The facets of the Cailleach are many and those within Dark Goddess Collective discovered our threads of connection as she called us forward. This is a collaborative Anthology to the Cailleach, the ways in which we connected, listened, and found flow and understanding. From the cycles of the Earth to our own inner cycles, our ability to hold the tension between what must occur for the next season and the endurance it takes to embrace it fully.
Thank you to all of our contributors!
Correspondences
Lineage: Celtic
Consort: The Kings of the Land must be in a divine marriage with The Cailleach (the Goddess of the Land). Some myths say Lugh and others The Bodach (BL Chaika, Cailleach’s Herbarium, O’Cathasaigh).
Stone: The Hag Stone
Element: Earth, Water
Plants/Trees: Juniper, Holly, Yew
Animals: Deer, Bear, Wolf
Symbols: Veil, Ogham, Staff
Conflations: Various Aspects: Kali, Skadi (Walker); Gaia
At the Front Door by Aikat
The Cailleach showed up at my front door. She appeared as my chickadee hatchling that I imprinted with in spring of 2023, happily flying from front door to back yard.
Banged her staff here in New Orleans in 2025 and voilà the snow appeared!
Each night I took long walks around the neighborhood. Soaking it all in. She talked with me about my witchcraft being done alone, explaining the difference between doing things alone & feeling lonely. he showed me all the spirits of the things around me, to show me I am never alone. As I walked past a few trees feeling their pain of heavy snow sitting on their now dead leaves, she showed me their rebirth.
My thoughts each night were often too focused on government manipulation of weather. She made sure to remind me that there is an inevitability of endings. She also reminded me it comes with the potential for new beginnings that lie dormant within them, and how that is unfolding in America.
She removed all the snow and showed me how beautiful my area is even without the snow. The Cailleach asked why it took snow for me to admire the beauty of all that is around me.
She wrapped it up by fussing because I use logic to often and not enough magic! 🪄
~ Aikat
Embracing Winter by Kalsee Kohs
My first encounter with the Cailleach this winter was not too long ago. I had decided to go on a winter hike. Which is very new for me.
I typically hate the winter a lot and I’ve lived in MN my whole life.
This year I decided I wanted to be really intentional and not let my magic and connection to nature dwindle because of our harsh winters. I decided I would learn to be present in the season of winter, to soak up all it has to offer me.
On this hike, I was noticing for awhile an energy. It had been following me, but hadn’t made itself fully known yet.
Then I get to a fork in my path.
The Fork and The Staff
As I’m sitting there deciding which way to go, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look back to see this elderly woman with a blue aura and silvery hair. She says she has been waiting for me to accept this part of myself and connect to my land during winter for a while now. She had been wondering why I was so resistant to her in the past.
Afterward, I realized the reason was the fear of silence and stillness in a mind that has multiple personalities and OCD was something I didn’t think I could handle or even obtain for a very long time. So winter and it’s energy scared the hell out of me.
She asked if I was ready to learn all that winter and my land had to teach and if so, then go on the path that is handing me my very own staff. I looked up and saw a staff like stick leaning on a tree for the path on the left. I grabbed it and continued down.
That staff just a few minutes later stopped me from slipping on some black ice and falling off the edge of the hill I had climbed up!
I still have it and use it on my hikes!
A Second Encounter
I had a second encounter with the Cailleach a few days later. Remember I said I am being intentional with winter?
I wasn’t kidding and I went on a hike two days in 10 degrees weather.
The pull to go was so intense I was snapping at everyone in my home the longer I ignored it. So, I went. I walked a different part of the reservation and trails this time and man was this time full of so much stuff I might even forget it all.
Side note: Anyone who says the yule lads only run around during yule season: I would like to say I disagree with that now. They were all over this trail I was on, which really surprised me since this isn’t the region they should be seen in.
Okay anyway, I went walking down this trail and almost immediately Cailleach shows up in the same form I saw her before, asking why I came today?
I told her the pull was so intense I had to be here today. She asked me why I thought that?
I told her I needed to come to some place where I could simply be and let my emotions out.
To let out my fear for the world
To let out the need to decide if I must go back into the closet for safety
The anger at the world
The rage at having to have the same fights again in my life
The grief for so many of us losing so many things recently.
She simply looked at me and said “follow me” as she hit her staff on the ground and a light snow, that wasn’t in the forecast, began to fall.
I followed her to a spot that overlooked a river. She turned, sat down and said “let it all out”.
So I did.
On the Strength of Enduring
I sat at the edge of that river and screamed and screamed and screamed until I almost had no voice left and so many tears were coming down my face.
I didn’t stop until I felt the Cailleach embrace around me and I sat down on the ground.
She told me that everything would be okay.
That I needed to remember the resilience living in a land of snow and harsh winters has taught me.
That I need to remember the patience it has taught me.
That I need to remember not everyone can make it through harsh conditions like this but I have time and time and time again. That I need to remember that when you allow for a period of hibernation and rest you can make with a much better battle plan.
After she said that, all of a sudden a flock of white winter geese flew a few feet above me. They were so close I could feel their wind and hear the force of their wings.
She spoke up again saying “see the geese never take the exact same flight path every year, it varies a bit. They still trust they will get to their destination and where they are meant to go. Trust yourself like they do.”
And then two more flocks flew overhead just as close.
She told me she’d be around the rest of the day, all I had to do was call, but she felt the woods had more to say to me today and she went on her way.
On the rest of the hike I could feel her around, but she didn’t show up again. She watched as I walked through two fae doorways to speak to the winter fae there and watched as I walked alongside three deer only an arms reach away.
~ Kalsee, from ModgePodgeMystic
Contemplating Her Enduring Name
The more I have worked with the Cailleach, the deeper the connections through time and space of which I was not consciously aware. Etymologically, the places of the Cailleach, such as Scotland, used to be known as Caledonia meaning ‘land given by Kali’ (Walker, 1983). Walker also discusses Scotland as coming from ‘Scotia’ as it was called by the Romans, but it appears that this was also the name of Ireland inhabited by the Scotii (Brehon Academy, 2014).
Cailleach, the primordial mother, is she of endurance of the patterns and cycles of life, especially death and rebirth. Her connection to winter, storms, and the myth of tossing rocks from an apron to create the mountains reminds me of Skadi too.
Thinking of how the past decade has played out, we can see enduring in our own ways. The way our paths have converged, parted, or the way we navigate and persevere through the cycles of time. This is especially true as I enter midlife and find myself acknowledging Sharon Blackie, in If Women Rose Rooted, and agreeing with how The Cailleach moves us towards our truest nature. I find myself entering this next season transformed by the landscape I am nested within and also prepared to endure what comes next.
A Candle & A Key,
Kaycee
References
Blackie, S. (2019). If Women Rose Rooted: A life-changing journey to authenticity and belonging. September Publishing.
Brehon Academy. (2014). The Names of Ireland: Scotia.
Cailleach’s Herbarium. (2018). The Cailleach – Scotland’s Midwife – Tigh Na Bodach.
Chaika, BL. (2020). The Cailleach: A Witch for Our Times.
Kynes, S. (2013). Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Correspondences: A Comprehensive & Cross-Referenced Resource for Pagans & Wiccans. Llewellyn Publications.
O’Cathasaigh, Tomás. Knowth – The Epynom of Cnogba.
Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1983.
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