Welcoming winter in the Morrigan’s cave

---

The call came, as I had hoped it would, to journey with friends into the heart of the Morrigan’s cave. This special event feels like travelling to meet the Goddess in the landscape, in whatever form she presents herself. Returning to the earth every year reminds me of the precious fragility of being alive; it is a ritual of gratitude for this physical life, a symbolic experience of rebirth.

Placing my body underearth, in the deep dark, in the dark cold, is an act of faith, one that for most of us only happens when the spark of life has left the earthly, fleshy pillow of our mortal existence. Without fail, I am changed afterwards, and in its annual repetition, the change feels progressive and accumulative, slow and cyclical like the planet and the seasons themselves.

---

I went into the cave among friends, some new, some old, on Sunday 3rd November to celebrate Samhain, and the return of the dark cold season. Although the festival is fixed on our modern calender at 31st October, at Halloween, for our ancestors, it fell on the cross quarter day, the astronomical midpoint between equinox and solstice.

In the western hemisphere, the winter cross quarter day falls on the 7th November and is celebrated in Ireland as Samhain, the first day of Winter. However, just as the year begins with the darkness of Winter, so the day begins with the darkness of night, and so the celebration actually begins on the evening of 6th November.

Tonight.

I know that most of my subscribers live in the US. I know your thoughts are elsewhere today. You may not feel like celebrating anything, but my story today is for you, because I saw something very clearly in the darkness of the Morrigan’s cave, and I’d like to share it with you.

The Hell-Mouth of Ireland

To enter Oweynaghat is not for the faint-hearted. Throughout the centuries, it acquired a name and a reputation that has inspired fear: the ‘Hell-Mouth of Ireland’. The cave was thought to be infested with hideous supernatural beings that issue forth on a chaotic rampage from the Otherworld when the veil between there and here thins at Samhain.

These creatures include the Ellén Trechand, a three-headed monster that, on entering the mortal realm, lays waste to the countryside accompanied by a flock of monstrous copper-red birds, and a herd of giant pigs that scar the landscape by rooting through the earth with their huge tusks.

---

Cath Maige Mucrama (The Battle of Mag Mucrima)

This story is found in a medieval manuscript entitled Lebor Laignech (The Book of Leinster) that dates to the mid twelfth century, although the tale itself is thought to be much older, dating as far back as the ninth century. This myth is believed to have been composed to explain and validate the rise of the great political ruling families of Connacht and Munster, at that time.

However, as was then common practice, it also includes some placename explanation, some Christian scaremongering, some poetry, some wisdom judgements, and some mysogeny alongside its depiction of male heroism and blood and gore… something for everyone, then!

A couple of paragraphs say this of Oweynaghat:

Now Mag Mucrima [was so called from] magic pigs that had come out of the cave of Crúachain. That is Ireland’s gate to Hell. Out of it too came the swarm of three-headed creatures that laid Ireland waste until Amairgene father of Conall Cernach, fighting alone (?), destroyed it in the presence of all the Ulaid.

Out of it also had come the saffron-coloured(?) bird-flock and they withered up everything in Ireland that their breath touched until the Ulaid killed them with their slings.” 1

I wonder what these passages are actually describing; is it a metaphor for the death and destruction that winter wreaks upon the land? Or is it the defeat of the old pagan evil by the good soldiers of Christianity? Or maybe the impact of battle/ actions of humankind on the landscape, rendering it infertile.

In my years of studying Irish myths, one thing I have learned is that they weren’t intended to be interpreted literally. They were designed to teach and entertain at a time when most people were illiterate. In dedicating the time and effort to puzzling it out, one arrives at Imbas, the blinding light of knowledge and inspiration.

Nowadays, so many centuries later, the hidden message has been lost. Or has it? Maybe there never has been one true message of truth, only various versions of it, and it is up to us to search for and support the authentic truth. In which case, there is no right and wrong, only various shades and strengths of ‘light’.

The Morrigan V Medb

The cave is also associated with powerful women. Queen Medb, daughter of a slave woman and a king, was said to have been born within its shadowy shelter. The Morrigan was said to have used the cave as her conduit between the Otherworld and our mortal realm. They have both left the indelible mark of their presence in the stones and stories of the cave: the Morrigan as triune goddess of war and possibly, a land goddess in her protective role, 2 and Medb as Queen of Connacht, and some say, sovereignty queen.

---

Perhaps I hoped that by entering this inner sanctom, their sacred space, I would be able to connect with them, to absorb some of their strength, imbibe some of their wisdom. Perhaps in choosing to confront my fears in this place, I would locate the courage I hoped resided somewhere within me, and they would approve, and I would emerge victorious with new found power of my own.

UnderEarth

How does it feel to be swallowed up by the earth? In a word, terrifying, but a little less so every time. The cave entrance is a tiny inverted triangular mouth, gaping darkly at ground level beneath a shroud of hawthorn bushes.

You have to slide your way in, supine on your belly, sinuous as a snake in the thick blackness, or on your back, enclosed so closely that the rock wall brushes your skin as you pass, the weight of the earth pressing on your consciousness, on your lungs, filling you with the fear of rockfalls, of demonic creatures that burst through from the Otherworld, of the terrible Goddess we call the Morrigan, of the dread that once inside, you will become trapped, unable to ever return to the surface.

Your heart races, and you pant for breath, lungs squeezed flat in your chest. This is a potent place; a deep, dark cleft in the earth associated with powerful women, sacred women, sorcerous women, women who command all the skills and strengths that men feel should belong to men alone.

The darkness obliterates sensation, you don’t know if your eyes are open or closed. Sound is magnified in the enclosed space, your own breath and that of your companions like gusts of wind, your heart a drumbeat that conjures images of the Mines of Moria, the clip of boot on stone foretells a rockfall, the squelch of deep sucking mud threatens never to release you.

Excursions into Darkness

But when you have traversed its uterine passage, have felt the energy pulsing in cold moist, glistening, flesh–coloured stone, have slid through the glutinous membrane of mud which lines the inner, womb–like cavity, have listened to the earth breathe around and beneath and above you; when you have considered the tender seed growing into new life, the burrowing things that nurture and hydrate the soil, the steadying strength of spreading roots, the trickle and seep of stream and spring, well then… when you leave, you will feel reborn. Every time.

---

What happened in the cave, Ali?

The day is coming to an end and dusk is falling. Carys is not well, I am not well, and its very wet and grey outside. Rather than trying to coax flame out of the damp, you will, I hope, forgive me for lighting candles instead. Whether you celebrate with a bonfire or a woodburner, tonight or tomorrow morning, or at Halloween, doesn’t matter, so long as you do it with intention. My candles will flicker all night long, and they bring me peace and joy.

I can’t tell you everything. What happened in the cave, stays in the cave. But once all the torches were extinguished, and we stood in contemplative silence, I noticed something I have not seen in there before – a slender slice of light shone through the entrance and cast a faint beam on the passage wall. The beam flickered, as if shadows moved across it, and seemed to advance along the cave wall towards me. No doubt my dodgy eyes were playing tricks on me, but I understood it as a message that feels particularly apt today. That even in the darkest places, there is light and hope and love and wisdom, and that to embrace the light, we must be courageous and enter fully into the dark.

We are moving through very dark times, which I don’t think anyone can deny. I can’t stop wars. I can’t save the planet. I have no platform from where I can influence people one way or another. I have no right to, or interest in doing so. But I do want to shake off the feelings of despair and helplessness that often overwhelm me, so I asked for some Imbas to guide me to find what action I can personally take, what useful thing I can do. I got a very clear answer.

Be faithful to the land.

It was not what I expected. I’m not sure that I expected any answer at all. Did I go a little crazy in that cave? Did I start ‘hearing voices’? Or maybe the sensory deprivation cleared the way and opened me to being a bit more receptive. After all, that is how the ancestors accessed Imbas Forosnai.

Being faithful to the land does not sound like important life-saving work. But any action is better than none. I’ve yet to work out what it does mean specifically, or what I need to do, but I feel confident it will come to me in time. And I felt a different person, leaving that cave, compared to the one that went in.

Only when I have been into the cave do I feel ready to face the winter. You will see me striding the landscape, reawakened like the Cailleach.

I would like to thank Treasa Ní Mhurchú for always inviting me into the Morrigan’s cave with her every Samhain, and for leading the group, and generously sharing her time, knowledge and insight.

You can find out more about Treasa and her work on her website, SACRED SITES OF IRELAND.

---

Dear friends, what special messages have you been the recipient of? How do you celebrate Samhain, and how do you feel about the onset of Winter? Does it make you want to retreat into warmth and cosy reverie, do you hibernate, or get active? Tell me in the comments.

CITATIONS