The Cailleach : Celtic crone and goddess of winter (Folklore and Mythology)

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Deity Tracker No 1. Part of a series of videos on gods and goddesses.

The Cailleach is a hag or crone goddess in the Gaelic speaking world, Scotland, the Western Isles and Ireland. Also synonymous with Beira the Queen of Winter ruling from Samhain to Imbolc.

She is said to be a weather god, as well as the ancestor of all the other gods, the creator of the world, Great Mother and the very ground of Being, her origins are mysterious.

This is an exploration of the folklore, mythology and legend surrounding this figure. Her possible origins in the Celtic or earlier (neolithic) people of Britain and Ireland.

Her similarities with other Indo-European deities, including the Norse Thor, the Welsh Ceridwen and even the Hindu goddess of destruction Kali.

For more information on the Cailleach and other British and Irish pagan and gods as well as the history of magic and witchcraft, I can recommend none better than historian and Oliver Cromwell impersonator Professor Ronald Hutton.