On the Gather the Keeners Retreat on the Isle of Eigg we walk an ancient coffin road, the route that the coffin would have been carried, over the few miles to the cemetery at Kildonnan. In this ancient old roofless church sits a Sheela na Gig, protected from the elements by a glass plate as she looks out to a congregation of tall (healing) weeds swaying in the breeze as a chorus of bees and insects collecting pollen sing old hymns to the earth.
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The blessing of the fabric lies in the threads of the tweed. Woven together in their own magic of the warp and the weft. Threads which cab hold imagination, words and intention. Each thread different yet woven into the whole to create the cloth.
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Tigh nam Bodach - The Shrine of the Cailleach
There’s a little shrine in a remote Scottish valley whose ritual stretches back past living memory into the mists of time.
The story told is that the Cailleach, her husband Bodach and daughter Nighean were passing through this glen when the weather turned bad. The local folks, who were spending the summer in the glen grazing their cattle welcomed them all in as is the way with Celtic hospitality.
The families of the area relied on her astute wisdom of country lore and she was treated with the utmost respect. To them, she was regarded as a diety. By her acute perception of the ways of the world and life, both mortal and immortal, she became central to their daily existence. Their food and health depended on her benevolence.
The Cailleach of Glen Lyon, contained in Perthsire folk tales
When it was time to leave the people began to worry as the Cailleach had become so central to their lives and the Cailleach herself understood this and so constructed a wee shieling (a Norse word meaning little dwelling), simlar to the summer dwellings the women and children lived in throughout the summer months. The Cailleach took three stones out of the near-by stream, explaining that if they tended to this little family by putting the stones out at Beltane then they could look after the glen, the people themselves ensuring that all were healthy and that the land remained fertile. At Samhain she instructed that the stones were to be returned to the shrine for the winter months.
No one knows when this ritual began and although the little shrine is rebuild every decade or so this age old ritual is still performed every Beltane and Samhain.
The doll, the Antler and the Eye Shaped Stone
It had been a wonderfully bright day the day I visited the Shrine. It was late may, and so the little sheiling had been opened in that age old ritual and Glen Lyon, Scotland’s longest glen was filled with bluebells and the sounds of lambs.
Yet on arriving at the Shrine clouds quickly gathered, the sky turned dark and there was 20 minutues of torrential rain. I had taken some photos of my little Cailleach doll beside the stones before heading over and spending some time by the stream.
Felted Cailleach doll by Jude Lally beside the ‘Cailleach’ stone
I felt drawn to putting my hands in the cold fast flowing waters and took out a stone, whose rings of mica shimmered like a great eye. After heading back to the shrine the doll was gone. I searched everywhere and could not find her – for I didn’t want to leave anything behind in this remote place.
In my experience, this Old Crone has quite the sense of humor – much like the 20 minute rainstorm that stopped the minute we left the Shrine and started heading back on the track.
As we were passing a big black peaty bog my eye was drawn to something white. As I peered in I saw an antler, it looked pretty old as it had a few gnaw marks which resembled an ancient pictorial langauge.
I leaned in to pick up the antler but then thought maybe it should just stay where it was, then an image of the Old Crone came to mind cackling, nstructing me to take the antler, for it was her swap for the doll.
Recreation of a shieling at Highland Folk park, Scotland
When I think back to Glen Cailleach and the women who spent their summers in the shielings I picture their evenings, singing and telling stories. I imagine their ritual of gathering at the end of summer when it was time to pack up and take the herd back down to their homes. I see them gathered around the stones, each women giving thanks to the Cailleach, whispering their gratitudes as did their mothers and their mothers before them.
Click on the image above to listen to Julie Fowlis sing Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach, A Shieling Bothie on the Braes of Rannoch.
These keening dolls are made as a connection to your stories of grief and transition. They are a symbolic connection with the keening woman and the rituas she performed. They are a reminder of grief, and that its a radical act today to engage with grief and not, as our culture encourages, to sweep it away and not talk about it.
Read MoreJoin us for a week-long retreat on the Scottish Isle of Eigg, where we draw inspiration from the traditions of the Keening Woman. Immerse yourself in a journey of art and ritual, as we honor and explore themes of grief.
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I am kin with the olive-green fingers of moss, and the sea-green lichen
I am daughter of the Old Woman of the Land. She who brings the land into winter. She who strikes down life - for without death there can be no rebirth
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Sunday 4th Feb 7-8.30 PM UK / 2 -3.30 US Eastern
Join me on Sunday 4th February for the launch of the 'The Keening Women’ Scottish retreat and Imbolc gathering. Both focus on the Hebrides, the islands off Scotland's west coast which are also known as the Isles of Brighid.
