#MythologyMonday: `Sheela-na-gigs are virtually the only surviving element of one of the most important aspects of the native #celtic tradition, [that is] its feminine orientation or belief in the ultimate deity as symbolised in the #Cailleach or hag, the goddess or the image of female spiritual power.` Jack Roberts
Source: September | From Goddess to Grotesque? - by Ali Isaac (substack.com)
Sheela-na-Gig, Ulster Museum, photocredit 1. Neu-Kelte

`On the Isle of Man the #Berrey Dhone (Brown Berry) lived either on top of North Barrule Mountain or inside it. Like other forms of the #Cailleach, this hag or witch was an Amazonian giant, and her rocky heelprint can still be seen on the mountainside.`
Source: Ali Isaac #Celtic
---
RT @CultureVannin
The song of the #Maughold #caillagh / witch, #BerreeDhone, has been recorded recently (& brilliantly!) by #CaarjynCooidjagh: https://caarjyncooid…
https://twitter.com/CultureVannin/status/1450756425509228550

#Celtic #FolkloreThursday: `On the Isle of Man the #Berrey Dhone (Brown Berry) lived either on top of North Barrule Mountain or inside it. Like other forms of the #Cailleach, this hag or witch was an Amazonian giant, and her rocky heelprint can still be seen on the
1/2
---
RT @CultureVannin
The song of the #Maughold #caillagh / witch, #BerreeDhone, has been recorded recently (& brilliantly!) by #CaarjynCooidjagh: https://caarjyncooid…
https://twitter.com/CultureVannin/status/1450756425509228550

The #Cailleach was also called the “daughter of the little sun,” presumably that of winter. Mumming dances drove her away in #spring. The day of her defeat, when the winter-witch was frozen into stone, was March 29.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @witchwalk
The Cailleach Crone of Winter blesses thee now with promise of Spring! She Who provided for the First Folk, through the Winter of Years, shall provide for thee, not in body only…
https://twitter.com/witchwalk/status/1607777031466483712

The #Cailleach was also called the “daughter of the little sun,” presumably that of winter. Mumming dances drove her away in #spring. The day of her defeat, when the winter-witch was frozen into stone, was March 29.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
/
RT @KodingKitsune@twitter.com
The Cailleach, or “Veiled One,” was a Celtic goddess who ruled over the winds and winter. She is also known as as the Queen of Air and Darkness. She was a patron of animals especially wolves. She was neither good or evil in lore. #SuperstitiionSat

#MythologyMonday: #Loughcrew is connected in legend to the great hag #Cailleach. Its #Irish name means “mountain of the hag” (Sliab na Cailleach). One cairn at #Loughcrew opens to the dawn of both #Equinoxes.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and Folklore`
---
RT @NeuKelte
#MythologyMonday: On the side of one hill of the #Loughcrew (Sliab na #Cailleach) complex is the Hag’s Chair. Atop that hill is a decorated cairn …
https://twitter.com/NeuKelte/status/1637803104182599680

#MythologyMonday: On the side of one hill of the #Loughcrew (Sliab na #Cailleach) complex is the Hag’s Chair. Atop that hill is a decorated cairn oriented to the sunrise on #spring and fall #Equinox.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and Folklore`
---
RT @NationalMons
Brighter days ahead- celebration of Spring Equinox at Loughcrew passage tomb cemetery. Each year on the the Spring Equinox (this year it fell on 20…
https://twitter.com/NationalMons/status/1242767845982945280

`In a cave known as Black Annis’s Bower, Black Annis was said to ambush children and eat them. She was sometimes pictured as a hare (spring ritual hare-hunting is known in the area) or a cat (dragging a dead cat in front of hounds was another spring ritual of the area). In other stories, she is said to have been a nun who turned cannibal. She may be a form of the weather-controlling ancient goddess, the #Cailleach`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @SubRosaMagick
Dark Mother Day - Honoring Black Annis, a bogeyman figure in English folklore. She is imagined as a blue-faced hag or witch with iron c…
https://twitter.com/SubRosaMagick/status/1510007702264721412

#Celtic #MythologyMonday: Manchán Magan, author of Thirty-Two Words for Field, described the #Cailleach as: “the personification of winter … her veil may have represented the land being clad in frost and snow. In #Scotland and the North of #Ireland her method for hastening winter was flying and beating back the summer vegetation with her cudgel … [s]he’d stir up strong winds or set the sea spewing by belting the sky and the earth. Her primary impetus wasn’t so much malevolence as a wish to agitate, to incite change - an awareness that things require an animating force.”
Source: Ali Isaac
---
RT @RubyFaesRealm
In Gaelic mythology, the hag deity known as the Cailleach takes human form at Samhain to rule the winter months, bringing with her winds…
https://twitter.com/RubyFaesRealm/status/1620678633336750080

#Celtic #FolkloreSunday: The #Cailleach was also called the “daughter of the little sun,” presumably that of winter. Mumming dances drove her away in spring. The day of her defeat, when the winter-witch was frozen into stone, was March 29.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @witchwalk
The Cailleach Crone of Winter blesses thee now with promise of Spring! She Who provided for the First Folk, through the Winter of Years, shall provide for thee, not in body only b…
https://twitter.com/witchwalk/status/1607777031466483712

