The Unicorn Hunter (28 page)

The Unicorn Hunter
draws on Irish myth and legend to create a magical world. Read on to find out more about these ancient stories …

Banshee
– Banshees follow the great families of Ireland and wail just before their deaths as a warning, and also afterwards, so that the world will know someone with hero's blood has passed. Whether they are supposed to act as guardian angels for the families or whether Una simply decided to take this task upon herself, no one is really sure.

Cernunnos (ker-
noo
-nos)
– One of the oldest and most powerful of the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
, he clings to the form he took when he was worshipped in pre-Christian Ireland, the horned god. But he likes to linger in our world too, so he takes on human form for the winter months, calls himself Seamus (‘
shay
-mus')and lives in Blarney, Co. Cork, keeping an eye on the mortal world and any comings and goings from T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
.

The Coranied (kor-a-need)
– Thousands of years ago, the Coranied, a mysterious race of warlocks, lived in Ireland among the Celts. During this time, the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
also roamed freely in the human world. The Celts eventually rose up against the T
UATHA
and drove all faerie-kind,
including the Coranied, beneath the mounds. The Coranied have a unique talent – they can harvest all the bad thoughts and dreams that people have, which is what the dark faeries need to keep nourished. The M
ORRIGHAN
protects the Coranied in return for this talent and she rations the dark faeries, keeping them too weak to wage war. The Coranied are vital to the M
ORRIGHAN'S
ability to keep balance in T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
. In turn, they are completely loyal to the M
ORRIGHAN
and think only of how to keep the balance. They care for no one and nothing outside of this.

Cú Chulainn (coo cullen) –
When he was a child, Cú Chulainn was called Setanta. He gained his better-known name after he killed a fierce guard dog in self-defence. The dog was owned by a man called Culann, and Setanta offered to take its place until a replacement could be reared. ‘Cú' is the Irish word for a hound, so ‘Cú Chulainn' means ‘Cullen's hound'. At the age of seventeen, Cú Chulainn defended Ulster single-handedly against the armies of Queen Me
a
bh when she ruled Connacht. It was prophesied that his great deeds would give him everlasting fame but that his life would be a short one. He went on to become known as the Hound of Ulster.

Finn mac Cumhaill (fin mac cool)
– The Irish version of King Arthur, Finn mac Cumhaill and his Fenians waged many battles against the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
in the mortal world before he died and his story and spirit succumbed to the Shadowlands of T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
. Part man, part story, part ghost, he is kept alive as long as people tell stories about him. The T
UATHA
, including Meabh, are afraid of him and choose to leave him alone as he broods in the Shadowlands. He is a
man who could do so much, yet his grief keeps him looking inward. With no interest in what is happening beyond his castle walls, he sits and broods and waits for a sign that his wife will come back to him. His story is a powerful one and if he is roused it could see T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
changed forever.

Fir Dorocha (fir
dor
-ka)
– Means ‘dark men' in Irish. These faeries are the embodiment of fear. They spread hatred and terror before them and drive mortals crazy. Wherever there is a mob or a riot in progress, the Fir Dorocha are close by. They have also been known to abduct mortals for the kings and queens they serve. Basically, they do all the nasty jobs L
IADAN
and the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
do not want to do themselves. Faeries to avoid at all costs.

Gancanagh (gan-
cah
-nah)
– Maddy is lucky that no matter how gorgeous she thinks Connor is, she's too young to be interested in kissing boys (yuck!). Connor is a gancanagh, a male faerie who has a poison in his skin that makes mortal women fall in love with him forever. When he leaves them, they die pining for him. One kiss is enough.

Liadan (
lee-
ah-dan)
– Means ‘grey lady' in Irish. Liadan is an old and powerful elf from the Nordic countries. No one knows why she and her clan came to T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
seeking sanctuary, but she's as argumentative as the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
.

The Morrighan (more-
ee
-gan)
– In pre-Christian Ireland, the Morrighan was worshipped as a triple-faced goddess. She represents the maiden, the mother and the hag and is the most powerful of the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
. It is her power that created T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
and her power alone that maintains
the boundaries between faerie and mortal worlds. The Morrighan is one of the most dangerous of the T
UATHA
. She is also known as the Raven Queen and is the living embodiment of war. Waking the Morrighan is not something that should be done lightly.

