Cailleach Bheur, A Scottish Artemis

On the Celtic British Isles, Cailleach Bheur was a goddess of probably pre-Celtic origin. Her name means 'veiled'. She is said to have created the land by throwing stones here and there and was associated with agriculture, but also with the protection of flora and fauna from hunters. She was eventually considered to be a witch. The dark mythical principle from which all life arises, which nourishes all living things, and to which it returns, was presented by the Celts as an eternal cauldron: the Cauldron of death and rebirth. In Celtic mythology, the Cailleach constantly stirring this cosmic cauldron so that everything arises over and over again and is consumed in an endless recycling process. Even the fallen heroes ended up in it and were made whole again in another world. But from the role of creatrix, this deity has gradually fallen into that of a witch. Probably because only the face of the destroyer was remembered.

What follows is a summary from one old source:

Memories of an ancient Goddess cling to a giantess who in the folklore of Scotland is referred to as Cailleach Bheur, Mala Liath, the Muilearteach and other names connected with localities. She resembles somewhat the Greek Goddess Artemis, being associated with wild animals and capable of transforming herself into animal shape. Withal, she is a weather controller, like the Artemis to whom Iphegenia, daughter of Agamemnon, was sacrificed so that a favourable wind be obtained for the fleet which was to set out from Aulis with the warriors who were to wage war against Troy.

1. Artemis of Ephesus.

In The Scottish Goddess we appear to have glimpses of the fierce old Artemis who was ultimately idealized by Greek sculptors and accorded refining treatment by the poets after her character had been adjusted to changed social ideas and customs and after goats and boars were sacrificed to her instead of human beings.

Cailleach means in modern Gaelic “Old wife” and originally signified a nun (Veiled one) The supernatural Cailleach was distinguished from a nun by being referred to as Cailleach Bheur (Bheur in the meaning of shrill, sharp, cutting).

The Cailleach Bheur is in folklore associated with the coldest and stormiest period of the year, She is called “The daughter of Grianan”, that is, of the “little sun”. Daughter of the little sun doesn’t mean, however, that the sun was either her father or mother, but that she was born during the cold season. The Cailleach Bheur was supposed to have been transformed into a grey boulder at the end of the period of the “little sun” and have to have remained in that form during the period of the “big sun”. There are references to this boulder being always moist, indicating it was reputed to contain life substance.

The descriptions of the Cailleach Bheur in various parts of the Highlands agree in giving her a blue-black face with one eye on the flat of her forehead, the sight of which is very keen. In songs put in her mouth she is made to say: “Why is my face so black, so black?” Her teeth are red as rust and her hair matted, confused and long and white as an aspen covered with hoar frost. She wears a kerchief or mutch. All of her clothing is grey and she is wrapped in a dun-coloured plaid drawn tightly about her shoulders. On her feet are buskins. She is of enormous stature and great strength, and capable of travelling very swiftly and of leaping from mountain to mountain and across arms of the sea. In her right hand she carries a magic slachdan (beetle, rod) which is also referred to as a farachan (hammer). With her magic hammer or rod the Cailleach Bheur smites to the earth, so that it may be hardened with frost and the grass preventing from growing. She is the enemy of growth.

She is spoken of as a wild hag with a venomous temper, hurrying about with a magic wand in her withered hand, switching the grass and keeping down vegetation to the detriment of man and beast. She is baffled in the early spring period which bears her name: “When the grass, upborne by the warm sun, the gentle dew and the fragrant rain, overcomes the Cailleach Bheur she flies into a terrible temper, and, throwing away her wand into the root of a whin bush, she disappears in a whirling cloud of angry passion. She then takes flight, saying as she goes:

“I threw my druidic evil wand

Into the base of a withered hard whin bush

Where shall not grow fionn nor fionnidh,

But fragments of grassy froinnidh.“

In other versoins the Cailleach Bheur flings her magic rod or hammer under a holly tree, “and that is why no grass grows under holly trees.”

The Cailleach Bheur uses her want chiefly as a weather controller. Some of the folktales in which she approximimates to a human being refer to her however, as wielding her wand as a weapon. She had apparently a connexion with the holly tree and whins (gorse), as with marsh reeds and water plants.

