{"id":15635,"date":"2016-11-15T10:21:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T10:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/?p=15635"},"modified":"2021-01-19T13:46:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T13:46:36","slug":"season-of-the-witch-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/season-of-the-witch-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Season of the Witch (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DavidFollowing on from last month’s article<\/a>, David Lintern seeks a further audience with she who must be obeyed \u2013 the Cailleach.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Cailleach, the Scottish spirit-feminine of wild nature, sometimes benevolent and sometimes malevolent, is an integral part of our placename culture. The mother of autumn stormy chaos, sister of frigid winter snows and daughter of regenerating spring bubbles up from our primeval consciousness everywhere we look \u2013 in coires, lochs, burns, moors and summits right across the country. <\/p>\n

On the Isle of Lewis<\/a>, a whole moonlit panorama is named after her. Viewed from the standing stones of Callanish<\/a>, the reclining Cailich na Mointich<\/em> or \u2018old woman of the moors\u2019 is as sacred a landscape as one could hope to find anywhere in the world. <\/p>\n

\"Sunset<\/a>

Sunset at Callanish, a site linked with goddess worship. A profoundly impressive place in real life.<\/p><\/div>\n

A blue-faced hag was also regularly spotted on Schiehallion<\/a>, also known as the faerie hill, an undeniably imposing and oddly symetrical mountain and one I definitely experienced as a \u2018sacred\u2019 landscape when I visited. Ben Nevis<\/a> was reckoned to be sacred to the Cailleach, and Glen Nevis a place where they corralled their deer for milking and to protect them from earthly hunters. <\/p>\n

There are a further two Munros named A\u2019Chailleach, one<\/a> above the village of Newtonmore in the Monadh Liath and another<\/a> in the Fannich group. There\u2019s a Beinn na Caillich<\/a> in Skye, above Broadford and one more above Kinlochleven on the way to Mam na Gualainn<\/a>. There\u2019s a Cnoc nan Caileach, a (wooded) knoll of the old woman, just north of Fassfern<\/a> on the shores of Loch Eil. Just in case all of this isn\u2019t primordial enough for you, there\u2019s even a Creag na Caillich just along from the Tarmachan Ridge<\/a> that has a stone age axe factory on it!<\/p>\n

\"Creag<\/a>

Creag na Caillich, at the end of the Tarmachan Ridge<\/p><\/div>\n

In the Scots language, the Cailleach becomes a Carlin, but both are simultaneously and unfairly \u2018old women\u2019 and \u2018witches\u2019: Hence, we have Carlin\u2019s Cairn, near the Corbett of Corserine<\/a> in Galloway, and Carlin\u2019s Loup in Carlops near the Pentlands<\/a>, where the old ladies got their magical second wind and spent their evenings jumping between 2 rocks for fun. <\/p>\n

In a more watery vein, there are ties to tidal races and winter storms for seafarers and fishermen. There\u2019s a connection with the Falls of Lora<\/a> at the mouth of Loch Etive, where many of us will have seen kayakers playing in her skirts, and the stepping stones were used by the old lady to cross the narrows with her goats. She also makes a star appearance at the gulf of Corryvreckan<\/a>, stiring up a whirlpool of trouble to wash a plaid of wool and usher in autumn storms. Once the wool is snow white, she lays it out on the mountaintops to dry. <\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/a>

Ben Nevis, sometimes translated as \u2018venomous mountain\u2019 \u2013 seat of the coven?<\/p><\/div>\n

At the other end of the season, the Cailleach partaking of the \u2018water of life\u2019 from a spring or well was significant in the Celtic understanding of seasonal change. Spring comes around as the \u2018bride\u2019 drinks from these springs and is reborn from the rags of winter. There\u2019s another story about Nevis, and the blue witch of winter – Beira, or Bheithir – keeping Bridget (the \u2018bride\u2019 of spring; see also Hebrides \u2013 the isles of brides) a prisoner until spring waters flow again. <\/p>\n

Indeed, there are so many \u2018springs of the old woman\u2019 on the map it is difficult to know where to stop, so I\u2019ll just mention a few. There\u2019s a lovely walk<\/a> alongside one to a waterfall in Glengarry, which interestingly lies close to one of Scotland\u2019s 54 mountains called Beinn Bhreac; the speckled hill. On the other side of the drainage, there\u2019s Ben Tee<\/a>, likely to be a corruption of Beinn an t\u2019s\u00ecthean \u2013 the fairy house. There was reputedly a fountain of youth near Loch Ba<\/a> on Mull, and another – now long dried up – on Isle Maree, a centre of worship for successive religions. In a parallel story, she may also had her early residence on Inchcailloch<\/a> on Loch Lomond challenged by later Christain arrivals \u2013 the name here could equally refer to a nun\u2019s hood or cowl as well as our earlier Goddess.<\/p>\n

\"Leum<\/a>

Leum Uilleim, left of centre, taken from the slopes of nearby Munro Beinn na Lap. The witch\u2019s spring is behind, on its right flank.<\/p><\/div>\n