The retreat takes place on the Hebridean Isle of Eigg, also known as the Isle of the Big Women. It is a retreat inspired by re-envisaging keening and how we can use it today to become more familiar with grief, in what Francis Weller calls a grief-phobic and death-denying culture.
Weaving Our Grief - The retreat offers grief rituals such as ‘Weaving our grief’ where we will use wool and natural objects to share the story of our grief.
A Keening Circle - A keening circle offers a musical journey, an invitation to bring the voice into grief work, and an opportunity to set deep intentions of transformation.
Your keening doll is made with intention and allows you to explore your grief in several ways. From ‘laying down the bones’ your intention for your doll to symbol making on her body. Details such as pockets and bags offer pouches for stones and small natural objects found on the beach. Your doll can help honor ancestors and acknowledge the grief you carry for all that is unraveling in the world.
Summer in Scotland experiences long lingering twilights after the sun has set. This feels like a magical time when the land is bathed in a quality of light that highlights the figures in the landscape. This is a time when many stories were born out of.
Trance Dance - A dance between the worlds to honor ancestors and ask the wise ones of this land for their wisdom.
Spiritual Senses - Our engagement with the land offers a honing of our spiritual senses - to connect to the story behind the story.
Stories of the Ancestral Mothers - I’ll share stories of the island as well as stories of the ‘Big Women’ as we visit sacred sites.
Brighid’s cross in the Hebrides
I don’t think of Imbolc as just one or three days, I think of Imbolc stretching from mid-Jan to mid-February and out till it overlaps with the edges of Spring Equinox. While we welcome Brighid back into the world Imbolc can be a deep and dark time. In northern latitudes, we often have the strongest winter weather still to face. It can be a time when people feel the weight of the world on their shoulders - from debt and job worries to wider worries of war and the breakdown of climate systems.
Creating a paper Brighid’s cross is a way to consider those worries - by drawing and writing and representing them on paper. We will use them as a form of prayer, or a small gesture of ritual.
In honoring Brighid as a Goddess of the thresholds of life and death, I’ll play an old chant that was sung at the edge of the ocean, intended to guide souls home to the otherworld. The song mimics the call of the Oystercatcher, who has been called the servant of Brighid.
Space for prayer - Bring your paper Brighid’s cross (you will receive instructions)
Space to Honor Grief - With a Brighid’s Chant Which Guides the Soul Home
Exploring Brighid in the Land - Healing well + Beehive Cells dedicated to Brighid
A guided meditation which takes you to visit a Hebridean beach with white quartz sands and green blue seas.
We’ll visit some sites in the landscape such as a healing well dedicated to Brighid and a Beehive cell.
On a cold and frosty morning, the fates seemed to have aligned themselves, the trains were running, I replaced the laces on my walking boots and my four companions (two dogs and two humans) were all up for an adventure.
We planned to walk the five-mile route of the Stoneymollen Road, which runs from Balloch, at the southern end of Loch Lomond over to Cardross, on the banks of the River Clyde.
The Stoneymollen is a coffin road on which the dead would have taken their last earth-bound journey over to clachan of Kirkton and St Mahews Church, near Cardross.
Have rucksack - will travel (from a summer ramble)
It was the first proper walk of the new year and we all felt a bit out of shape - and so we reminded each other that we weren’t carrying a coffin - although an aging Chihuahua required carried in a rucksack.
A cold start to the day
Coming down the hill towards Cardross and the light of the sun on the River Clyde
It was a cold day with frost still lying in the shadows, and so I was glad to be travelling towards the low winter sun, grateful for its light and weak warmth.
We were following the road in the direction the dead would have been carried, east to west, for the deceased would have been buried in the west, towards Tír na nÓg (the Land of Eternal Youth, and Tir Tairngire (the Promised Land) those next worlds lying just beyond the setting sun.
There were many traditions adhering to a person's last journey. They were carried with their feet in the direction of travel, so their spirit couldn’t return home.
Many streams cross the path - stopping spirits from following
Spirits were thought to travel across the landscape in straight lines so coffin roads took meandering routes, lessening the likelihood that the procession would be followed. Many streams cross over the Stoneymollen route, as spirts cannot pass running water.
Peace to thy soul, and a stone to thy cairn
Many coffin routes traversed rough ground and travelled long distances, and the coffin was never to touch the ground.
While some Highland routes took days to travel those able bodied men would have been paid well in food and drink, the emphasis being on the drink. This procession would need a lot of men, so those doing the carrying could be relieved.
Some coffin routes have stone markers so the coffin could be laid to allow folks to rest.
When the body, on the day of the funeral, is carried a considerable distance, a cairn of stones is always raised on the spots where the coffin has rested, and this cairn is from time to time renewed by friends and relatives. Hence the Gaelic saying or prayer with reference to the departed, ‘Peace to thy soul, and a stone to thy cairn!’ thus expressing the wish that the remembrance of the dead may be cherished by the living. - Ian Bradley quoting Norman MacLeod.
Garbh Bealach, Piper's Cairn, Isle of Eigg
The above photo is of the Piper’s Cairn on the Isle of Eigg, which sits on an unusual Coffin Road in that it runs East to West. It was the route that the beloved dead from the Township of Grulin, whose successors would be forcibly removed in the Highland clearances, traveled the few miles West to Kildonan churchyard.
The Piper’s Cairn marks the place where the bearers of the coffin of Donald MacQuarrie, the great piper of Eigg, rested on the way to Kildonnnan churchyard. It was a route he would have journeyed, accompanying the dead while playing the pipes for the deceased’s last journey.
Back on the Stoneymollen, I thought of those people following a coffin as they walked this road. They weren’t separate from the land, not even in death, and their belief in what happened to their souls after death.
‘The point to death as being something natural and part of the rhythm and cycle of life. The bodies of the dead return to the earth after their last journey over the hills and across lochs and seas. Their souls perhaps escape down the streams that are almost invariably found beside graveyards to merge in the great ocean of divine love and find rest in the islands of the blessed far out in the west beyond the setting sun’.
- A reflection on how Hebrideans and Highlanders viewed death as being something natural and part of the rhythm and cycle of life (Ian Bradley).
In the Highlands and Islands the gift (or curse as some may say) of the second-sight ran in families. These individuals often saw past or future events, and a chance passing with someone might bring a vision of their death.
Yet the second-sight wasn’t required to view events which had happened on coffin road routes for many people throughout the country have reported seeing past visions of what took place on that soil, such as bloody battles.
Here is a story from Wales on strange lights appearing on coffin roads:
‘The Welsh call them canwyllau cyrff – corpse candles. They burn in a straight line. And they lead to graveyards.
Corpse candles are bright yellow and blue orbs. They glow along funeral procession routes – the roads by which dead bodies were carried to churchyard. It’s thought the lights are the souls of the recently departed.
If no-one had died recently, a cluster of corpse candles hanging in the air, meant that a person in a house near the lights or the person witnessing the candles, would die. The candles lit a direct route to the burial ground – travelling over mountain, stream and marsh to reach the grave. Illuminating the path the body would soon take.
The canwyllau cyrff were often accompanied by the cyhyraeth – a wailing or sobbing, or even the shuffling of passing feet.
These ghostly lights were often seen by water. The Victorian writer James Motley wrote about his experience of the corpse candles…
On the river near Llandeilo, a coracle capsized. The three men inside drowned. It was reported locally that just a few days before, passengers on the Carmarthen-Llandeilo coach had seen three corpse candles hanging over the water at the exact spot where the men drowned.
There is an origin for the corpse candle myth. Apparently, one of St David’s dying prayers was to ask God to send a sign to his followers in Pembrokeshire, to let them know that their spirits were watched over in death. From that day on, the Holy Spirit lit the path of spirits of the dead in Wales.
- Friends of Friendless Churches - Click for source
The Corpse Candles remind me of descriptions of lights in the Highlands, called death-lights which travelled the funeral road - there’s even reports of people encountering the lights up close and both seeing shadowy figures held within the light.
We had discussed perhaps rewalking this road at dusk, under long lingering summer twilights, but on reading of all the spirit activity I’m not quite so sure!
St Mahews Church (built in 1467 and restored in 1955)
Some of the information for this post was taken from Ian Bradley’s ‘The Coffin Roads’, published by Birlinn. Click on the image to view on Amazon
The drawing in the main image comes from a Glasgow Herald article - click here for source
Next up on my paid series ‘Walking the Path of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland’ the upcoming posts for Imbolc are:
Exploring Who is Brighid - Triple Goddess, Saint and Mary of the Gael
Imbolc Traditions
Brighid & the Hebrides. A guided meditation and a journey to a Hebridean beach
Some photos from my New Year’s Day Walk
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A vision of the caim, an invoking prayer that is cast around, like the trail of a cloak - so it surrounds the body, offering a bubble of safety.
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