An Chailleach Bhéarra
by
Tracy Fahey
I am the Cailleach Bhéarra. Eternally searching the waves for the one I have lost. The king of the ocean, Manannán mac Lir. His absence nails me to the rocks, a lookout. My tears drip down, century after century. Form stalactites, until—
Until I am rock. My loss heavy in my chest; my chest is stone. I am solid with yearning.
I stand upright; the landscape folds around me.
#
“Isn’t it perfect?” A young man opens the gate, walks toward me. His face gleams liquid. It rains here, every day, the sky heavy with my tears. The moss that grows on me is sluiced down, streaking the rocks beneath with green trails of slime.
I dream of him. Manannán. The sea pounds endlessly beneath me, white froth dashing against rocks. I watch the sea for his return. For his great, shimmering form to rise again, crowned in seaweed, a halo of seabirds his crown.
Another man appears on the path. Older, his hair shining a bright flame-red. His arms are full of a heavy bundle wrapped in cloth that he deposits carefully on the rough seagrass.
It emits a long, low whistle.
So many come to me here. My pitted surface is an altar; a receptacle for coins, shells, shining stones. I, a woman, am become a place for women. They sit, lashed in rain, to keep vigil beside me. They warm their hands over tiny candles.
And they whisper to me.
They tell me their secrets.
They tell me their stories.
The older, red-headed man runs his hands over my wet face. Touches the objects lodged in my fissures.
These are not for you.
He takes a medal, tarnished orange with rust, turns it in damp fingers.
“Yes,” he says, in reply. “It’s perfect.” He closes his fist over the medal.
The younger man scowls into the grey sky. “Can we attach the equipment now?”
A shrug. “Let’s wait till the rain dies down.”
The women come to me with their small, sad tales. A child, lost in blood-birthing. A lover, grown cold as stone. A dark sickness, coiling round the body with sour tendrils.
They pour their stories into me.
“I don’t think it’s going to stop,” says the young man. He takes a shining oblong from his pocket, consults it. “It’s forecast to last all day.”
The redhead chuckles. “That’s why I brought the tarp. The old people around here claim it always rains in this cove.”
They pour their stories into me. I listen, but there are so many. So many wounded women. Their words fall softly, rain on stone, ‘til they seep deep into the heart of me.
“Let’s get started.”
A heavy cloak slithers over me.
#
Fear surges, bright and metallic. What if Manannán comes now when I cannot keep watch? Far below, in the harbour, waves crash on rock, suck the sand behind them.
The cloak settles over me; I feel myself rise under the warm blackness.
I am the Cailleach, the veiled one, after all.
“If we’re right, it’ll be the discovery of the century.” I feel the young man beside me. His words vibrate. “No one else is working on applying machine translation to material objects.” He puts a strange apparatus on his head, which cups each ear.
The other man grunts. “I’m not sure it’ll work,” he says. “But I’m willing to give this stone tape theory thing a try.”
His hands crawl across me. I have not known a man’s touch in millennia. He probes my crevices with rough fingers, then with smooth metal.
I feel myself swell and grow.
Who are these insects crawling over me?
“We need to try,” says the young man, his voice subdued. “Memories cause a reverberation. And if we can harness these resonances…” He is quiet for a moment. “Well, if we can do that, we unlock them. Millennia of memories. It’ll be amazing.” He laughs then, a harsh sound. “It’ll make us a fortune.”
Under the cloak, I dream. I dream of myself, restored to power, striding across mountains. I dream of Manannán. He rises to meet me. He pours over me in giant waves. The huge boulders in my apron tumble out, fall to form the cove beneath.
“All ready?” The young man’s voice, impatient.
A hiss of breath. “I think so.”
#
Humming grows in volume. A sequence of lights blinks on; tiny lighthouses. Unnatural warmth, slow burning. The metal objects lodged in me heat and glow. The offerings of a thousand, thousand women.
“Can you hear anything?”
A flat object blooms into light. A crackle, then another, a sustained hiss.
“I’m definitely getting something.” The younger man places his hands flat against me, leaning forward.
“Is it translating?” The older voice, sharp with excitement.
A silence. The sea roars below, louder now.
“Yes. Words. ‘Please.’ ‘Please help.’ A pause. ‘Sickness.’”
And now I understand. They want the stories. The women’s stories. Their secrets, whispered into my rock. The weeping intercessions, the pleas.
They want to steal their stories.
“It’s working!” The young man, voice harsh and jubilant. “The memories are unlocking. I knew I could do it.”
No. These stories are not for you.
“Wait. There’s more.”
This is my place. I am the sovereignty goddess. I protect this landscape, these people. I am the custodian of their stories.
All around me, the crackling swells, grows, coalesces into a steady, thumping rhythm. A huge drumbeat.
My heartbeat.
Stilled for millennia.
Now it trembles, swelling into life. Around me, the wind lifts, rages, tears at my veil.
A scream from the man. “It’s hurting my ears!” He staggers back in a blunder of movement.
All stories reverberate through me.
They’re both shouting, voices buffeted. The wind whips the waves into huge, furious booms. The cloak stretches, vibrating, curling upwards.
All stories reverberate through me.
Above me, the cloth tenses, breaks free. I stand, unveiled at last.
But only one runs through my core.
Below me, the sea boils, white and furious. Lightning flashes. The sky rips apart.
Wind lashes my face. Thunder swells from the sky, from deep inside me. It fills me, pounding through calcified veins, softening my rock into living flesh. I open my stone mouth and keen my vast cry into the torn sky.
MANANNÁN.
I am not a mourner. I am the lookout. Posted to guard this place, these women, these stories. I call into the black depths of the ocean, the waters twist upward in reply.
MANANNÁN.
The men scream, clutch at each other. A tangle of their machinery blows across the cliff edge. The sea swallows it, wrinkled lips snatching it up.
MANANNÁN.
A giant wave rises, climbing, slow and relentless. It shivers above me in a trembling, translucent wall.
#
No.
These stories are not for you.
Author’s Note
This story uses the Irish mythological character of the Hag of Beara to tell of the rise of a tutelary goddess to protect female lore in the face of invasive new technologies propagated by male figures. The Hag is a figure I have worked with in academic writing and in fiction for the last four years, and my next book Queens of the Crone Age (released June 2026 by PS Publishing), is a linked collection centered around her story, and those of her descendants. In Irish mythology, the Cailleach or Hag is the closest we get to a creation figure, an ancient sovereignty goddess who is a timeless symbol of female autonomy, a custodian of landscape, and a role-model of visibility and power for older women.