Pronounced Kal-yakh – Cailleach is the powerful goddess of wind and winter storms in Scottish and Irish legend. She is sometimes depicted as a hag and is a fierce and intimidating natural force of nature, whose moods and actions have direct consequences on weather.
A divine woman linked to the landscape she is neither all bad nor all good. She is responsible for creation, destruction and the cyclical nature of life, death and renewal. She is wild, ageless and immortal and with the passing of winter she returns to her youth.
In Scotland they believe she created the mountains and ruled Winter between Samhain and Beltane while Brigid ruled the Summer. She cares passionately for the wild and domesticated animals – particularly black cats, wild cattle and goats – in darkest winter and runs with deer in Scotland and wolves in Ireland.
A complex character she is often pictured as a pale skinned veiled hag, but we have chosen to honour her relationship with the weather and followed the Manx legend that she spends half the year as a young woman.
There are many goddesses that share similarities with her: Greco-Roman Gaia, the Norse Goddess Skandi and Holle the Germanic wife of Odin.
Artists: Anne Hellyer, Janice Ballard, Mandy Dunning, Dee McElligott, Sarah Davis, Alison Young and Sarah Maddison
Price £495
The Alchemist's Needle 