Around these parts, everyone knows the tale of the undying hound. 3,000 years ago the mountain was all he knew... well, that and his master who visited often. The Cu wasn't a trained dog, but he was loyal enough to this man. The pair relied on one another to track and hunt larger game than either could have alone. Not so much a pet, but more an ally... or perhaps a tool. Regardless, he learned command words within the years that they hunted as a pair. So it was that when his master told him to stay after the hunting had already been done, the Cu thought nothing of it. He stayed, he ate, he drank at the stream nearby and defended his master's meat even after it had gone rotten. Eventually he would move around to hunt and drink again, but always return to the spot he was told to stay at. In time he grew old and eventually stopped leaving the spot at all. It became his resting place, his Sídhe, but even then he did his best to stay.
For over half a century he clung to this realm and refused to leave. Men who wandered nearby would hear the Cu's low growl warning them away. It became a desolate place where neither man nor beast felt comfortable. Only the overgrown vegetation which threatened to smother the sky. On a dark and cold night it happened. A man wandered down from the mountain. He was taller than most, with long wavy hair of Copper and wild eyes of antique gold. He crashed through the barrier of a ringfort like the logs were nothing but twigs and ate an entire elk in one sitting. In time the villagers learned that the man they fed was not of this realm, but the Sídhe himself, the Cu, now searching for his master on two tireless legs.
The stories go wild from there. Some say that he tore his way around the island like a wild dog, slaying those he came across in vengeance for his loss. Others say that he climbed back up the mountain and planted himself like a tree, digging in roots and guarding his post for his master's eventual return. They say he made the mountain his domain and welcomed all manor of twisted Sídhe while tormenting any mortal bold enough to approach. There are of course the myriad others that mention the spear. The wandering warrior who had no name other than Cu and brought supernatural phenomena wherever he went across this land and many more.
The truth is that all the stories are based in some part on truth. The hound, the spear, the tree. Even to this day, the Cu is rooted in the same spot as 3,000 years ago. You can occasionally catch a glimpse of the Sídhe in the most unlikely of places. The exit of a cave, the break in a patch of thick woodland, even when looking out at the horizon across the sea. The House of Copper Hounds as it is now known is always nearby, just out of reach and sideways to the sun. If you catch a glimpse of the old wooden inn surrounded by trees which twist into their own sky of gold and brown, you'd be wise to make yourself known. The Cu is calling you to share a meal, a drink and one of his many tales. He doesn't mind having to wait... but he will go out to hunt if he's left to become bored.
You can seek him out at:
And read his story at: The House of Copper Hounds
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