#MythologyMonday #Celtic: The
#Cailleach aka Hag of Storms โlived (and rumour has it, lives still!) in the Beara just in the south of Ireland, and a wandering friar came to her house, for he had heard tell of a woman of great age, so old that even she herself had lost count of the years. Her house was small enough and he didn't think much of it, but she made himself and his scribe welcome.
โIf it's no harm,โ he asked, โmay I know your age, as there are those who say you're older than the road I walked to get here, and the fields around it, and the hills in which they lie!โ
โNo harm to me at all,โ she answered, โfor I've little to say about it, knowing even less! But I do kill an ox every year and stew up the bones for my soup, then throw a leg bone up into that loft above your head. If you send your young lad up he can make a tally.โ
Well the friar's lad went up a the narrow ladder to the loft and began throwing bones down as there was no room to do a count up there in the dimness, and for each one the friar made a mark in a thick book he bore with him. At length the book was full of marks and the friar was weary with totting, so he shouted up to the lad to ask was he almost done.
The lad stuck his head out and said he hadn't even one corner cleared yet, so the friar looked askance at the old woman and bid him come down out of it, for he was up to his knees in bones. He spoke to the lady and learned of some of the wonders she could recall, and they were strange tales indeed that hardly made much sense. But for all that he didn't write them down as his book was already full.โ
#CelticSource:
https://emeraldisle.ie/an-cailleach 
1. Neu-Kelte ๐ป๐๐๐ป
The Gods and Their Croziers
Karin Braun
Ele Willoughby, PhD
