Sgáthach


"In the old days after the dark, the Emperor of Man mastered the arts of flesh-craft and made for himself armies to conquer the worlds of all the sky - and they were twenty hosts of men, all but the second of the hosts. They alone were made in the image of the angel Astarte, and they were sisters. To lead this host, the Angel and the Emperor begat their daughter, though she never knew her mother's embrace. She was taken with her brothers by dark forces, and flung to the world that is called Manawyddan, and she floated alone in her curragh for a month on storm-tossed ocean before she found the Crag. There, she found her people and her home, and she was Sgáthach, and she was Queen. She was both slayer and seer, sage and singer, and she ruled the clans of the Crag, and led the fleets upon the sea, and slayed many a sea snake and many a warrior, and told many a tale and a song, and gave fine rings of silver and cups of fine spirit to those she called her sisters. As the years turned she was not just Queen but High Queen and took the oath of nine kingdoms and was their overlord, and while they warred they all bent the knee to great and mighty Sgáthach, and she was the Kraken.


Then a great King brought his hosts to far Manawyddan, and he roved the seas on his own fleet, and Sgáthach did war against this man, though he fought with tongues of fire and screaming swords and she with but stout iron and bone. When the fighting was thickest, The High Queen did board his boat, and put it to the torch, but when she did behold his face, she sank to her knee, for she saw upon his face her father, and she did know him, and he embraced her as his only begotten daughter. Though she bore no infants, she found herself mother of a thousand, and twoscore thousand more, and they were her daughters, and they were the Krakenborn."

From the Mor-Sgeul, the Great Chronicle of the Krakenborn.




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