The Book Of The Cailleach

This powerful analysis of the wise women healer from the oral traditions of Ireland's rural communities is unique in its depth and perspective. Stories, told and retold, embedded in the texture of culture and community, collected and studied for many decades, are here translated and made available to the general reader for the first time. The figure of the wise woman, the hag, the Cailleach, or the Red Woman are part of an oral tradition which has its roots in pre-Christian Ireland. In the hands of Gearoid O Crualaich, these figures are subtly explored to reveal how they offered a complex understanding of the world, of human psychology and its predicaments: the thematic structure of the book brings to the fore universal themes such as death, marriage, childbirth, and healing, and invites the reader to see the contemporary relevance of the stories for themselves.

The Cailleach - goddess of the ancestors, wisdom that comes with age, the weather, time, shape-shifting and winter. Within the pages of this book Rachel Patterson gives the reader an introduction to the mysteries, myths, legends and magic of the ancient hag goddess The Cailleach, drawing upon ancient legends, stories told and her own experiences.

This unique and ground-breaking work brings together for the first time the wealth of folklore, stories and legends surrounding the Cailleach, the pre-eminent Celtic Hag Goddess and the most significant of British supernatural figures, whose myths and wisdom are as relevant today as they have ever been.

An Cailleach Bhearra, or the Hag of Beara, is a wise woman figure embedded in the physical and mental landscape of western Ireland and Scotland, particularly in the Beara Peninsula in West Cork where Leanne O'Sullivan comes from. The Cailleach's roots lie in pre-Christian Ireland, and stories of her relationship with that rugged landscape and culture still abound. Central to these narratives is the story of her love affair with a sea god. A large stone rests on the ridge overlooking Ballycrovane Harbour, and it is said to be the petrified body of the Cailleach; she has had several lives, beginning each life with a birth from her stony form - and returning to stone at the end. The supernatural and superhuman feature strongly in traditional stories of the Cailleach (pronounced Ca-lock or Cay-luck) - feats such as her creating mountains or leaping vast distances that place the tales firmly into the world of myth. While still recognising the Cailleach as a figure of extraordinary power and influence, Leanne O'Sullivan's poems explore the human origins from which the legend grew. She still forms the landscape, yet at the same time is intrinsically part of it, close to it, rather than gigantically above it; and her husband is not the sea god of legend, but a fisherman. And for all her strength, she is vulnerable.

Mythical Ireland embodies the search for a soul among Ireland's ancient ruins, and is an attempt to retrieve something of deeper import from 5,000-year-old megalithic monuments and their associated myths. The book represents a fascinating and engaging journey through time, landscape and the human spirit. Dealing with archaeology, interpretive mythography, cosmology and cosmogony, the book attempts to grapple with a core meaning, something beyond the functional interpretations of academia. In this revised and expanded edition, Anthony Murphy delves further into the many enthralling aspects of this journey. Just how much knowledge did locals have of the secrets of Newgrange before it was excavated? Who is the Cailleach, the ancient hag goddess whose image is ubiquitous in the ancient landscape? What happened to make Ireland's Stonehenge disappear from the landscape? Who were the first kings of Tara? What were the indigenous Irish myths about the Milky Way? Did someone try to steal the Tara Brooch? Why are there myths in Ireland about flooded towns and cities? Lavishly illustrated with exquisite photographs of the Irish landscape and ancient monuments, Mythical Ireland represents a personal and yet universal journey, a quest to reimagine the shrines as empowering and transformative sacred places. Murphy invokes the druids and poets of the Boyne and thus the sídhe of the ancient texts are reawakened for a modern and turbulent world.

At this, the Cailleach would release a single drop of indigo dye onto the topmost layer. See, she would tell her daughter. See? It bleeds through the topmost path and onto the next. In this way, so many things from the next world touch ours, and our world touches the layer beneath. High above the sea, hidden in the rocky Scottish cliffs, something stirs. An ancient matriarchal power has set the wheels in motion for a long line of descendants. But to what end? Spanning centuries of human history, these daughters of the lowland hag, the Cailleach, must navigate a world filled with superstition, hatred, violence, pestilence, and death to find their purpose. With pasts half remembered and destinies denied, the daughters of Cailleach are women with uncanny, and often feared, abilities to heal, to see the future and to cause great destruction and pain when threatened. With each passing generation, the waves crash against the shore, and the Cailleach awaits a homecoming that will bring everything full circle.

Sixteen lively tales tell of giants rumbling down mountainsides, of a magic wand that turns stone pillars into warriors, of gods and goddesses, evil hags, powerful forces, and more.

A LITTLE SPOOKY, A LITTLE QUIRKY, A WHOLE LOT OF ATMOSPHERE AND MYSTERY...Dara Cleary and her sisters are returning to their childhood home in the west of Ireland, where the aunts still live. Dara is seeking revenge for an incident that happened ten years earlier and was the reason for their leaving.But when they arrive they find a far bigger story waiting for them. They are Bean Feasa, witches, bound to the Cailleach, a paranormal landscape witch. Now is the time of reckoning, and Dara and her sisters must face formidable odds to complete their family's quest for freedom.A beautifully lyrical and eerie tale, with touches of magic and an abiding sense of atmosphere and place.Jane Gilheaney Barry drives her cast of memorable women at lightning pace through the landscape and climate of Ireland's wild west.