Incidentally, about a year ago my girlfriend may have seen a road ghost on that same section of road.
Check out the tread.
Just a mad theory and probably a bit off track, but after reading Hermes’s website about the Road Hag or the Cailleach, could a wild boar (Torc Triath & Moccus) be symbolic?
THE BOAR (TORC)
Celtic tradition holds the boar symbolised raw power, which is often destructive but can be used and channelled by the warrior. Many terrifying and magical boars are depicted in the Celtic tales. In the Irish Book of Invasions there is the Orc Triath, a huge and destructive boar. In the Fionn Cycle of stories there is Formael - massive and vicious, he kills fifty soldiers and fifty hounds in a single day. The boar's wildness and destructiveness were used by the Celts to arouse their fierceness and to terrify their enemies. The boar was used as an emblem on helmets and as a mouthpiece on battlehorns. The boar was also depicted on swords and bronze shields and here these images were used to invoke the power of the boar to protect the warrior and to instil in him its supernatural vigour and fierceness.
MOCCUS
(Breton, Continental) Celt Pig God, or god of a pig totem clan. He is identified with Roman Mercury. A pig God of the continental standing stones who had his cloudy origins in Celtic Gaul. He was, perhaps, a masculine version of, or a consort to, the popular goddess known as Cerridwen. He had his own feast day in Celtic Gaul.
CERRIDWEN
(Scottish, Welsh) [KARE-id-ooín or KARE-id-win] Moon Goddess; Great Mother; Grain Goddess; Goddess of Nature. The white-corpse eating sow representing the Moon. Wife of the giant Tegid and mother of a beautiful girl Creirwy and two ugly boys Avagdu and Movran. Welsh Bards called themselves Cerddorion (sons of Cerridwen). The Bard Taliesin, founder of their craft was said to be born of Cerridwen and to have tasted a potent brew from her magic cauldron of inspiration. This potion known as 'greal' (from which to word Grail probably came), was made from six plants for inspiration and knowledge. Gwion Bach (later called Taliesin) accidentally drank the remaining three drops of the liquid. Her symbol was a white sow. Death, fertility, regeneration, inspiration, magic, astrology, herbs, science, poetry, spells, knowledge.
Cerridwen is the goddess of dark prophetic powers. She is the keeper of the cauldron of the underworld, in which inspiration and divine knowledge are brewed. She is often equated with the famous Greek crone, Hecate, and to the Irish Badb. She is also sometimes related to the Greek Muses, only in a more violent and dark form.
Also: Caridwen; Ceridwen; Cereduin
CAILLEACH BHEUR
(Scottish, Irish, Manx) [COY-lck or CALL-y'ach] Also: Caillech Beine Bric; The Cailleach; Crone of Beare. Great Goddess in her Destroyer aspect; called "Veiled One". Another name is Scota, from which Scotland comes. Originally Scotland was called Caledonia, or land given by Caillech.
In parts of Britain she is the Goddess of Winter. Depicted as a blue-faced hag, who is reborn October 31 (Samhain) She brings the snow until the Goddess Brigit deposes her and she eventually turns to stone April 30 (Beltaine). In later times the mythical witch like figure of "Black Annis" is believed to have derived from her.
She was an ancient Goddess of the pre-Celtic peoples of Ireland. She controlled the seasons and the weather; and was the goddess of earth and sky, moon and sun.
She is a Tutelary Goddess to southwest Munster, and appears in tales describing a knight being importuned by an old hag for love, acceptance of which transforms her into a beautiful maiden.
