The Cailleach Quotes

“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