Winter’s Wisdom: The Cailleach and Solstice Insights by Judith Shaw

How quickly the wheel of the year turns. Once again we have reached the dark and cold of the Winter Solstice, which occured on December 21st this year. Winter Solstice is an astronomical moment – the exact moment when our hemisphere tilts as far away from the sun as possible. But for the ten days after, the increase in daylight each day is only a few seconds  So I think of this time as the Winter Solstice Season. 

With the short hours of daylight, the cold, the storms, and the long nights, this can be a difficult time for many. This season can bring feelings of loneliness, sorrow and uncertainty, even amid all the frivolity. Life’s problems can feel overwhelming. 

Yet when life seems to be at its darkest, the Winter Solstice promises that an unexpected light is waiting to be reborn. It is the ancient symbol of the triumph of light over dark. This is the time to pause and reflect on the darkness, in all its luminous meaning and reignite the flame of hope which lives in our hearts. 

An ancient goddess of the British Isles and a Dark Goddess, The Cailleach guides and protects us through this time. 

The Cailleach (KAL-y-ach),which literally translates as the Veiled One, is an ancient Goddess whose origins are unknown. The Veiled One is an epithet often applied to deities who occupy  hidden worlds. 

When the Celts arrived in Ireland around 2000 years ago and then later to Scotland with the invasion of Gaels from Dalriada, she was there. Over time her name came to mean “old wife.”  “old woman,” or “old hag.” 

Yet, she was believed to never grow old, to be all powerful and ageless — a goddess of nature and transformation. Known by various names — Calleach Bheur to the Scots, Cailleach Beare to the coastal Irish, Cally Berry in northern Ireland, Cailleach ny Groamch on the Isle of Man, and Black Annis to the Bretons, most likely deriving from the Pictish water goddess, Annis who predated the invasion of Pictland by the Gaels.

In many stories Cailleach, as an old hag, seeks love from the hero. If he accepts her, she then transforms into a beautiful young woman. This symbolizes the ancient belief that a magical transformation occurs in the depths of winter when seeds lie dormant in the earth. Yet alive within the cold depths of this dormancy is the promise that spring and warmth will return. The Cailleach is the guardian of the life force who finds and nourishes the seeds. She commands the powers of life and death.

She ruled the colder half of the year in the northern Celtic realms starting from Samhain, October 31,  through winter and ending on Lammas on February 1, though some believe her influence persisted until Beltane on May 1. According to myth, The Cailleach, riding a giant wolf through the skies on Samhain, would tap the ground with her staff, causing it to freeze and thereby ushering in winter.

The Cailleach is the embodiment of winter, clothing the land with the whiteness of snow. Many credit her with the creation of Scotland itself. Leaping from mountaintop to mountaintop, she dropped rocks from her apron to create the hills, mountains, and valleys. Carrying a slachdam—the Druidic rod—or a hammer, she wielded power over the seasons and the weather, unleashing powerful and cleansing storms. Flinging down her cloak, she stamped down any green shoot that appeared in the dead of winter, ensuring the strength of the sprouts to come at the correct time.

Now, at the Winter Solstice, The Cailleach—also called the Winter Queen—is at the height of her powers: powers of creation and destruction, powers of protection, and powers of transformation and rebirth.

It was believed that she was born with the birth of Earth and is the mother of all other gods and goddesses. As both a creator and destroyer goddess, The Cailleach personifies death and the transformative power of darkness, guiding us through the cycle of death to rebirth on the eternal wheel of reincarnation

The Cailleach controls the elements of water and earth. She mothers and protects Earth itself as well as the animals, both wild and domestic. In Scotland, her sacred animal is the red deer, whereas in Ireland, it’s the cow.

Some scholars believe that in Scotland she was associated with an ancient female deer-cult, connecting her to the Reindeer Goddess of various northern European people and to the Brittonic Elen of the Ways. 

As the Winter Queen she is connected to grain, a crucial food needed for survival in the northern realms during winter. The last sheath of grain from the final harvest before winter was dedicated to the Cailleach.

The Cailleach is a primal force, clearly one with the land. The health and balance of the natural world is of utmost importance to her. Hers is a female power that is both wild and applied. Sometimes depicted with blue skin and one eye, she sees beyond duality peering into the Oneness of all Being.  To this day she is associated with numerous sacred sites and enchanting landscapes throughout Scotland and Ireland. 

The Callanais Stones, a 5,000-year-old site on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, is one such remarkable location. I had the fortune of visiting this site in April of 2022. According to ancient beliefs, the rocks used to create the Callanais Stone Circle on the Isle of Lewis were considered gifts from the Cailleach, a result of her acts of Earth building. These metamorphic gneiss rocks, among the oldest in Europe, are embedded with various types of crystals.

There is a mountain that can be seen in the space between the standing stones. It is named ‘Cailleach na Mointeach,’ Gaelic for ‘The Old Woman of the Moors,’ or affectionately called ‘Sleeping Beauty’ by the locals, as the mountain looks like a woman lying on her back with bent knees.

It’s believed that the 5,000 year old Callanais Stones were a sacred site created for ritual and prayer, in particular from which to mark the 18.6 year lunar cycle – similar and yet more complicated than the yearly sun cycle of Summer and Winter Solstices.

Another site in the Scottish Highlands, which I only learned about after my trip, is a stone shrine near Glen Lyon in Perth located in Glen Cailleach. According to local folklore, the goddess Cailleach and her family were given shelter in this glen. During their residence the land was fertile and the people flourished. 

But the day arrived in which they had to leave. Before departing The Cailleach gifted the people a shrine of stone houses called Tigh Nan Cailleach, with stones surrounding the houses representing the goddess, her husband Bodach and their many children. 

They were instructed to place the stones representing the family so that they overlooked the glen on Beltain and then return them to inside the stone houses on Samhain. This ritual was believed to ensure fertility and prosperity for the glen and its inhabitants.

The Cailleach, associated with water and wells, is credited with creating many of the rivers and lochs of Scotland. She bore the responsibility of capping the wells every night to protect the land from flooding. According to belief, when she washes her plaid cloak in The Corryvreckan, one of the largest whirlpools in the world, her plaid turns white, and the land is covered with snow.

She was the one who decided the beginning and the end of winter. Neither good or bad, she exists within the balance of light and dark – the bringer of life and of death, a goddess who both destroys and creates.

As the Veiled One, in the quiet, dark of winter, she rules the hidden worlds, reigning over our dreams and inner realities. Invite the Cailleach into your heart and feel the unity from which our world of duality springs. With her guidance, you can plant new seeds of hope. Yet, remember to have patience, for these seeds planted and nourished in the dark of winter need time to sprout and grow. The Cailleach helps you find your way safely through times of transformation into a newer and deeper place of harmony and unity.

May the quiet beauty of this season and the wisdom of The Cailleach be with you as you navigate all the current crises we face in our world.

Judith’s Celtic Goddess Oracle Deck is available on her website. Click Here.
Judith’s Animal Wisdom Oracle Deck is also available. Click Here.

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