Corraidhin's+Legend

**The legend of the Céile.**
What do you do when the hunter, becomes to the hunted? Thousands upon thousands of years ago, there was once a tribe leader who, unable to feed his tribe, journeyed farther into the forest then he had ever before. His bow notched, the leader crept through the forest, following the trail of a lone deer.

So wrapped up in the desire to feed his starving tribe, the leader was completely unaware that he was being watched. Predators have this funny way of discovering other predators, ones who are weaker than themselves. This leader was no different, no better than those that came before him on the food chain. The monster knew this, this monster was a better predator than the man. The man didn’t stand a chance.

One well calculated strike of a heavy-set paw and the leader would no longer have to worry about his tribe.

The tribesman crept through the trees, peeking out of a bush and setting his eyes upon the very deer that he had been tracking. It grazed quietly upon the small clearing’s grass, ears flickering forward and back to capture the noises of the forest. Notching his bow, he aimed and calculated his shot.

But before he could release the arrow, the deer startled and darted off into the arbor. The hunter began to give chase, stumbling his way through the thicket. After a few minutes of this, he started to slow and eventually forced himself to claim the deer to be lost.

A loud predatory roar flooded the man’s ears, bringing the leader to a quick and sudden stop. Forcing his body to work against reason, he turned and came face to face with a large and angry animal. This animal was no sort of deer, but rather a sickly looking brown bear.

Roaring again, the bear advanced while the tribe leader started backing away. While he was a powerful and supposedly fearless leader, he was not foolish. He understood he stood no chance against something so powerful. His only choice was to outrun it long enough that he could later outsmart it.

Acting upon pure adrenaline alone, the tribesman did away with his bow and arrows. The wood smashed to pieces as the bear trampled over it. Scaling a tree high enough the bear couldn’t reach him, the tribesman attempted to recollect his breath.

You see, his plan was fairly obvious. He’d wait out the bear and eventually it would have to leave, right?

Wrong.

This bear was persistent and sick, it had no other choice but to wait. He understood the human man would be a easy meal, one calculated hit and he’d be dead. Well, that’s at least what the tribesman pictured the bear’s thoughts to be like.

This waiting game continued for a few minutes, the bear growing impatient with it. Starting to throw himself at the tree, the bear’s weight shook it, smaller branches split away from the base and crashed to the ground. As this process continued, the tribe leader began to fear for his life once again.

Well...until the white blur flew by. The next few minutes of events had been lost over the course of history, but tribes know how it ended. No one really understood why the pure white stag sensed the need to protect the hunter, but he did anyways. The tribes of today like to think it comes from the connection they contain with the earth. Some tribes of the sea though, claim it was just coincident.

Either way, the stag killed the bear using his antlers to stab the bear in the heart, ending it’s reign of terror on the hunter’s life.

What the tribesman may or may not have said to the stag differs between tribes, but most tend to agree upon the words “Thank you, céile of the forest”. The hunter and the stag became inseparable after that point, the stag becoming to live in the tribe as if he were a man.

The Céile have been apart of tribe culture ever since. They protect and take care of our tribes and we must never take them for advantage. A Céile always has the choice to leave you, after all.