, gathers tales of a Celtic goddess known as the Cailleach in this unsatisfying volume.

The Cailleach by Rachel Patterson