One spring that still exists with some of its mythology intact is the Fuaran Cailleach, and drains another speckled hill, this once called Beinn a\u2019 Bhric. It hides behind the bulk of Leum Uilleim<\/a>, the Corbett closest to Corrour station and known to more film fans than hillwalkers as the venue for Renton\u2019s potty-mouthed soliloquy about English colonialism in Trainspotting. It\u2019s associated with a Bean-sh\u00ecdhe, a camouflage expert who disguises herself in deer hides, cares for the pastures and milks the hinds around Loch Treig. Siren songs and laments are often sung by the Cailleach, as a means of her calling to her wild charges. In KW Grant\u2019s 1925 Myth, Tradition and Story from Western Argyll, our ephemeral heroine is in a more benevolent mood and promises to help a stalker by striking down restless deer with her fetter (a plait of horse hair with a knob of wood at one end). There\u2019s a particularly haunting traditional song associated with this myth, called the Cailleach Beinn a’ Bhric Ho R\u00f2, which you can listen to here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The calm before the storm: a stony camp north of Beinn a\u2019 Ghlo, ahead of a day where the Cailleach was definitely in charge of the weather!<\/p><\/div>\n

Beinn a\u2019 Ghlo<\/a> also has links with this elemental deity \u2013 yet another Allt na Caillich flows into Glen Tilt<\/a> from it\u2019s northern slopes. In Days of Deer Stalking, author William Scrope details an account from the winter of 1773 when two men descended off the top to escape mean weather, and were met by a unearthly old woman who offered food and shelter before threatening them with a very grisly sounding end if they did not leave a deer sacrifice for her once a month:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you neglect this my bidding, foul will befall you, and the fate of Walter of Rhuairm shall overtake you; you shall surely perish on the waste; the raven shall croak your dirge; and your bones shall be picked by the eagle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Further afield, there are similarities between the Cailleach and other pre-christian nature deities, especially in the northern hemisphere. Given the Norse migrations to Scotland, perhaps we shouldn\u2019t be surprised. As Edinburgh story teller and antiquarian William Young points out, the Sami people of Lapland also worshipped Akkas, which translates as \u2018hags\u2019 and served as creation figures and rulers of the underworld. The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, contains numerous mentions of Louhi, the Mistress of Northland, \u201ca female spirit who holds her power without reference to any accompanying male deity, and who is the ruler of the north and the cold\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, it\u2019d be crude to caricature the cailleach as just another\u00ad Scandi import \u2013 there\u2019s way more to her than that. There are also similarities with Greek goddess of the deer, Artemis, the Britonic Black Annis and Arthurian Morgan le Fay, Abouriginal dreamtime and Indiginous American spirit animals\u2026 but none that are conclusive. It\u2019s likely the Scottish Cailleach is a multicultural as well as a multidimensional hybrid, with as long and complex a lineage as the more earthly occupants of Scotland. <\/p>\n

And again, depending on our own perspective, we can read her as a powerful feminist matriarch or just as easily, be frustrated by the inequity implicit in the linguistic confusion of \u2018old woman\u2019 and \u2018hag\u2019. Myths have a habit of confounding modern expectations, whatever they are. Perhaps what\u2019s more important is that they illustrate that for our predessors, their home was as much a dreamscape as a landscape. The order of things was not explained by our modern \u2018ologies, but rather in story form, knitted into the fabric of rock, peat, burn and heather. There\u2019s a tendency for us as scientific rationalists to romanticise or dismiss this storytelling, but to do either is a gross and arrogant oversimplification. No system of thought is ever infallible… and there are lessons of history (more accurately herstory) and empathy to be learnt.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The talus covered summit of Scheihallion – refuge of faeries?<\/p><\/div>\n

The past bleeds through to the present and is still relevant now, in the names and history of places. We may have abandoned belief in celtic spirit creatures \u2013 the Sidhe, yet the maps are still marked with the name of their dwellings – Sithean. So I\u2019d encourage you to suspend disbelief and let go your rationalism, even just for a short while. Understanding just a fraction of how our ancestors understood where they lived, brings people and place, then and now, closer together.<\/p>\n

Read more about Scotland\u2019s mythology:
\nAbout the Cailleach (part 1)<\/a>
\nPaths to the underworld: The road to the western lands<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following on from last month’s article, David Lintern seeks a further audience with she who must be obeyed \u2013 the Cailleach. The Cailleach, the Scottish spirit-feminine of wild nature, sometimes benevolent and sometimes malevolent, is an integral part of our placename culture. The mother of autumn stormy chaos, sister of frigid winter snows and daughter of regenerating spring bubbles up from our primeval consciousness everywhere we look \u2013 in coires, lochs, burns, moors and summits right across the country. On the Isle of Lewis, a whole moonlit panorama is named after her. Viewed from the standing stones of Callanish, the…<\/span> <\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/div>\n

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