HIDROLOGÍA

1350 Unseelie Lord Coruisk offers the Faerie Flag.

MacLeod takes the Flag and disappears onto the Isle of Skye.

1424 England's King Albion dispatches Queen Mope of the Kingdom of Three Hills with her own hair.

1503 James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor of England; her brother, Henry Vlll, asserts rights over Scotland when crowned, but James IV rebels.

1513 English defeat Scots at Flodden Field, where James IV is killed. Scottish fae and mages join fight for independence.

1514 The Troth of Argyll, akin to The Concord in America. Troth still upheld, but more uneasily than elsewhere.

2-67 Mary, Queen of Scots, rules Scotland.

The Unseelie always took to change better than the Seelie, then as now. A very few months after the Shattering, the Unseelie of the Hebrides and western Highlands formed the fuath of Shadows. 'Twas an unruly place — still is, for all that — and dark and scary to mortals.

Worst of'em was the Unseelie troll Lord Coruisk, who ran the Shadow Court on Skye — 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. One day, he and Chief MacLeod, of the mortal Clan MacLeod, happened to be hunting the same white faerie hoar 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 hoar 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. From the looks of it, some of you wouldna have minded having it during The '69 — the War of Ivy, you Brits call it.

Now, say you're a mortal, and a shadowy faerie lord offers you a flask of Talisker or some such. Whatdo you do?You take it, because youdinna 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. Here I leave off talking of Chief MacLeod, but not for long.

Now, in the Middle Ages (as now), the Highland Seelie dinna abide fae who kidnapped bairns — infants, that is. They wanted to cover their arses, for the last time an Unseelie stole a bairn, the mortals of Dunkeld torched the nearby faerie forest in retaliation. Kidnapping was a sore issue between the Seelie and the

Shadow Folk, and often the excuse we used to pick fights. Another flask, if you would, my dear! My head is starting to heal a bit —

dinna want that.

Well, you get Seelie and Unseelie clanns disagreeing over something, and soon you have feuds. And stubborn folk as we are, the fends went on far centuries, long after the English fae had come to terms. Understand, the Shattering hit not so hard up here; we picked up the pieces and soldiered on, whereas plague, madness and beasties, or chimera as you English call them, devastated the fae down below the Wall. There, the Courts of Shadow and Light needed each other's support, so they called for The Alliance. Not so in Scotland. We didna reach accord until 1514, with the Troth of Argyll! And even then, peace came only when the English problem spread north into Caledonia.

The problem was, the Scottish mortal James IV had married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. The fae up here went quite frothing mad against the idea, because they understood politics;

they knew the marriage meant the eventual union of both king-doms. But it happened, Then after the fat wretch Henry VIII took the throne, James rebelled — too late, of course. He always seemed one step behind; perhaps it was the inbreeding.

The Scots were weak when the battle for independence came at Flodden Field in 1513. And don't forget they lacked the Stone of Scone. So the good Scots army lost and James was killed. Banality began creeping into Scotland, not so fast as later, in the Industrial Revolution, but stealthy, the way lard firms up in a cooler.

And though Mary — so-called Queen of Scots because she was granddaughter of the fool James IV — ruled mortal Scotland until 1567, she was no relief. Her Catholics wanted to sweep out the house, as it were, while her cousin Elizabeth I, along with a fire-and-brimstone preacher name of John Knox, were drumming up support for Protestantism. Neither side could afford room for the old ways.

Those were bad times for the fairfolk. So we got the Troth of Argyll

— a concord of mutual aid between the Caledonian Seelie and Unseelie, foisted upon us by persecution and Banality. No one has broken the Troth, but nae many like it to this day.

Enter Elizabeth I. Both she and her cousin were absolutely the worst sort. Say all you want about glorious Elizabeth Regina, and Shakespeare, and "this sceptred isle" and all that, but Elizabeth was what you may call the alpha-male. After she defeated Mary Queen of Scots, at Langside, Elizabeth imprisoned her — her own cousin, mind — for 20 years, then executed her for treason. That's cold.

Two years later, the real history begins.

AH this time, the Caledonian fae were busy forming clanns and troths, each with the other, all throughout Caledonia, nae just in the Highlands. Now, when a clann reaches a point where its chief is well-respected, and it's so big that its members nae longer recognize each other, then it's ready to become a — a city-state, as you might say.

In the late 1500s, the clanns begin cutting up Caledonia for themselves. So, here, Clann Tweed formed the Tuath of Thistle, stretching from Dumfries to Edinburgh. Clann Tweed's always been a rough but honest mob, being the gatekeepers, so to speak, of Caledonia and repelling many English invasions. Though the other clanns might grouse about them, they're the clann you'd most want on your side in dire times.

The Renaissance

1558 Elizabeth I crowned.

1587 Elizabeth executes Mary, Queen of Scots.

1589 Fae Clann Tweed forms Tuath of Thistle. In re-sponse, Clann Lomond forms the Tuath of Rowan.

1590 Smaller fae clanns unite to form Tuath of Caledonia, called the Barbarism Kingdoms by the other clanns.

1592 Fae Clann Cairngorm forms Tuath of Alba.

To protect his interests, Chief Speedwell, the randy gossach leader of Clann Lomond, forms the Tuath of Rowan between Edinburgh and Aberdeen in 1589. He and Chief Branoden of Clann Tweed dinna get along, even though, or perhaps because, they represented the two strongest Kithain clanns. To date, there's still some tension, Clann Lomond viewing Tweed as dull and staid, Tweed calling Lomond too uppity and unteliable. Unreliable, indeed. In the past, others have seen both clanns take lands that dinna belong to them, and so regard them carefully.

