Global InformationThe Hag of Beara information
The Hag of Beara (Irish: An Chailleach Bhéara, also known as The White Nun of Beara, The Cailleach or The Old Woman of Dingle) is a mythic Irish Goddess: a Cailleach, or divine hag, crone, or creator deity; literally a "hooded one" (caille translates as "hood"). She is associated with the Beara Peninsula in County Cork, Ireland, and was thought to bring winter. She is best known as the narrator of the medieval Irish poem "The Lament of the Hag of Beara", in which she bitterly laments the passing of her youth and her decrepit old age.[1] The Great Book of Lecan (c. 1400 AD) contains a collection of stories concerning her.[2]
The Hag of Beara is said to have been born in Dingle, County Kerry, at "Teach Mor" or the Great House, described as "the house farthest west in Ireland", and today identified as Tivore on the Dingle peninsula.[1] She is said to have worn a veil, given to her by Saint Cummine, for a hundred years — perhaps a Christian appropriation of her hood.[3]
Along with County Kerry, she is also closely associated with County Cork. She is said to have been a mother or foster mother to the ancestors of a number of prominent clans in the region, including the Corca Dhuibhne and Corca Loighdhe. [4] In some tellings, she lived several lives, or had several successive periods of youth, during which she birthed the ancestors of these clans.[3]
- ^ a b Hill (1927), p. 226
- ^ "The Cailleach Béara or the Hag of Béara".
- ^ a b Hill (1927), p. 228
- ^ Zucchelli (2016), pp.25-26