The period of spring called A’Chailleach is the one in which she pauses to prepare for her final effort in arresting growth, as is usually explained in the céilidhs (house gossipings). The daughter of the little sun of winter had been an active influence since her arrival at Halloween. According to the folktales our Cailleach Bheur ushers in winter by washing her great plaid in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan (Coire Bhreacan), which may be translated either Breacan’s Cauldron, or the Cauldron of the Plaid.

Her chief seat in Scotland is Ben Nevis and she keeps as a prisoner there a beautiful maiden, with whom her son falls in love. The young couple elope at the end of winter and the Cailleach Bheur raises storms to keep them apart. These, according to one account, begin in February, the ‘wolf’ month (Faoilleach). Then comes the wind called Feadag (the whistle), which kills sheep, lambs, cattle and horses. It lasts for three days and is followed by Gobag (the sharp-billed one), which pecks in every corner and “lasts for a week” or, as some have it, “three, four, or nine days”. Next comes Sguabag (the sweeper) and it is followed by Gearan (complaint), which lasts for a month and is associated with the period called Caoile (leanness). The next period is A’Chailleach (the Cailleach). The Gobag wind, the voracious one, began on the day before the ‘wolf’ month (Faoilleach). Lathan a Cailleach (Cailleach Day) March 25, is referred to as the date of the Cailleach Bheur’s overthrow. Until December 1599 March 25 was New Year’s day and is now ‘Lady Day’. Some folk stories tell that before the Cailleach Bheur had ceased her activities her son pursued her, riding a swift horse. Having in her final storm caused the death of the wild duck and her newly hatched ducklings she ‘put out her eye’. Other versions state her eye was put out’’ by her son. To escape destruction at his hands, she transforms herself into a grey stone looking across the sea. Her transformation into a boulder took place on Beinn na Cailleach, and she is also associated with a prehistoric cairn on the summit of that mountain.

Another mountain connected with her activities is Schiehallion (Sidh Chaillean, fairy or sacred hill of the Caledonians). On this eminence there is sgriob na Caillich, the Old Wife’s Furrow, where she unearthed huge masses of stones in her ploughing. There are references to the pursuit of the Cailleach Bheur by her son beginning when the day and night are of equal length. In the west this period March 17-29, the middle day, is known as Feill Paruig (St. Patrick’s Day) and there is supposed to be a south wind in the morning and a north wind at night. The son who pursues the Cailleach Bheur is supplanted by St. Patrick, who is said to come from Ireland, to see his parishioners in Barra and other places on the west of Scotland. His wife is a daughter of Ossian, the last of the Fianna (Fians). After this day ‘the limpet is better than the whelk’ and although ‘horses grow lean, crabs grow fat’. Vegetation is reviving. A Gaelic saying is: “There is not a herb in the ground but the length of a mouse’s ear of it is out on St. Paticks Day”. High tides come on St. Paticks Day. A swelling (Tòchadh) in the sea is supposed to be caused by the increasing heat.

Like the Goddess Artemis, the Cailleach Bheur as has been stated is the patroness of wild beasts. Artemis sometimes assumed the form of the wild animals with which she is associated. One of these was the quail. In Highland folklore the the Cailleach Bheur is spoken of occasionally as a gull, eagle or heron. C. St.John heard of the Cailleach Bheur in the form of a heron in Moray, about a century ago. She was associated with Loch A-na-Cailllach (Lochan na Cailliche), the Cailleach Bheur’s small loch, ‘a bleak, cold-looking piece of water, with several small grey pools near it’. Donald, a gillie, who related a long story of the origin of the name of the lochan, drew St.John’s attention to a large cairn of stones at the end of it. The Cailleach Bheur had been ‘spreading sickness and death among man and beast’and was opposed by the local clergyman by means of bible and prayer, holy water and ‘other spiritual weapons’. It was subsequently discovered that she had her abode in the cairn and was in the habit of flying through the air by night, especially when the moon was shining, towards ‘the inhabited part of the country’. At length she was shot by Duncan, an ex-soldier, who placed in his gun a crooked sixpence and some silver buttons. Everyone was convinced that the heron brought down was ‘the Cailleach Bheur ’herself’. Donald added, ‘She hasna’ done much harm since yon, but her ghaist is still to fore, and the loch side is no canny after the gloaming’.

