The Hag of Winter

This is the new book I just got about Scottish folklore and beliefs.  It is wonderful.  It began with the story of the Cailleach, the Hag of Winter.   I had heard about her but learned there is a wee tigh (hut) in the remote Perthshire Glen Lyon. It is a five-mile hike in on unmarked trails and across three burns (streams).  The locals don't encourage tourists.  This is a picture of it and the stone "figures' of the Cailleach (pronounced KAH-lyakh}  and her family.  They are brought out of the hut at Bealtaine, the beginning of summer, and put back in on Samhain, the start of winter.  This ritual has been going on for centuries.  I decided to make a wee, needle felted Cailleach. (Extra) She often described as having blue skin and wild white hair.  She carries a staff which she uses to freeze the ground.  She is often called the Midwife of Scotland as she is said to have created the landscape.  She tossed stones that became the islands (the small green one in the center is Iona marble I brought back from my stan on the amazing island) and shaped the mountains with her hammer.  (It took me a while to find the ancient looking silver one that hangs around her neck.)  I will never get to see the real shrine but the man who recently repaired the tigh has built a replica in the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh so I will go see it there next year when I am back in Scotland.  It will take me a while to get through this amazingly researched book, over 500 pages, but I will enjoy every bit of it.