Beira, Grandmother of The Scotts
“Old Woman, The Veiled One, Hag, The Witch of Ben Cruachan, Mother of Scotland, Queen of Winter”
Upon the Lochs and Lands of Scotland there is perhaps no more notable a God than Cailleach Beira. It is she who crafted the land of Scotland itself and is Mother of the many Gods and Giants who call this land home. So ancient is she that she has long lost count to the winters and years she has been here, though by her own word she has seen when land was water and water was land. Some of this shifting however was no doubt crafted by her own hand during her creation of the Scottish landscape, though she herself may have forgot due to time.
Long ago, when the world was still young and swirled with the mists still rising from The River of Life, with a mighty strike of her hammer she rose mountains from the land for in which her many energetic sons might live. Or should their antics prove to troublesome, a place she might cordon them off from the rest of the world so they might not destroy it.
These sons are the Gods and Giants of Scottsland, some of which being most monstrous and strange in visage have antlers, horns or many heads, skin resembling rough hewn stone or bark of gnarled trees even scales of the slickest of fishes, though others be most beautiful to behold. Their volatile antics of rock throwing, roughhousing, wrestling and tussling giving their mothers creation the rougher landscape and resplendent beauty known today.
It must be known that those of Beira's sons of... a more bestial appearance, come by them honestly as Beira is also known to be in possession of a rather fearsome countenance herself. At times; when it suits her, she is large enough to sit upon Ben Nevis her mountain throne where she peers across the land with her single eye, grimacing through her rust colored teeth, white hair whipping in the wind as her skin shines, tinged with a blue sheen of ice so cold as to bring the biting winter cold. Her voice rumbling low like the slow migration of mountains, she calls out to her children dressed in naught but a shawl of wool laying loose across her shoulders. In her lap she lies her hammer with which she might smite her enemies, crush the foolish or rise mountains at will, at her side stands her staff, her staff which where it touches the ground a creeping cold seeps into the ground freezing the soil and rock alike.
But! She is not all grim and danger untold as she has another face. A face of resplendent and youthful beauty that she receives when Summer is born. It is at this time she leaves her stony frozen throne to visit the Green Isle of The West, a place of resplendent summer filled with flowers and ivies. It is here she strips herself of her burdens bathing in the islands hidden fountains growing younger and more beautiful day by day as her cares wash away. Here too she cleans her garments of kilt and tartan until they gleam once again white as the driven snow of her beloved home. Then and only then does she return to her beloved Scotland and not a moment before.
Beira is a God known for the ruthless nature with which she rules over her stubborn and rambunctious kin, in one such instance even turning one of her less dutiful Maids known as Nessa into the famous Loch Ness. Though at times the spirit of Nessa will arise from the murky waters singing her woes, which can be heard if one stands still enough at the right time near the Loch that was once her flesh and blood. Though Loch Ness is by no means the only Loch of Beira's creation it is by far the most famous.
And to be fair it must be said that she also has a softer side, after all it is her Winter weather which brings a period of much needed rest. A time to slow down, to sleep and to play as one rejoices that it is Beira's blankets of ice and snow that protect the tiny seeds in the ground from the killing claws of cold as they await the new Spring to rejoice with new life.
Mark my words, and be sure that to this day it is Beira who truly rules over Scotland, whether those upon her land know it or not.