July 2018 - Call of the Cu Sith

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July 2018 - Call of the Cu Sith

While working on the GCC Daoine Sidhe coin 2 years ago (can't believe it's been that long) I was fascinated with the variety of fantastical creatures in the Gaelic supernatural world.  Faerie Rings were just the opening chapter to a whole new world.  As it often does, my attention wandered through dozen of other designs before coming back around to the legendary Coin Sith (Cù - singular).  The Cù-Sith is the mythological canine that roams the nights from the rocky highlands of Scotland to lowland moors and isles of the Hebrides archipelago.  A great, shaggy wolf the size of a bull, it's forever on the move, hunting the night to collect up souls of the recently deceased to carry away to the afterlife.  When it's not gathering up the deceased, it's not above adding more unlucky travelers to its load by bellowing out precisely three terrifying howls that shatter the still night air for miles over land and even far out to sea.  Anyone unfortunate to hear this terrible baying must find safety immediately before the last dreadful howl or risk being struck dead from terror and joining their ancestors on the other side.   As if all this weren't ghastly enough, the Cù-Sith is also tasked with a second responsibility... it must find young mothers to kidnap and bring back to the faerie folk at the Daoine Sidhe where the terrified women must play nursemaid to the young of the faerie folk.  Travelers, explorers and cachers beware the night lest you join the other victims of the Cù-Sith.  

On the face side we see the shaggy green head of the Cù-Sith baying across the moors by the light of the crescent moon before the ancient mystic crucifix of Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis.  The pulsing howls of terror issue forth on the bracketed pack in the ancient style.  On the reverse a young maiden has been herded back to a nearby Daoine Sidhe and confronts the faerie folk who emerge to set her to task in her new fate caring for the young folk of the faerie races.