Artemis had a close connexion with the wild boar. The untamed animals with which Artemis was most frequently associated in cult and legend were the boar and the stag or fawn. In Ross and Cromarty, the Cailleach Bheur referred to as Mala Liath (Grey Eyebrows) was protectress of a herd of swine. The writer has heard references in this area to the Cailleach Bheur and her swine. There was the venomous wild boar of Glen Glass, a verse about it goes like this:

“His lair on Meall-an-Tuirc’s rough side

Where Mala Lia’ kept her swine-

Witch Mala Lia’, evil-eyed

Foul, shapeless and malign-

Was all begrimed with filth and gore

And horrid with the limbs of men

The unclean monster killed and tore

To feast on in his den.”

Various warriors attempted in vain to slay the boar, but at length the heroic Diarmaid went towards its lair. He saw a raven pecking a dead hare and near it a corbie (hoodie-crow) perched upon a bare boulder. Both oracle birds warned him (these birds were forms of the Cailleach Bheur) The raven said he was going to slay the boar but would meet with his death, while the corbie advised him to return to Grainne, the wife of Fionn, with whom he had eloped, because the boar would cause him to die. Diarmaid raised and pursued the boar. Mala Lia’, the Cailleach Bheur, attempted to thwart him. She followed in his footsteps, taunting and cursing him and urging him to return to Grainne. At length, greatly annoyed by her bitter tongue, Diarmaid paused, caught her by a foot and flung her over a cliff. After slaying the boar, he was fatally wounded by a venomous bristle which pierced a vital spot on the inner side of one of his heels.

The reference in this folktale to the swine devouring human beings suggests a memory of human sacrifices. There are, as stated, traditions of human sacrifice in connexion with the early worship of Artemis. We meet with a similar reference in the Scottish Lowland lore regarding the ‘Gyre Carling’ (Gay Old Wife), an undoubted form of the the Cailleach Bheur. The Bannatyne MS. mentions her:

‘Thair dwelt ane grit Gyre Carling in awld Betokis bour,

That levit (lived) upoun menis flesche (men’s flesh).’

The Carlin carried ‘ane yren (iron) club’, the Cailleach Bheur’s druidical hammer or wand, and when she was attacked by ‘all the doggis (dogs) ‘ from Dunbar to Dunblane and ‘all the tykis of Tervey’, she fled in her pig form:

‘The Carling schup (shaped) her on awe sow and is her gaitis (road) gane,

Grunting our (over) the Greik sie (Greek sea).’

The Carlin was sometimes called ‘Nicnevin’, an interesting Gaelic survival in the Lothian and Border counties. ‘Nic’ is the female patronymic prefix, but ‘nevin’ presents a puzzle. It was probably the genitive of the Gaelic word for ‘bone’. There might be a connexion to the remarkable story of a child conceived from the ashes of old burnt bones. This child was called Gille Dubh Mac nan Cnàmh (Black Lad, son of the Bones), with an obscure added epithet. His place of origin was Annat in the parish of Kilmallie, Loch Eil. Apparently the burnt bones were sacrificial.

There is the mention of ‘the milking-fold of the Cailleach Bheur’s sheep and goats- Buaile nan Drògh, which is a cave at Cailleach Point, that stormiest of headlands on the coast of Mull. There she sits among the rocks, ever gazing seaward. When she sneezes she is heard at the island of Coll. The rocks at the falls of Lora at the mouth of Loch Etive, Connel Ferry, are known as the ‘stepping stones’ of the Cailleach Bheur and her goats, which were at this place driven across the loch to Benderloch and to Acha-nam-bà (cow-field) in Benderloch where circular green hollows are referred to as ‘the Cailleach Bheur’s cheese-vats’. A natural enclosure in the rocks above Gorten in Ardnamurchan is called ‘the Old Wife’s Byre (Bàthaich na Caillich), it being said she folded her cattle there. Deer are not kept in byres. Like the Irish Morrigan, the Cailleach Bheur had a cow which gave great quantities of milk. The writer has heard Highlanders tell of the Cailleach’s assistants (na Cailleacha Beura) riding on wolves and wild pigs as storm-bringers. They raise the storms of the wolf month, February.

Thus we have the Cailleach Bheur’s animals: Deer, swine, goats, cattle and wolves. There are many folk stories regarding the Cailleach Bheur’s herds of deer. One of the pastures to which she drove them is in the Ross oof Mull. She also wandered with them by night on wild beaches where they devoured sae-tangle, especially in the winter season. The writer has seen wild goats feeding on seaweed in Skye.

Cailleach Bheinn á Bhric is associated with the speckled ben in Lochaber. She pastured her herds of deer in Glen Nevis and milked them there, singing one of her song the while. When hunters were unable to find deer, they blamed the Cailleach Bheur. In a Sutherland folk tale regarding the Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich who had enchanted the deer of Lord Reay’s forest so that they eluded the hunters. A man named William kept watch one night and by means of some counter enchantments managed to be present when the Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich engaged in milking the hinds at the door of her hut in the early morning.:

“They were all standing all about the door of the hut till one of them ate a hank of blue worsted hanging from a nail in it. The witch (Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich) struck the animal and said: ‘The spell is off you, and Lord Reay’s bullet will be your death today’. William repeated this to his master to confirm the tale of his having passed the night in the hut of the great hag, which no one would believe. And the event justified it, for a fine yellow hind was killed that day, and the hank of blue yarn was found in its stomach.”

The blue yarn is of interest, contrasting with the red cords, berries, &c., used by humans to shield themselves against attack by the Cailleach Bheur, the fairies, &c.

Artemis had a connexion with fish and one of her forms resembled that of the mermaid, having been fused with a seagoddess. It is of interest therefor to find that in Lochaber the Cailleach Bheur generally appeared to them (wanderers) in the form of a gigantic woman by a stream, in the act of cleaning fish. She was connected with good or evil luck in hunting and fishing. There is a Gaelic song: Cailleach Liath Ratharsaidh, which tells of the three Hebridean Cailleachs of Raasay, Rona and Sligachan as being fond of fish. They were probably, fish-goddesses. But the Cailleach Bheur was as complex a deity as Artemis. Her connexion with fish, the sea, rivers, &c., is not confined to the Hebrides. The Cailleach’s association with water is emphasized by a folk tale in various parts of the Highlands. One version is as follows:

“Where Loch Ness now is, there was long ago a fine glen. A woman went one day to the well to fetch water and she found the spring flowing so fast that she got frightened, and left her pitcher and ran for her life, she never stopped till she got to the top of a high hill, and when there, she turned about and saw the glen filled with water. Not a house or field was to be seen.

An Argyll version tells that the Cailleach Bheur was the guardian of a well on the summit of Ben Cruachan. She had to cover it with a slab of stone every evening at sundown and remove the slab 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 awoke the Cailleach Bheur, 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. The Cailleach Bheur was filled with such horror over the result of her neglect of duty that she turned into stone. There she sits, among the rocky ruins at the pass overlooking the loch, as on the rocks at Cailleach Point in Mull she gazes seaward."

The origin of Loch Tay in Pertshire and Loch Eck in Cowal is accounted for in the same manner. According to the folklore of Ireland the River Boyne was similarly brought into existence by a nymph who walked three times by the left, with the result that the water rose furiously and drove her, as the river, towards the sea.

The earliest form of Artemis was connected with the waters and with wild vegetation and beasts. In Arcadia, Laconia and Sicyon she was worshipped as ‘the lady of the lake’ Near the lake of Stymphalus she bred the deadly birds which Heracles slew. She was also the goddess of the marsh in Arcadia and Messene. She was associated frequently with rivers as in Elis. As we have seen, the Cailleach Bheur was connected with the holly tree and whins and fish. No cultivated trees were associated with Artemis. It may be that the prototype of the Cailleach Bheur was connected with the river Lochy (Lòchaidh) in Lochaber, which Adamnan, , in his Life of Columba, refers to as Nigra Dea (black goddess). Other river names of like character are the Lòchá and Lòchaidh in Perthshire and Lochy in Banffshire.