The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power. Barbara G. Walker,1985.

This relatively short  book is loaded with a mix of philosophy, mythology, anthropology – all in support of the idea that the Crone has appeared in multiple cultures, and is (vastly) more powerful than any other comparable male figures. 

The Crone is an iconic representation of female aging, but also of death. Both as a Destroyer who takes life, and also as someone who prevails over the world of the dead/grieving, Walker references – “The secret image of the old woman as Mother Death, the Crone” (Walker, 19).

Her proposed alignment of the Crone figure as a harbinger of endings and chaos, seems like a natural counterpoint to other figures (namely, Jesus) that are famously reborn. In Walker’s own words – “Reincarnation was represented by the re-fertilization of the Virgin. The vital link was the Crone, as Queen of the Shades, Goddess of the Underworld, Lady of Night. It was she who took the soul through dark spaces of nonbeing” (Walker, 33).

Perhaps most importantly, she argues that the Western cultural fear of death is rooted in a fear of women. These ideas could be further expanded into non-Western sources, but her interpretations offer a logical parallel to Christian viewpoints. 

On the Holy Trinity: “Her three aspects have been designated Virgin, Mother, and Crone; or alternatively, Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.” (21)

On creation: “Creation myths the world over begin with chaos, the condition of nondifferentiation between self and other, with ‘primordial elements’ suggesting the uterine environment: darkness, churning, the ‘eternal flux,’ the maternal ocean of blood holding all future forms in formless potential….The Bible calls this Formless Mother tehom, ‘the Deep,’ a Hebrew derivation of earlier Sumero-Babylonian name, Tiamat, which might also be rendered Dia Mater, “Goddess Mother.” Even though ‘without form and void,’ as in Genesis, she knew how to create DiaKosmos, the Pythagoreans’ ‘Order of the Goddess.’ At the end of time, according to Oriental sages, she would destroy the same cosmos and again resume her ‘dark formlessness.’” (27, Walker). 

On Hags: “Among numerous other formerly respectable words for a wise-woman was hag, which also became a pejorative synonym for witch. Hag used to mean ‘ a holy one,’ from Greek hagia, as in hagiolatry, worship of saints. Possibly, this too was related to Egypitan heq.” (53)

“A similar creation myth was found in the Orphic Mysteries. The great primeval power was Mother Night (Nyx), dreaded even by the father of the gods. Like Kali, she too was both Creator and Destroyer. In the beginning she arose from chaos and gave birth to the light. She took the form of a great black-winged spirit hovering over a sea of darkness: the “face of the Deep,” as biblical writers would have it (Gen 1:2), though they forgot the original sex of the creating spirit.” (83, The Terrible Crone). 

Further Reading on Crones

Conway, D. J. 1994. Maiden, mother, crone: The myth and reality of the triple goddess. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications. 

Croning: Resources for wise women of all ages. 2005. Croning, crones, ceremonies: Women’s wisdom—our heritage, http:// www.croning.org/pages/534083/index.htm (accessed January 21, 2005). 

Ruth E. Ray, Toward the croning of feminist gerontology,
Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 18, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 109-121, ISSN 0890-4065,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2003.09.008.