After around ten miles on foot through Glen Lyon, the shrine to the powerful Celtic goddess of Cailleach came into view, at last. Amid a shock of May sunshine and a warm wind that blew me along the path by the loch, there it stood in powerful isolation.
To see it there, cradled by the mountains and decorated with recent offerings of fruits, nuts and flowers, was more than worth the walk, which I had daftly extended due to a mishap on the map. By the shrine, the clock on the long, hot day suddenly stopped as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years of belief and respect for this mythological figure made their presence felt.
Tigh Na Cailleach, or House of the Old Woman, is where the giantess of Celtic folklore is remembered in the place she is said to have lived, bringing great prosperity.
To see it there, cradled by the mountains and decorated with recent offerings of fruits, nuts and flowers, was more than worth the walk, which I had daftly extended due to a mishap on the map. By the shrine, the clock on the long, hot day suddenly stopped as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years of belief and respect for this mythological figure made their presence felt.
Tigh Na Cailleach, or House of the Old Woman, is where the giantess of Celtic folklore is remembered in the place she is said to have lived, bringing great prosperity.
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TravelTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:10 Here I am in beautiful Glenlion. The sun is out, the river is running, everything's green.
00:18 Really feels that all elements of spring are kind of coalescing here. It really is a beautiful day.
00:23 I have come to Glenlion to find Teign na Caleach. Now Teign na Caleach is a shrine to a very powerful
00:32 goddess in Gaelic mythology and this shrine is put out every May Day by game keepers that live in this
00:40 Glen and it's a tradition as I believe that's been carried on since the 1700s. So I've come
00:46 into Glenlion and I hope today that the tradition is stuck and that I will come across this amazing
00:52 shrine which really takes us deep into the heart of Scotland and the belief here and the belief in
00:58 the power of this figure. Now I came across Teign na Caleach and its existence through
01:06 James Crawford's book Wild History which really is a fab book. It's kind of taking you to historic
01:12 sites way off the beaten path and I interviewed James about this book and he said if there's one
01:18 place you go, go to Teign na Caleach. He said it is a commitment to get there. I'm kind of feeling that
01:24 already because we've really gone into deep country here. I've driven down from the northeast
01:29 of Scotland. I mean it's been a beautiful drive but I really feel like I'm heading to the interior.
01:34 So who was the Caleach? Well Caleach in Gaelic translates as old woman or hag perhaps even
01:42 and she had a very strong place in Gaelic mythology and for years she was described,
01:48 as James Crawford puts in his book, as a kind of divine giantess who was held responsible for the
01:54 creation of Scotland's landscape itself. One myth surrounding her, as Crawford says, is that she
02:01 brought over stones from Norway to create Scotland and on her way she dropped stones out of her creel
02:08 and these created the Hebrides. There was another stone that fell out of her apron and that created
02:13 Ailsa Craig. So she's really loomed large in Gaelic lore and over time she became more of a nature
02:21 spirit presumably as people's beliefs started to change over time and she's had a very strong
02:28 association with winter, a harbinger of winter no less, and she was able to kind of hammer mountains
02:36 and take axes to ice and she really became like a figure, like if a gamekeeper was to meet her out
02:42 on the hill it was very bad luck and he would kind of go home empty-handed. Now there have been,
02:50 as beliefs continued, there have been sightings of the Caleach over time and some folklore books
02:57 suggested that even up to the late 19th century she was seen in Lachaber. There was another sighting
03:03 in Cora but the reason that the shrine is in Glen Lyon is that there's a very strong local tradition
03:10 which existed up to the 1970s that she was seen coming over the hill with a man and she was,
03:17 this was on a very wintry, stormy night and she had blue skin and grey hair and she came off the
03:23 hill looking for shelter and was kind of received warmly by local people who tried to help her.
03:28 She ended up staying in the Glen as the story goes and from the moment she arrived the summers
03:35 got better, crops fared well, animals were healthy and safe. Right I think we might nearly be there
03:42 so that was, yeah, maybe four or five mile there across a wee river, got my feet wet but I don't
03:50 mind because it's so warm and we're now at Glen Calnewch and I think we are really not far away,
04:04 maybe about 15 minutes.
04:06 Oh here we are!
04:18 Look at that in that setting. Oh so today's May the 2nd, it said that the gamekeepers
04:27 come here on May the 1st to put the figures of the Calnewch
04:32 and her family out and it looks certainly like there's been some little offerings made here.
04:39 Wow!
04:47 Wow! Look at that!
04:51 [Music]