The season is Winter, a season when vitality plunges to its nadir, a season of decay - the time when all vegetation withers and a time when even the sun appears weak and moribund.   The Power behind this natural process is usually personified as The Dark Lord of Death or The Hunt - the Reaper who clears away for the sower the following Spring.   His reign lasts the months of Winter, i.e. November to January.

In the main family of Gaelic Gods (vide ‘Leabhar Gabhala Eireann’ - ‘The Book of Invasions’) He is Midir of the Tuatha De Danann, Son of the Goddess Boann and the God Dagda whose dwelling in legend is the sidh of Bri Leith (now called Slieve Callary near Ardagh in County Longford).

By His door are three cranes (the number equating with the number of months of  His rule) who address all uninvited visitors, telling them not  to present themselves but to depart and continue on their way.   This scene, of course, points to the fact that one will be called by Death at the end of one's allotted span of years and should not presume to make the journey out of choice, i.e. by suicide.

He it was Who played chess with King Eochaid Airemm for His Queen Etain.   (And one wonders if this legend inspired the writer of the story-thread behind the ballet ‘Checkmate’.   The opera "Savitri" uses a similar Indian legend as its basis.)   Having lost to Midir, Eochaid obtains the help of the Druid Dalan who employs a spiecies of divination using three yew  wands, each inscribed by an ogham or letter, in an endeavour to locate the departed queen.

Again the use of the number 3 and the reference to the wood 'yew'.   The yew has traditionally been the death-tree in many ancient and classical cultures.    In Britain it was the best wood for the bow and the death-dealing arrow, the traditional churchyard tree and that which provided berries whose juice formed part of the compound with which the Irish poisoned their arrow-heads.

In Keltic legend his counterpart is Gwyn ap Nyddwr and sometimes Pwyll or Arawn.   Arawn is King of Annwfn, the abode of the spirits of the departed.    He is presented as the dark hunter clad in grey with a horn slung around his neck and ever urging on his pack of hounds.    Among all things in nature which he calls, choses as prey and hunts is mankind.   He is shown as a ruler possessing great diligence and courtesy which in  a sense reveals the ancient Kelts' attitude to death itself - thinking of it as a natural process and not  something to  be feared.

The Gate through which one passed or was shepherded opened to a realm sometimes called "The Summerlands" or "The Land of the Ever Young", where one would be joined with past kindred, rested and refreshed for a new birth on earth to continue the arduous path of spiritual advancement.