THE ELEMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES: An A-Z of Fairies, Pixies, and other Fantastical Creatures. Lucy Cooper

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      From the outset, Cuchullin’s striking appearance set him apart as different. He had seven toes on each foot, seven fingers on each hand and seven pupils in each eye. His red shock of hair was dark brown at the roots, light blond at the tips. He wore 100 strings of gems on his head, his chest glittered with a hundred brooches, and he had many admirers. However, he was prone to fits of battle frenzy. During such fits, he transformed into a monster, turning himself around inside his skin, so that his feet and knees faced backward and his calves and heels faced forward. Each strand of his hair stood up on his scalp with rage, a flame leapt from his mouth, and a jet of black blood spouted from the top of his head. His eyes displaced themselves, one to his cheek, the other the back of his skull. He fought from his chariot, driven by Laég, his faithful charioteer, drawn by his gray and black horses Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend. In this fevered, crazed state, he had to be dipped into three vats of ice-cold water to return him to normal temperature.

      When he was 17 years old, he single-handedly defended Ulster against Queen Medhb in the epic battle of the Cattle Raid of Cuailane. Eventually it was Queen Medhb who brought about his demise. Cuchullin bound himself to a pillar or standing stone so that he might stand up and fight his enemies to the very end and thus he died a hero.

      See also Lug, Raven.

      Curupira

      Brazilian guardian spirit of the forest. In Brazilian mythology he is most often depicted as a red-headed boy, with the distinguishing feature of backward-facing feet. The name comes from curu, meaning “boy,” and pira, meaning “body,” in the language of the Tupi people of the Brazilian rainforest. Curupira safeguards trees, plants, and animals from the destructive activities of humans, using his backward feet to confound hunters who try to follow his tracks.

      Cutty Soams

      A mischievous coal-pit bogle from the north of England, also known as Old Cutty Soams. Putters were mine workers—sometimes girls—responsible for pushing the wooden wagons that transported coal or ore out of the mine. “Soams” were the ropes that attached the putter to the wagon. Cutty Soams was known for severing these ropes. According to an account in the Monthly Chronicle (1887), when the men went down to work in the morning, it was not uncommon for them to find that Cutty Soams had been busy during the night, and every pair of soams in the colliery had been cut to pieces. Though fond of causing mischief, Cutty Soams was also known to bring about good, at times pouncing upon an unpopular overseer to give him a sound thrashing, much to the delight of the miners.

Cwn Annwn

      (Pronounced koon anoon.) Welsh hell hounds. Similar to the Gabriel Ratchets, the wish hounds, and the Seven Whistlers, they are harbingers of death. To hear them is a sure sign that someone’s time is up. Their howls are said to grow softer as they approach; close by, their yelping sounds like the cries of small beagles, yet far away their growling is a loud wild lament.

      See also Yeth Hound.

Cyhyraeth

      (Pronounced kerherrighth.) Welsh form of the Scottish caoineag, the “weeper.” She is rarely seen, most often manifesting as an invisible, disembodied voice. Her groaning is an omen of death, especially multiple deaths that are the result of a disaster or an epidemic. Like the Irish banshee, she wails for locals who have died in foreign lands away from home. Accompanied by a corpse light or will o’ the wisp, her cries have been heard on the sea off the Welsh Glamorganshire coast before shipwrecks, foretelling the path a corpse would take to the churchyard.

      In Wirt or W. Sikes’ British Goblins (1880), her wailing is described as doleful and disagreeable, like the groaning of a dying person. As well as foretelling death, it is often a portent of foul weather. First it is heard at a distance, then closer, then near at hand, offering three warnings of death. “It begins strong, and louder than a sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so; the third yet lower and soft, like the groaning of a sick man almost spent and dying.”

      D’Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine (c.1650–1705)

      French countess and writer who published Les Contes de Fées (Fairy Tales) in 1697 and Contes Nouveaux ou les Fées à la Mode (New Tales or Fairies in Fashion) in 1698. She was one of the most influential writers in the French salons, fashionable gatherings of literary and artistic figures popular in the seventeenth century.

      Like many of her contemporaries, such as Charles Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy drew on tales from oral folk tradition and retold them in a literary style. Her tales include “Le Prince Lutin,” translated into English as “The Imp Prince,” “Yellow Dwarf,” and “The White Cat” among others.

      Dagda

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