Pooka
– A Pooka is a malicious faerie that appears in many guises all over Ireland, as a goat, a horse or a dog, always jet black with yellow eyes. Some say he is a harbinger of death; according to others he is just a nuisance that terrorizes travellers upon the road at night. As Meabh's familiar, he always appears as a huge black dog.

Samhain Fesh (
sow
-en fesh)
– This was the pagan feast that marked the start of winter, when the harvest was gathered in and people got ready to endure the winter months. It is also the time of year when the boundaries between the faerie world, T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
, and the mortal world wear thin and faeries can cross over to us and we can find ourselves lost in their realm. Christians tried to stamp out Samhain by replacing it with All Hallows' Eve or Halloween, but the old ways are there, underneath it all, even if we have forgotten them. So the next time you go trick-or-treating, put some iron in your pocket. And always be nice to old ladies you meet on the road – you never know who you are talking to. Faeries never forget a kind deed or a harshly spoken word.

Tír na nÓg (teer na nogue)
– The Land of Eternal Youth. The fabled realm of the T
UATHA DE
D
ANNAN
that exists beneath Ireland's surface, the place the faeries fled to when they lost their battles against mortals for control of Ireland. This is where the T
UATHA
and the lesser tribes of faeries live. Many,
many people search for ways in, but you need a faerie guide to enter the realm and getting out is never as easy. Something to think about if you have things urgent to do topside – clear your diary.

Tuatha de Dannan (
too
-ah day
dah
-nan)
– The Tuatha have many names: the Shining Ones, the Fair Folk, the Gentry. Some call them faeries, but they call themselves gods. They used to be in charge of Ireland, until St Patrick came along, and they have serious powers. They can control all the elements – air, water, fire and earth – cast powerful spells and change their form at will. They are vain and short-tempered, cruel and spiteful. They argue so much that fighting is practically a hobby for them. They are the most powerful beings in T
ÍR NA N
Ó
G
and they rule it. It's best not to upset them.

Your books draw inspiration from Irish myth and legend. When did you first come across those stories, and what made you want to write about them?

When I was a child I spent quite a bit of time with my grandparents in Ireland while my parents were working in London. I loved living in Blarney, and my grandparents bought me books of Irish mythology, which I found fascinating and very different from anything I had read when growing up in London, where it was easy to get books of Greek or Egyptian myths but no Irish ones. There was no Internet then so I read those books until they fell apart. I suppose the fact that I was so starved for information when I was a child meant that I returned to them endlessly and was more gripped by these old stories than by tales from other cultures.
The Feral Child
and
The Unicorn Hunter
are a reworking of them and also a way of bringing them into my childhood retrospectively.

The faerie world in your books is ruled by really strong female characters. Is this true of the original stories?

Probably not! It might just be the way I remember them. But certainly there were a lot of powerful women in these stories, women who took what they wanted and fought hard to keep it. The devious warrior queen, Meabh of Connacht, is a terrifying figure in Irish mythology and it has been great fun to bring her to life in
The Unicorn Hunter
.

Are you also interested in myths and legends from other countries?

I love mythology in general but I am especially interested in Norse mythology, all those tales of Loki and Thor. It's a part of the world I would love to visit. I have always wanted to stand underneath the Northern Lights, which Vikings believed were the spears of dead men in Valhalla, and one day I would like to write a book that draws on Norse myths and faerie tales.

What books made you want to be a writer?

There are so many amazing books out there, but the ones that really marked my childhood and my imagination were
The Mists of Avalon, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Dragonriders of Pern, The Chronicles of Narnia
and anything by Katherine Kerr.

Maddy is really brave, but a bit reckless. Is she going to be OK? Can you give us a hint about what's coming next for her?

Maddy is a bit of a nutcase, but she is tough – that is one of the reasons I love her so much. In this book she has made some bad choices that she will have to live with for a very long time, but in the next instalment,
The Raven Queen
, there is going to be a reckoning. Maddy is going to pushed beyond her limits mentally and physically, but she is going to find that she is a lot tougher and a lot smarter than anyone thinks.

To find out more, visit my website
www.chegolden.com

Beyond the old stone house, through the dark, wild wood, in the glimmering moon pool, there lies the Way …

Fer ventures through the Way to a land beyond our own, where magic is real, animal-people talk and snow lies thickly on the ground. But a dangerous huntress rules there, and soon Fer realizes that no one can be trusted …

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