THE CRONE

One aspect of the Triple Goddess. She represents old age or death, winter, the end of all things, the waning Moon, post-menstrual phases of women's lives, all destruction that precedes regeneration through her cauldron of rebirth. Crows and other black creatures are sacred to her. Dogs often accompained her and guarded the gates of her after-world, helping her to receive the dead. In Celtic myth, the gatekeeper-dog was named Dormarth (Death's Door). The Irish Celts maintained that true curses could be cast with the dog's help. Therefore, they use the word cainte (dog) for a satiric Bard with the magick power to speak curses that came true.

Goddess Index | Correspondences