A Celtic Myth Nerd's Take on Coigreach

Now onto the new explore encounters. I'll move from least 'mythical' to most.

• New animals. From what I can tell, there are a lot of species native to Great Britain and Europe. red deer, roe deer, muntjac(not native, but have large populations), storks, red squirrels, slow worms, European badgers, Eurasian lynx.... With the exception of the lynx and wolves, all of these can be found on the British Isles - and most importantly, Scotland.

• New herbs. This is more of an herbalist encounter, but it goes hand-in-hand with the new animals. Wood betony, woad, vervain, nettle leaves, elder, English marigold... Any guess where these herbs can be found and are often used? Yep, the British Isles and Europe. Woad in particular was very important to the Celtic cultures of Ireland and Scotland.

• Wolf encounters. Here's where we start getting kinda fun. In explore we're now meeting wolves that have consistently similar stories. Wolves that are searching for packmates that have gone missing without a trace. Wolves that ask about plants and animals that they should surely already know, is if they aren't from around here. Wolves that speak fearfully of strange floating lights that follow them.

• The lights. These are my personal favorite encounters so far. In Celtic myths, these lights are called Will o' Wisps, fairy fires, or pixie lights depending on the region. Strange, floating lights that resemble lamplight. They typically appear over bogs or swamps or deep forests and try to lead travelers off the path - and possibly to their doom. Various explore encounters mention the lights "seem to [be] trying to lure you in" and receding whenever you try to approach. These lights also usually have strange auras around them that make you feel heavy and tired, fearful, or disoriented. Occasionally, trying to follow these lights will cause you to wake up in a completely different area than you first saw the lights.

• Coigreach story encounters. These are the encounters you find when first trying to help Maeve find her mate. The wolves you meet mention some very strange things. Howling that goes unanswered. The sound of crying puppies, but no pups to be found. Pockets of mist that mute all sound and disrupt hunts. Places that leave a wolf paralyzed with fear. Caves that appear in the distance but never seem to get closer no matter how much you walk.

So, what can this all mean?

• Badger Cave. KittenWolf(#7713) was right when they mentioned the new connections to Scotland and the British Isles in regards to the lore. I did a little analysis of all the decors that you can find with a sneaky little search in the item catalogue, and all told, over 3/4 of the background decors are from 'celtic' areas - ie Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The heather fields bg could be a bit generic, since heather grows throughout lots of Europe, but it is very prominent in a lot of Scottish folk songs. Thistle as well. In addition, the jewelry items are all very celtic. Lunulae are primarily found in Ireland, and are seriously old jewelry. Like, 4000 years old. Torcs are similarly old, around 3000 years, and were a symbol of power Celtic cultures. All of this is super cool but also just reinforces that we've somehow crossed over into Scotland/British Isles!

• The Faelcu. To start, 'faelcu' is a kind of obscure Old Irish word for 'wolf'. My theory is that Faelcu is to wolves as Faerie is to humans. Furthermore, the Irish/Scottish call faeries 'Aos Si', which literally translated means 'people of the mounds'. The Aos Si pretty much looked like regular humans - but always had something a little bit off. And, of course, they could use magic. One aspect of this magic was kidnapping human children and replacing them with changelings if they were angered. It was common practice to take these changeling babes out to the forest and leave it in the crook of a tree, so that the Aos Si would return the human child to it's parents. The story that Quany tells us pretty much follows this old folktale beat for beat.

• The trinkets: So, we all know very little about the trinkets other than that they give off 'bad vibes' and can sometimes show you a vision. But after you manage to find the other 4 trinket pieces in explore, you can begin to see that they were all once part of a whole piece of something. There is a very distinct pattern on the trinkets that I'm sure, when they are all placed correctly, would make a celtic knot design. I'm personally very curious to see what kind of design, because more than a few have pretty important meanings.

• Names: So now we know the names of the she-wolf and her mate in the Faelcu story! Bronagh is Irish for 'sad', which seems very thematic considering. Cian is also Irish, and means 'ancient' as well as being the purported legendary ancestor of those living the middle and western areas of Ireland.

• Trinkets. I'm still not entirely sure about the trinkets, but I was right about there being a celtic design on them once they were put together. It's not a design I'm familiar with, but it slightly reminds me of the triquetra knot, which symbolizes a lot of different things, depending on who you ask. Like, a lot. It's a pretty universal symbol throughout Ireland these days.