Three Faery Tales about Initiation and a Song

These three tales seem to be about women negotiating with great powers, and for that reason women relate deeply to them. However, each tale is about the soul and body and how they navigate the relationship with Spirit.

Skeleton woman (17 Minutes)

• This is my version of an Inuit tale, with a section that adds in an ancient Celtic motif. I’ve told this story at winter solstice for decades, and I learn from it every time I tell it. It’s about so many things, including how arrogance can take us down a rough road, about how Spirit comes to dismember and reconstruct us, about suffering, and initiation.

Bonus: Song for the Winter Goddess

• In Celtic tradition, the Cailleach is the old woman of winter. She wakes up around Halloween, or Samhain (SOW-uhn) and begins doing her job of clearing the land of what needs to go. She is a powerful, often fearsome, often grief-filled energy that comes to deconstruct the current shape of things in order to make room for the next shape of things. This is my song of praise for her.

Boann and the Well of Wisdom

• This is one of the most foundational Celtic tales of gathering and working with power. It’s a story of how the River Boyne – maybe Ireland’s most sacred river – came to be. It’s about how wisdom was brought into the world through great sacrifice. And it’s also about the potential dangers of working with great powers.

Beira, Bride and Angus Winter to Spring

• This Scottish tale can be about the fight between late winter and early spring for control of the land. But it is also about ourselves, how we wrestle to come into our own inner power and blossoming, and it’s about the reliable help of Spirit.