A belief on the Isle of Man had it that when #Imbolc was sunny, a wet or snowy spring was in the offing. A rainy or snowy Imbolc, by contrast, would force the #Cailleach, the weather-controlling hag, to stay indoors rather than gathering more wood for her fire. Without laying in an additional stock of fuel, she would be forced to end winter early.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @BrujoFaolan
Cailleach: The Winter Witch Goddess
Cailleach is a witch goddess from Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. She is the Old Woman, the Winter Cro…
https://twitter.com/BrujoFaolan/status/1345520472507600896

#Imbolc: People are generally relieved if Là Fhèill Brìghde (Feb 1st) is a day of foul weather, as it means the #Cailleach is asleep, will soon run out of firewood, and therefore winter is almost over. On the #IsleofMan, where she is known as Caillagh ny Groamagh, the Cailleach is said to have been seen on St. Bride's day in the form of a gigantic bird, carrying sticks in her beak.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @RubyFaesRealm
In Gaelic mythology, the hag deity known as the Cailleach takes human form at Samhain to rule the winter months, bringing with her winds…
https://twitter.com/RubyFaesRealm/status/1620678633336750080

#Imbolc: Là Fhèill Brìghde (Feb 1st) is the day when the #Cailleach gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she intends to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on 1 February is bright and sunny, so she can gather plenty of firewood to keep herself warm in the coming months.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @RoxannaRose7
There's something rather peaceful and poetic about the Celtic Queen of Winter. ❄️⁠
⁠Called the Cailleach, she was the goddess of the cold and …
https://twitter.com/RoxannaRose7/status/1351183068694982656

#Celtic #FolkloreSunday: The association of the barn owl, Cailleach-oidhche gheal (the white old woman of the night) with the #Cailleach, goddess of Winter, is interesting.
---
RT @StephenGeoRae
The Cailleach is the 'divine ancestor', associated with the creation of the landscape and with the weather, especially storms and winter

In Druidry, the barn owl is Cailleach-oidhche gheal, the white old woman of the night

#owlishmonday #dr…
https://twitter.com/StephenGeoRae/status/1546410690507948032

#Celtic #FolkloreSunday: The #Cailleach, goddess of Winter, was sometimes said to appear as a hare or other small creature.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
---
RT @MaelBrigde
@CathHodsman Have you seen Jane Brideson's hares? This one is with a sleeping cailleach.
http://theeverlivingones.blogspot.com/p/the-c.html
https://twitter.com/MaelBrigde/status/1471025088552050689

Yvonne Aburrow would like to see the festival of #Yule returned to its anarchic origins.

“Bring back the #Cailleach, beloved Scottish #goddess of #winter, shaking out the snow on the land. Bring back Mother #Holda, with her wild geese and her snowflakes landing on the tongue like a gift from the sky…”

#paganism #pagan

https://dowsingfordivinity.com/2022/12/03/anarchic-yule/

There`s a pre-#Celtic tale in which the winter sun’s daughter is born as an old woman and grows younger through the winter, ending as a lovely maid. This cosmic tale was adopted by the arriving #Celts and melded to their own myth of the bestowal of sovereignty on the chosen king, who typically had to kiss or have intercourse with the #Cailleach in her hag form before she revealed herself as a splendid young woman.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
/
RT @ElsaMc1878@twitter.com
#MythologyMonday The goddess Cailleach in Celtic legend embodies the image of dark mother, wild goddess & crone. She is the personification of winter & wild storms being born old at Samhain & growing ever younger until she is a beautiful maiden at Beltane.
Img: #CherylRoseHall

The #Cailleach was also called the “daughter of the little sun,” presumably that of winter. Mumming dances drove her away in spring. The day of her defeat, when the winter-witch was frozen into stone, was March 29.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
/
RT @GodysseyPodcast@twitter.com
The Cailleach is the embodiment of winter itself, an old woman and witch who flies like a storm over Ireland and Scotland and wields a powerful hammer that can break trees during a cold snap. A trickster and almost certainly a goddess, she can bless too. #FairyTaleTuesday

#Celtic #FolkloreSunday: The #Cailleach also had the epithet Bhuer (“cutting”), probably referring to wintry winds.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

RT @InnerSelfcom@twitter.com

The Great Goddess of Winter: An Irish Tale for Samhain: For the ancient Celts, there were only two seasons of the year: win­ter and summer. Winter began at Samhain (October 31–November 1), and summer began at Beltaine. “The Cailleach Bhuer” by https://tinyurl.com/2ahf4sza

The #Cailleach was also called the “daughter of the little sun,” presumably that of winter. Mumming dances drove her away in spring. The day of her defeat, when the winter-witch was frozen into stone, was March 29.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
/
RT @GodysseyPodcast@twitter.com
The Cailleach is the embodiment of winter itself, an old woman and witch who flies like a storm over Ireland and Scotland and wields a powerful hammer that can break trees during a cold snap. A trickster and almost certainly a goddess, she can bless too. #FairyTaleTuesday