Lord Coruisk is a Legendary Unseelie Troll from early in the Interregnum.
Overview[]
Lord Coruisk, who ran the Shadow Court on Skye, was a mean bugger, if ever I heard tell a one. Spoke only in a whisper and had nae more instinct for making friends than a badger.
Meeting MacLeod[]
One day, he and Chief MacLeod, of the mortal Clan MacLeod, happened to be hunting the same white faerie boar in the forest near Dunvegan Castle. They see each other, and Coruisk halts his stallion near a fork of the Bum Lochalsh. Coruisk is upset that MacLeod's hounds have taken down the boar, so he offers the mortal a flag known as the Braolauch shi, the Faerie Flag, in return for the boar and one year's service to the Shadow Court on Skye. The silken Fairie Flag, as you may have heard, can do lots of things, and that includes protecting the host that carries it.
Now, say you're a mortal, and a shadowy faerie lord offers you a flask of Talisker or some such. What do you do? You take it, because you dinna know what he'll do if you refuse. So Chief MacLeod takes the Braolauch shi, agrees to the year of service, and arranges to meet Coruisk beside the fork of that burn at dusk. Being an honorable man, though somewhat dimwitted, if yeh ask me, he hangs the Braolauch shi at Dunvegan Castle, tells his loved ones he'll be off for a year, and disappears into the forest. Mark me now: That year was 1350.
1350 went by, and 1351, and, well, not to yammer on about it, none of his friends nor family heard of him ever again, so they chose a new chief and enjoyed the protection of the Flag.
The Battle with Cullen[]
You must know that when MacLeod met Coruisk in that faerie forest near Dunvegal, the fae lord told him he, meaning MacLeod, must do his year's service in Coruisk's form. By this trick, Coruisk meant MacLeod to fight the Unseelie's sworn enemy, Lord Cullen the troll, in hand-to-hand combat.
Now, Lord Cullen was a feared fae lord in the Scottish Highlands, but he was second to Coruisk because he dinna cut as charismatic a figure to the Unseelie wilders there. Nonetheless, Coruisk feared the Unseelie troll, because Cullen had made a standing challenge in personal combat, and the stakes were the very Tuath of Shadows. For every season Coruisk refused the fight, his popularity declined. And it was nae merely that the troll bested Coruisk in every form of combat; 'twas also that Cullen had enchanted himself against all faerie harm.
So in steps MacLeod, a mortal changeling, as it were. Coruisk instructs him in proper Unseelie behavior at court, faerie ways, and so forth, then leaves so as not to be discovered. Most of a year passes, and MacLeod starts feeling comfortable in his role as faerie lord of the Shadow Freeholds of Dunvegal, when Cullen reissues his challenge, as he does every year when the leaves start falling,
Now, MacLeod was not clan chief for nothing. He was a warrior, and well-used to quashing Highland brawls with the fist, nae the tongue. Though nae mortal is a match for a Hebridean-bred Unseelie troll, MacLeod carried himself well in the fight, and at the end he wounded Lord Cullen badly with his iron sword. At that moment, Coruisk's enchantment on MacLeod was broken, and all the fae saw the mortal for what he was. With the help of Shadowin, his lover, MacLeod escaped into a patch of forest belonging to the freehold, though he couldna find his way hack to mortal lands for yet a good while longer, and I'll get to back to him in a bit.
When the Unseelie caught Coruisk, the Shadow Court demanded his apology, but he refused to give it. So now the Tuath of Shadows broke into two factions: the Coruisks and the Cullens. A lot of Coruisk's wilder supporters changed sides, though a few admired his trickery. Armies of trolls, redcaps, nockers, even a few brollachan, the dark Shapeless Ones, joined Cullen in the epic Battle of Castlebay. But Coruisk summoned his boggans, satyrs, and redcaps, his minches (the malignant mermen of Minch), his baobhan sith (bloodsucking raven-girls) and the Nuckelavee (the skinless and pestilent half-man, half-horse from the sea). Lightning flashed across the dark coast, and waves crashed against the rocks as Unseelie struggled against Unseelie.
Finally, Cullen brought Coruisk down with a swift blow. As Coruisk lay dying, a howling brollachan consumed him near Castlebay Peak, where to this day you can hear the cold Hebridean wind whispering Coruisk's name.
Cullen took control of the Tuath of Shadows and its army. But without the charismatic leader, the tuath declined, eventually becoming a haven for both Seelie and Unseelie.
Still Chief MacLeod had not returned to Dunvegan. It took him and Shadowin another full month to escape the nightmare defenses of the Shadow Court's freehold. When they got out, it was nae 1351 as MacLeod expected, but 1711, and mortal Scotland was a much tamer and much duller place.
References[]
- CTD. Isle of the Mighty, pp. 76, 79-80.