Tales of the Cailleach seem to flow from every mountain, river and loch in Scotland. For she made the land and is deeply honored for her work. The bones of this particular version which traces her transformation from Samhain eve to Beltane come from the wonderful book “Wise Women” by Sharon Blackie and Angharad Wynn.

She is the Creatrix, she is the land and she is the seasons. Her identities are expansive and broad. She takes many forms just as the land and weather of Scotland flows through many forms.

I love this version as it helps us remember the cycle of time and how everything has it’s season. It also underlines the importance of remembering - who we are, where we come from and how we got here.

I hope you enjoy the Queen of Winter, the Cailleach at work.

Learn more about me here:

https://www.ancestralconnection.earth

To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes

This tale from Ireland is often missed, it is often considered a sides hoot of the story of the epic battle of Ventry Bay. But in it lies deep treasure for the soul.

It speaks to the descent triggered by loss and heartbreak, the tumbling into our wild selves as our world shatters around us. And if offers a way back to the world of humans, through love and gentleness.

The initiated masculine shows up not as a warrior but as a poet, a deep lover of soul and of one particular women scored by others for the depth of her feeling.

This story for me is a glimmering gem among the scenes of battle and blood that I offer to you as a refuge for the times when our grief can only be held by the mountains and forests.

I’m curious to know what this tale brings forth in you.

Learn more about me here:

https://www.ancestralconnection.earth

To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes

The medicine story I offer to you today comes from the deeper layers of the Brythonic Celtic culture, the people who are my ancestors and once stewarded most of the island of Briton. They are known as the Britons and continue on as the Welsh. This story was re-discovered in the modern era in a Old Welsh text known as The Mabinogi that we think was written in the 1200s.

Many scholars and most storytellers understand the stories in this text to be much older, having been carried in the oral tradition for generations previously.

The story of Rhiannon is a continuation of the story of Pwyll and Arawn (my telling here) and Rhiannon and Pwyll (my telling here) completing the First Branch of the Mabinogi.

It’s not an easy story. I’ve resisted telling it for some time. But that is often the way of medicine stories, they take some swallowing down, some digesting, before they give up their secrets. I told this story recently at the monthly women’s story and song circle I hold with Jennifer Armstrong (Honey for Your Heart on Substack) and the reflections from the other women opened it up even deeper for me. We leant into the wisdom of surrendering into the mystery of life, of not needing to know or be seen to be right, to simply let life show the way.

I’m curious to know what this tale brings forth in you.

Learn more about me here:

https://www.ancestralconnection.earth

To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes

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