In 1560, the northern clanns are getting nervous, seeing that glint of land-randiness in the other clann chiefs' eyes. Clanns Duich, Tay, Campion, Tummell, Leyhorn, Morar and Kinlochlinnhe all unite into the Tuath of Caledonia, what the Lowlanders call Barbarian Kingdoms. Even combined, the popu-lation of this tuath is far less than that of Tweed or Rowan.

Far northwest, news of the tuaths finally reaches Chief Kincraig, who declares the Cairngorms, after which his clann is named, part of the Tuath of Alba. That tuath — lovely place, my home, you know — stretches north west from the Tuaths of Thistle and Rowan. Home to the great clanns, noble, entertaining, appre-ciate a good whiskey and — what's more!— dinna flinch at haggis.

At this point, feuds began to determine borders, fealties, spoils of entire groups of clanns. For a while, the chiefs understood this and left each other alone. But not for long....

Sometimes justice's served up on a strange platter. Before she died, Mary Queen of Scots, had a son. name of James VI. When Elizabeth I died, Mary's son took the throne, uniting Scotland and England under one crown. Good enough, what with a Scottish king on top, but that wasn't for long, and among the mortals, the reigns of James and his successors led to terrible religious tensions, even worse than those between his mother and the alpha-male Queen Elizabeth.

Excuse me, Rabbit-ears — yes, you, in the back. Either shut your gob or shove off. Yeh, I hear you. I'll get to Chief MacLeod in a moment. Jesus Bloody Christ, I canna hear myself think with you childlings around!

So, in this climate, the fae clann chiefs lost perspective and went, as you might say, a bit fanatic. Take Clann Venue, one of the powerful fae families in the Trossachs, near Loch Lomond. Venue took as its badge, or symbol, the profile of the old sidhe King Eolim

— the same bloke who defeated the Blue People centuries before.

Now, understand, Eolim had gone away in the Shattering and

Isle of the Mighty 78

1603 Elizabeth I dies; James VI of Scotland unites Scotland and England.

1614 War of the Badge: fae clanns Venue and Uird clash over right to wear emblem of King Eolim.

1623 Doissetep's Drua'shi masters murdered in Horizon Realm; Council Scats abandoned. The Hermetic Robert Langloch of Dryhurgh Covenant forms plan to build another Horizon Realm for new governing body.

1624 Representatives return to Council Seats in Horizon.

1625 Langloch and 12 other British mages begin to create Kentigern, an idealized realm filled with beasts and structures from British Mythic Ages. A half-year later, work stops. Langloch and the others disappear, Kentigem also disappears.

1626 Mages with alliances to Doissetep shut down move-ments in Horizon Realm to find Langloch and Kentigem. Maverick mages who attempt same later also disappear or are silenced.

hadn't been seen on Earth for hundreds of years. But a rival clann, Uird, got all out of joint over Venue's "theft" of Eolim's face.

"He's ours," they said, "he stayed at our freehold all the time when he visited."

Venue said, "You weren't using him, and we're closer to his pure traditional ideals." Arguments, shouts on both sides, insults, and pretty soon they were at it hammer and tongs. Over the next decade, both clanns destroyed one another completely.

So were the clanns really using this badge nonsense as an excuse to attack their enemies? Or were they actually genuinely daft? I dinna know, and I think it nae matter.Och, I've drained this flask, send up another.

It's like bloody James VI set off an avalanche — although, in reality the poor bastard probably dinna know what was happening until some lackey popped the bloody crown on his head and renamed him James I of England. Things haven't been the same in Caledonia since, or so I'll tell you if you ask.

James I — or James VI, or whatever you please — dies in 1625, putting Charles I in power. Charles appoints Catholic bishops to the Church of Scotland and causes riots. Thirteen years later, the Scots sign the National Covenant, opposing Charles' Catholicism. In 1688, William of Orange takes the English throne, and the crown passes from the hands of mere barbaric Scots.

Now, to this day, the Highland burgess — the commoners among the fae — have a well-known reputation as scoundrels and thieves, though if you ask me, those two-faced, superstitious Welsh songbirds fit the description better. Why the Highlanders? Two words: Rob Roy. He was the "Robin Hood of Scotland," robbing from the rich, giving to the poor. Aproto-socialist. So crofter changelings and wilders looking for a good time — Hear that, Whiskers? Aye, you in the back — joined his band of merry men, raiding rich Lowlanders for food for his clan and making enemies of the Duke of Montrose, who declared them outlaws and torched Roy's house.

After this foul deed, Roy joined the Jacobites and began plundering Montrose's lands. The Jacobites, by the way, were a mortal faction that wanted Scotland for the Scots, and would just as soon have William of Orange squeezed into a breakfast drink.

More times than you can say Braolauch shi, the Highlander changelings helped Rob Roy escape from prison, until the Duke was sheer livid. Among those changelings was the famous outlaw Spat Thomconk and his rough band of roguish boggans. Am sure you've heard tales.

Now, listen up, Whiskers and friends — and perhaps you could bring an ailing soul a dram of malt while you're about it — we're back to Chief MacLeod, who we last saw wandering into a fae forest of Skye in 1350 for one year's service to the Shadow Court. Ahhh, thank you, dearie. Oh, and 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