Cailleach

I sing you of the Old Maid*
With gold upon her toe
Open up the west door
And let the old year go.

I sing you of the Fair Maid
With gold upon her chin
Open up the east door
And let the new year in.

-a personal adaptation of the second and third verses of the New Years Carol, a British Traditional Folk Carol

The solstice is mere weeks away and for Anglo-Celtic Pagans, we are firmly in the realm of our Germanic ancestors. With their boisterous lifestyles and strong male deities, its little wonder that the Winter Solstice and its successor holiday, Christmas, has become dominating by a strong sense of masculine power. After all, we are celebrating the rebirth of solar light, which in many ancient pantheons, fell under the auspices of a God.**

Christmas has always been my favorite Christian holiday and as I began to transfer so many of the traditions I love about Christmas to their older roots on the Solstice, I became aware of just how male dominated the holiday is***. The Goddess has only a small part, as the Divine Mother of the Sun (or Son). Perhaps her absence comes from the idea that, as a manifestation of the Earth, she sleeps through the winter and doesn’t actively participate in festivals at that time. I’m not sure, but for some time it bothered me. I also find it hard to honor her as a Mother when the Earth’s growth cycle is in its fallow time.

For me, the winter is the time of the Crone. Most specifically, it the time of the Cailleach, the White Hag of the Mountains. She is a Celtic deity, said to haunt the peaks of western Scotland in the winter, herding deer, and bringing strong winter storms. And she is intimately connected to Brighid, my matron deity. Many scholars think that they were considered, at least in Scotland, to be the same Goddess, representing winter and summer aspects. There is at least one legend that claims that the Cailleach locked Brighid away in a mountain cave on Samhain, keeping her hidden away until Beltaine.**** She is the face of the Crone that calls to me more strongly than any other, and in my mind, she is the very heart of winter.

So how do I marry the vague, life giving Goddess who births the Sun and the Storm Hag who carries nature’s fury behind Her like a cloak? It took me a long time, but I eventually had to come back to the cycles of the Earth. Just as the time between Samhain and Yule is a time that the Goddess walks the world alone, so does the God hold solitary sway over the days between Yule and Imbolc. This balances the year nicely and allows for rebirth for both Deities.

The Goddess, the Mother, carries the burden of the earth’s fertility throughout the growing season and the harvest. Weary from Her long burden, She fades to the Crone, worn, as all mothers are, by the task of parenting. Her weary steps over the world bring an end to the harvest time and beginning of the long dark time. Behind her come the cold winds of winter. At Solstice, She births the infant Sun, and as He rises in the sky, She retreats underground, to rest from Her tasks and to grow young again. When Spring comes again, She will come back to us, a Maiden, to join the youthful Sun in bringing new life back to the world.

So as I honor the newborn Sun on Solstice morning, I will also remember to thank the Goddess, for carrying Her burden for so long. I will wish Her a peaceful, healing sleep, just as I ask Her for the same each night. And I will wait with great anticipation for Her return in the Spring.



*I have changed the more traditional Fair Maid to Old Maid, since it fits my view of the Goddess at the time of the Solstice.

**But not, interestingly enough, the Nordic/Germanic pantheon. While their light deity was male, Baldur, their physical sun was female, Sunna.

*** I am not and have never been a Dianic or Goddess-only Pagan. I left Christianity because it lacked a female divine aspect and I have a strong desire for gender balance in my religious tradition. I do know many Dianics who happily celebrate Yule without the God, but that’s not my bag.

**** I’ve chosen to change this myth somewhat in my own practice, saying instead the Brighid is locked away on Lughnassa, when the Harvest season begins, and returns to the world on Imbolc.