The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise Woman Healer

by Gearóid Ó Crualaoich

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 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.

Genres: Mythology, Folklore, Ireland, Nonfiction, Paganism, History, Goddess

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[Nay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of stories about the Cailleach archetype, particularly rich in stories from the west of Ireland. These tales are often about Bheara, or, later, the local wise women that later fulfil her narrative role. They show how complex this figure is, and often how different in Munster and other parts of Ireland from the more well-known Scottish figure. In Ireland, she is more associated with sovereignty, the otherworld and the wild than with winter. Her stories from Ireland are often quite different from the Scottish tales and worthy of consideration.

It can be tricky to work out which tales comes from which parts of the country, so be careful if you're looking for material about a specific aspect of the Cailleach from one area or another - i was helped here by my knowledge of many of the areas featured in the stories. I wasn't comfortable with some of the author's interpretations of the material, which in places is influenced by a 'great mother goddess' concept that is not held up in folklore studies or archeology anymore. However, he has done a great service in translating the Gaelic tales and sharing the more obscure stories here. A fantastic collection.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, could do better As a collection of Cailleach stories this is interesting but some of the groping to make all stories of hags in Irish culture stories of the same Cailleach and it all feels like a mish-mash of stories that are divorced of place and special and in many instances I think that the place is important to the story and that he's treating too many of the stories with a badge of same without thinking about what makes them unique and specific. He also fails to distinguish between stories that echo and are almost avatars of the Cailleach and speak to the endurance of the story over time and how it still resonated to people up to the early 20th century. It's a good collection of stories but I'm not happy with the conclusions.