Bride and the Cailleach

This post was written during the winter lockdown of 2021 at the beginning of February or Imbolc, the point in which the winter begins to make its eventual change towards the spring.

There is a quickening. Can you feel it? The evenings are growing lighter, spring bulbs are pushing their way up through the soil. The bird calls have become more urgent. But have you ever noticed how as spring grows closer the wind seems to grow fiercer and colder? Like the winter is desperately trying to hold on to its power? But you can’t stop the coming of spring. It is gradual but it is powerful and it is unstoppable. Right now, for us, living through this pandemic things do feel very dark indeed, perhaps this is the darkest point, the wind certainly seems to be howling her hardest but hope is on the horizon my friends, tomorrow is Imbolc, half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. We have turned a corner, we are over the hump of winter and that is why I chose this story.

In this Celtic legend The Cailleach is the goddess of winter, ruling from Samhain to Imbolc. She is a hag figure, representing the wind, the snow and ice. Her breath makes the leaves fall from the trees and her touch turns the ground to iron. She keeps a prisoner, the beautiful Bride whose breath awakens the frozen streams and wherever she walks she leaves a trail of snowdrops in her wake.

As I mentioned before this isn’t a fenland tale, or even from East Anglia. It is a Celtic legend but it struck me as so appropriate for where we are both seasonally and, I guess, historically. I feel that hope is on the horizon, although it is hard to see I can feel Bride amongst us, leaving her trail of snowdrops as she goes.