Cailleach Quotes

“The first god, the Cailleach, was very old. In fact, one of her other names was the Old Woman of Scotland, although most humans never saw her in that form. Instead, those with the Sight merely felt her invisible presence in a wild storm or a rushing waterfall or even in the melted snow that pools in fresh-plowed spring fields. The Cailleach was a goddess of creation. She made trees bud. Grass thicken. Calves grow inside cows. Fruit ripen on the vine. Her work was the ancient business of making and renewing.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Bravely

“But the oldest spirit of the land , pre - dating domestication , more ancient than the Mothers , is Cailleach , the wild elemental feminine , wisest of wise , guardian of every tribe .”
― Christine Irving, Sitting On The Hag Seat: A Celtic Knot of Poems

“The Cailleach was the guardian of a clear cool fountain that welled up from the top of Ben Cruachan. She was charged with the duty of covering it with a slab of stone every evening at sundown, and of removing the lid at daybreak. But one evening, being aweary after driving her goats across Connel, she fell asleep by the side of the well. The fountain overflowed, its waters rushed down the mountain side, the roar of the flood as it broke open an outlet through the Pass of Brander - am Branradh - awoke the Cailleach, but her efforts to stem the torrent were fruitless, it flowed into the plain, where man and beast were drowned in the flood. Thus was formed Loch Awe - Loch Odha, The Cailleach was filled with such horror over the result of her neglect that she turned into stone. There she sits, as already related, among the rocky ruins at the Pass, overlooking the Loch as, on the rocks at Cailleach Point on Mull, she gazes seaward.”
― Katherine Whyte Grant, Myth, Tradition and Story from Western Argyll

“Bride is kept prisoner all winter in Ben Nevis, where she awaits her rescuer, Aengus of the White Steed, Aengus the Ever-young, who has his home in the green island of perpetual summer that drifts about on the silver tide of the Atlantic. Aengus beholds Bride in a dream and sets out to succour her, riding on his milk-white steed with flowing mane, over the Isles and over the Minch. The Cailleach strives in vain to keep them apart, and the Day of Bride celebrates their union.”
― F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough

“...[A] legend shows the Cailleach and Bride not as two contending personalities but as one and the same. On the Eve of Bride, the Cailleach repairs to the Isle of Youth, in whose woods lies the miraculous Well of Youth. There, at the first glimmer of dawn, before any bird has sung, or any dog has barked, she drinks of the water that bubbles in a crevice of rock, and having renewed her youth, emerges as Bride, the fair young goddess, at the touch of whose wand the dun grass turns a vivid green starred with the white and yellow flowers of spring.”
― F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough

“The Scottish equivalent of Demeter is the Cailleach (Gaelic), or the Carline or Auld Wife (Scots), all signifying the old woman; whilst Persephone corresponds to the Maiden or Bride. This name Bride is given to the last sheaf in districts as far apart as Midlothian and the Mearns. In later times the distinction between the Cailleach and Bride was not everywhere maintained.”
― F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough, Volume 2: A Calendar of Scottish National Festivals - Candlemas to Harvest Home

“There is a hollow at Achnaba quite round, and one of the shape of a cow, ie such as it makes lying down. I can give you the notion among the people, ie the fairytale. It is that the cow belonged to Cailleach Bheir, and the round form was the cheese mould that she used. A great cow that was, certainly, more than an acre in size, and the cheese mould is very deep, with trees at the bottom scarecely reaching the top.”
― Robert Angus Smith, Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisnach