Part 1. Published in Issue 12 of Pagan Ireland (Summer 2024). Get a copy of this issue here: https://paganireland.com/buyissues

Tamall an-fhada ó shin, or—a very, very long time ago, about 10,000 years give or take, agriculture developed; it took off as an idea, much like trends and inventions take hold and spread today. It moved from the fertile cresent in the Levant, to Anatolia, Greece, as well as the Danube Basin of the Balkans. How it spread resembled something similar to someone manifests an idea, another improves upon it, Joe shows it to Jill et voilà, “Bob’s yer uncle”—and before you know it, through trade, migration and marriage, every one is doing it.

Today ideas spread much faster but it is likely there was rudimentary agriculture in the late upper paleolithic. As hunter- gatherers moved into the Danube Basin, they developed a semi-sedentary lifestyle in riverine valleys; the hunters knew it was much easier to find game when the herds came to drink at dusk and dawn in the heavily forested Balkans. It is also possible that people noticed what animals liked to eat. Women may have gathered seeds and planted these in small clearings or meadows near their camp to encourage game to stay in the area. A scenario such as this may have laid the groundwork for future agriculture. By 9000 BCE sedentary agriculture and domesticated animals moved into the Balkan and Greek regions as a permanent feature. Small villages then cities sprang up, with fields located outside of the settlement. These people were the first farmers who depended upon the whims of the Mother Goddess for their well-being.

Hag, The Old Woman, Crone. These epithets describe the Irish Winter goddess. Known by many names across Eurasia, she had her beginnings in the upper paleolithic, 50,000 to 35,000 years ago. Within her persona are the ancestral memories of a much older deity known simply as The Great Mother. She moved across the continent from the Danube basin in the Balkans, to the west coast of Ireland, a journey that took roughly 6,000 years. If any one goddess within the Irish pantheon could be considered as the Great Mother, that goddess must certainly be the Cailleach. But first, let us examine the elements which comprise the Great Mother Goddess of old Europe.

During the upper paleolithic (about 20,000 years ago/YA), while much of Europe and Asia were still covered in ice, the mammoth hunters of the Gravettian culture carved small female figurines with exaggerated breasts, buttocks and swollen, pregnant bellies. Very few male figures were made by comparison. Not aware of the male role in conception, it is likely these people were in awe of the female ability (in all species) to generate life from within their own bodies.

But it was during the neolithic period, about 10,000 to 9000 YA, the farmers of old Europe developed a symbolic language of a Great Mother Goddess. She was one goddess with many functions. The Great Mother was the Giver of Life, Mother of the Herds, Bringer of Death, Creator of Crafts, Rain Maker, Grain and Bread Goddess. In most instances she was featureless or presented with bird-like facial features. Breasts and buttocks remain exaggerated as during the Gravettian period. Only with the arrival of the Indo-European culture did she separate into many goddesses with narrowly defined functions.

One of her earliest symbols is the V, which represents the pubic triangle, also indicated by M’s and W’s. The M is a pubic triangle supported by two legs. The W is the M reversed. Consecutive repetition of any of these three symbols creates a wavy line, or chevron, suggestive of the snake, associated with life, re-birth, fertility and protection; in its negative aspect it symbolizes death. Spirals also reference the cyclical nature of the snake: it emerges in the spring (birth) after its winter hibernation (death) and transitions (re-birth) when it sheds its skin. This is the microcosm within the macrocosm, demonstrating the eternal nature of the cycle of life.

In addition, other symbolic representations of the Great Mother are: triangles, diamonds and chevrons; hour-glass figures vertical and horizontal, the latter indicating the labrys, or double-headed axe.

A vertical line, crossed by several horizontal lines represented a Neolithic Tree of Life. It also suggests a stalk of grain, referring to the Great Mother as goddess of grain and bread. Sun symbols in the form of four armed crosses and swastikas are also found indicating perhaps she was also a solar deity.

The Great Mother is associated with a variety of birds and animals: the deer figures prominently as do the ram, boar and cattle, especially bulls. As a goddess of death, she is represented by the vulture in the Mediterranean regions, but as the people moved westward this bird became the raven and the owl. In her life-giving aspect she is represented by various waterbirds, duck and crane dominating.

One other symbol bears mention: the circle with or without a dot, and sometimes surrounded by concentric circles. Many circles with six, eight of more rays, suggests the sun—the Great Mother’s eye looking down upon creation. Without rays it is the omphalos, the navel or sacred centre of the goddess’s womb; and it sometimes means the vulva.

Various types of mounds are associated with her worship ranging from tells in the Middle East, to tepes and höyük in Turkey. Some are built on hilltops which dominate the landscape while others, through repeated destruction and rebuilding become the mound themselves. Some natural pairs of hills with or without mounds were designated as breasts or “paps” of the goddess, a phenomenon we find in Ireland. These “paps” or breasts of the goddess rising from the landscape remind us, the Earth is the Great Mother Goddess, whom all living things rely upon for nourishment and sustenance.

From the mythological record we are told that the children of the Goddess (D)Anu made landfall northwest of Connacht. The earliest megalithic monuments in Ireland are found in such an area at Carrowmore in County Sligo. The rock engravings here are similar to those found in the Danube river watershed of old Europe. A series of round circles can be interpreted as the head, breasts, pregnant belly and legs of the recumbent goddess. It is not without significance, that the opening of the chamber forms a distinct, unmistakable triangle when illuminated by sunlight pouring into the interior.

Fig.1 (page 11) indicates the artwork on the capstone at Listoghil. Fig2. Shows the same artwork as it could appear in the landscape behind the monument. Author Mairtin O’Broin suggests these circles trace the bi-annual solstice movements of the sun, but it is also just as likely they symbolize the Great Mother in the land itself. Credit: Martin O Broin www.carrowkeel.com Used with permission.

Of greater interest yet, are the engravings at Cloverhill located in proximity to the main site. In the 19th century, these carvings were erroneously compared to the La Tene Turoe stone and attributed as Iron Age. However, the Cloverhill rock art is distinctly reminiscent of the motifs found in old Europe particularly Lengyel pottery. Here we find drawings of paired representations of bulls’horns, symbolic of the womb, as well as a double triangle—the vulva. Between one pair of horns, is a dot, sometimes interpreted as the womb or the navel—the sacred centre-- of the goddess. DNA taken from the human remains at Carrowmore shows these people originated from Anatolia. Therefore, it is not outside the realm of possibility that these motifs survived in the ancestral memory of the people as they moved westward from the lands of old Europe. As they journeyed across millennia, wherever they went, the Great Mother accompanied them on the journey.

In Ireland, the Loughcrew Mountains are also known as the Sliabh na Caillaigh— Mountains of the Cailleach or Hag. That the mountains are named for this ancient goddess suggests her importance. Scattered across this series of three hills are several burial mounds; it is in the carvings found here, that we find clues to the presence of the Great Mother Goddess of old Europe. The significance of the number three, important to the Indo-European Celts, has its origins in old Europe among much earlier cultures such as the Vinca and the Cucuteni-Trypollitan. (Gimbutas).

Significant among these monuments in the Cailleach’s Mountains is Cairn T, containing the famed Equinox stone. Here we find two symbolic representations of the Old European Tree of Life as well as several inscribed wavy lines, the bottom of which, is clearly an “M”. The “M” should be interpreted as the V shaped pubic triangle supported by two legs. Above this are three additional waved lines which symbolize the snake, and could be read as V, W and M- all symbols of the Great Mother of Old Europe.

Notably, Stone 15 (Brennan, M.1983) shows nine carved horizontal lines—the three trimesters of gestation—a sign of fertility—birth and re-birth. Also found on this stone is the Tree of Life: a vertical line crossed by several horizontal lines. Numerous concentric circles with a dot at their centres appear here which, according to Marija Gimbutas, are another symbol of the vulva. Some call these cup and ring marks.

Beside the wavy lines on the Equinox Stone, we find a symbol resembling a brush or comb. This refers to the vulture, specifically, with its’ wings, spread—a symbol of the death goddess found on the T-shaped megaliths at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. As there are no vultures in Ireland, the “comb/brush” symbol indicates the presence of the Raven/Owl, referencing the death goddess aspect of the Great Mother.

On stone L5 we find one spiral, representing the snake, associated with re-birth. It should not go unnoticed that the chamber of the cairn itself is shaped like a woman’s body, with a head, two arms, and large pregnant belly, the opening of the mound representing the birth canal itself. Thus, within cairn T we find symbols of the Great Mother Goddess as death bringer, and giver of rebirth.

Figuratively represented by bird-like features, exaggerated breasts and buttocks, with a well-developed symbolic language, this Mother Goddess’s influence touched all areas of life: Guardian of Animals, Mother of the Herds, Grain Mother, bringer of rain and Keeper of the Sacred Waters, goddess of life, death and rebirth. She was one goddess with many functions. While we cannot know what these people named her, if indeed she had a name, we can recognize her by her function. The people painted and incised her symbols on exterior and interior walls of their homes, on their pottery and on tiny replica temples. It is clear her presence and good will was important to her people and that she was an integral part of daily living. It is also likely that she moved with the people as they spread through the Danube basin across the Hungarian plain, restless, ever-searching for the next fertile valley to call home.

Fiona ni’Giollarua


Select Bibliography:

Benigni, Helen; Carter, Barbara; Ua Cuinnn, Eadhmonn. The Myth of the Year, University Press of America Inc., Oxford UK, 2003.

Brennan, Martin. The Stars and the Stones, Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland. Thames and Hudson Ltd. London, 1983.

Gimbutas, Marija: The Language of the Goddess Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1989.

The Living Goddesses, University of California Press Ltd, London, 2001

The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cultures. University of California Press, Ltd. London, 1982

The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe. Harper, San Francisco, 1991.

O’Brien, M. carrowkeel.com/sites/carrowmore/index/html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution