The Witches of Eileanan is a fantasy series by Kate Forsyth, with six books.
The series starts with the island of Eileanan under the rule of an evil queen, Maya the Ensorcellor, who has outlawed all witchcraft and fairy creatures save for that she finds useful for her own purposes, with the witches who survived after the Day of Betrayal in hiding. Isabeau, a foundling with magical Talent who lives in a remote valley with her guardian Meghan, is approaching her sixteenth birthday, when she will undergo her second Test of power.
But as Isabeau, her long-lost twin sister Iseult, Meghan, and their other allies work to overthrow Maya and bring peace to the land, the path ahead will be long and difficult, with many losses yet to come...
The books in the series are:
- The Witches of Eileanan
- The Pool of Two Moons
- The Cursed Towers
- The Forbidden Land
- The Skull of the World
- The Fathomless Caves
Tropes:
- Alien Sky: Eileanan has two moons, Magnysson and Gladrielle.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Lady Glynelda, Grand-Seeker of the Awl, tried to beat Lasair back into serving her when the stallion was returned to her. She was instead thrown off and killed.
- Bag of Holding: Meghan has a magic bag that she used to rescue a huge amount of treasures from the Tower of Two Moons on the Day of Betrayal. She uses the bag again when she's forced to abandon her treehouse. As she points out, it has the drawback that items must be taken out in the order they were put in it.
- Ban on Magic: Not long after Jaspar married Maya, the Coven of Witches and witchcraft was outlawed. This is the kind where the government allows magic that's useful to it, as Maya is secretly a witch herself, the psychic powers of witch-sniffers are obviously of use in hunting witches, and some other magic powers are of use to Maya and her Awl on a case-to-case basis.
- Blind Seer: Jorge. In fact, he only discovered he could see the future after he became blind.
- Born in the Saddle: The thigearns of Tìreich, ruled by the MacAhern clan, who live in nomadic caravans and are constantly on the move in their grassland province.
- Burn the Witch!: Done by both the Awl and the Tìsoilleirean religious fanatics. In The Pool of Two Moons, warlock Gwilym the Ugly uses illusion magic to make the seekers think that one of their own his him so Aidan the Cruel burns in his place.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- The three lost MacCuinn princes are mentioned early on, and Meghan mentions she's expecting "the lad" to turn up for Isabeau's Test. Later on, when Isabeau recalls the trip to Caeryla from around when she turned eight, she mentions that the old witch Enit had a familiar of a blackbird with a white feather over his left eye. That was actually the youngest prince, Lachlan, and Meghan was helping Enit turn him back into a human.
- There's also Enit's grandson Dide, who Isabeau met as a child and who later turns up as a resistance member, befriending Lilanthe and helping her when she asks to join.
- When Meghan visits the dragons in the first book, she's told that Khan'gharad is somehow still alive, although she has no idea how. Then Isabeau befriends a very nice red stallion she dubs "Lasair" while rescuing "Bacaiche" from the Awl. Not until The Cursed Towers is it made clear that the horse is, indeed, Khan'gharad, having fallen victim to Maya's Forced Transformation abilities.
- Cool Horse: Lasair, a stallion from a legendary lineage who Isabeau befriends and gets as a mount. He's actually yet another person subjected to a Forced Transformation, specifically Isabeau and Iseult's father Khan'gharad.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: Meghan hid the Key of the Coven by breaking it into its component pieces, keeping one and entrusting the other two to Ishbel and Latifa.
- Dragon Hoard: The dragons' ruling Circle of Seven does indeed possess a sizeable example of this. In fact, it is considered good manners for people visiting the dragons to bring gifts to increase the hoard.
- Familiar: Most witches seem to eventually get one. Meghan's current one at the beginning of the series is a donbeag named Gitâ, Finn has her elven cat Goblin, and Isabeau eventually acquires an owl named Buba.
- Fantastic Racism: Much. A large part of the tension between humans and the various faery races, when it's not being intentionally stoked by the likes of Maya, is because humans are not native to this planet, having travelled from another world to escape persecution for their witchcraft.
- Fingore: Isabeau loses her left pinky and ring finger thanks to torture from Baron Yutta in the form of the "pilliwinkles".
- Flight: A natural and unusual talent of the witch Ishbel the Winged.
- Forced Transformation: Maya has the power to do this to people. Among her victims include the three Lost Prionnsachan, of whom Lachlan was the only survivor after they were turned into blackbirds and Maya set her hawk on them, spending four years in that form before Meghan and Enit managed to mostly turn him back; Tabithas NicRuraich, who was (rather fittingly) turned into a wolf like that on her family's crest; and Khan'gharad Dragon-Rider, who was turned into the horse known as "Lasair" in the first two books.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Awl actually stands for Anti-Witchcraft League.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Maya, as Banrìgh of Eileanan, uses her magic to make herself beloved by the public while leading a crusade against witches and the various faery races, all in the name of her own power.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Multiple characters, including Maya (human/Fairge) and Lilanthe (human/tree-changer).
- Healing Hands: Tòmas the Healer. He actually has to get magic gloves to hide his hands from any witch-sniffers because of how "bright" his hands are, and the group of beggar children who become his friends call themselves the League of the Healing Hand in his honour.
- Horned Humanoid:
- Male Khan'cohban have curving horns on their foreheads.
- Satyricorns all have horns on their heads, which vary wildly in appearance.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: Iseult has two ritual scars on her cheeks because she's a Scarred Warrior, while Isabeau loses two fingers of her left hand as a result of torture.
- Identical Twin Mistake: Isabeau and Iseult get this more than once. Notable instances include "Bacaiche" first meeting Iseult when he'd already met Isabeau before, Finn mistaking a sleeping Isabeau for Iseult while sneaking around Lucescere Palace, and Lilanthe and Dide's confusion when first seeing Iseult at a war council early in The Cursed Towers. Of those people, only Finn previously knew about both twins' existence.
- I Have Your Wife: Anghus MacRuraich is pushed to carry out Maya's orders and hunt down various witches and rebels by the kidnapping of his daughter Fionnghal by the Awl. Unbeknownst to Anghus, Finn was apprenticed to an unpleasant bounty hunter as a thief, with her memories tampered with so she didn't know who she was.
- Locked into Strangeness: When Lachlan MacCuinn was turned back into a human after years as a bird, he retained wings and taloned feet. His feet are eventually healed by the Pool of Two Moons during the eclipse, but the wings stay.
- Mage Tower: The various witches' towers that dot the land, which used to be schools of magic before the Day of Betrayal. The most important is the Tower of Two Moons in Lucescere.
- Magic Mirror: The Mirror of Lela, which Maya uses to cast her illusions and transform people into animals. However, Maya doesn't actually need that specific mirror for her magic, and eventually figures out how to cast illusions and change people's forms with a regular mirror after its destruction.
- Magic Music:
- The Tower of the Sea-Singers used to house the Yedda, witches that master the songs of enchantment and weaponize them against the Fairgean.
- A specialty of the appropriately-named Enit Silverthroat.
- Maya used this to ensorcel Jaspar and control Eileanan for sixteen years. Her daughter Bronwen inherits the talent.
- Lachlan has some skill at this, in part as the result of his years as a bird.
- Jay the Fiddler also turns out to be able to do this.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: The various victims of Maya's shape-changing magic. Lachlan says that he nearly forgot all sense of his humanity during four years as a blackbird, and had a hard time readjusting. Khan'gharad, having spent nineteen years as a horse, has an even harder time of it.
- Morphic Resonance: Some of the people Maya turned into animals retain echoes of their human forms: Lachlan retained his hereditary skunk stripe, while Khan'gharad still had red hair.
- One Twin Must Die: Khan'cohban culture holds that twins are very unlucky, and that one must always be given to the Gods of White as a sacrifice. For this reason, Iseult is initially unhappy to learn that she has a twin sister.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They live for centuries, they love wealth and bloodshed, and they live in a volcano because they can't control their body heat on account of being reptiles.
- Pegasus: Flying horses exist, and anyone who wants to tame one has to spend a year and a day on its back without fail. The legendary black flying horse of Ravenshaw is also mentioned repeatedly.
- Playing Drunk: Finn acquired this skill as a result of being apprenticed to a drunkard bounty hunter named Kersey for several years, and plays it very convincingly against Renshaw even though she's only twelve, unwittingly aided by Renshaw's knowledge of her father's alcoholism as a result of her abduction.
- Playing with Fire: Isabeau and Iseult both have a natural talent for fire magic. In fact, its a heritage of the family line of the Firemakers.
- Power Crutch: The Mirror of Lela for Maya. She eventually figures out how to use the magics that she'd relied on that mirror for with an ordinary mirror after its destruction.
- Power Nullifier: Nyx hair can have this property. Tòmas is given a pair of nyx-hair gloves to wear so as to hide his power from any seekers, and at the end of the series, Maya's final punishment is a permanent one in the form of a choker that can't be taken off, rendering her mute.
- Secret Underground Passage: The passage from the Tomb of Ravens through the hidden sea caves into Rhyssmadill castle, an old secret of the MacBrann clan.
- Separated at Birth: Isabeau was left to be raised by Meghan, while Iseult was left to be raised by their great-grandmother the Firemaker.
- Shared Unusual Trait: The descendants of Aedan Whitelock have a hereditary one indicating their status, including Meghan and Lachlan. It is implied that the white locks of the MacCuinn family have some connection with the Lodestar, as baby Bronwen does not gain it until after she bonds with the artifact.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Witches are required to know several animal languages in order to pass the Apprentice Test of Earth. Meghan, as The Beastmaster, knows far more.
- Synchronization: Isabeau and Iseult can feel each other's pain and injuries, even before they knew each other existed. Isabeau also knows when her sister is having sex, which results in some awkward moments.
- Theme Twin Naming:
- Isabeau and Iseult, although the latter grew up under the name Khan'derin.
- Iseult later has twins named Owein and Olwynne.
- Twin Switch: Isabeau and Iseult pull one at the climax of The Pool of Two Moons, as Lachlan wants to see his dying brother and Iseult refuses to let him go in there by himself. This results in serious confusion for Latifa when she sees Iseult fighting the guards since it's so very unlike Isabeau.
- Winged Humanoid: "Bacaiche", or rather Lachlan, isn't actually a hunchback. He has wings left over from his time as a bird. This is a trait inherited by his son Donncan.
- Wizard Beard: Many warlocks, Jorge being the most prominent, don't trim their beards since hair (and fingernail clippings) can be used against people.
- Wizards Live Longer: Meghan is 427 years old at the beginning of the series, which is highly unusual even though she's an extremely powerful witch. She suspects it has something to do with drinking the water of the Pool of the Two Moons on the night her father created the Lodestar.
- The X of Y: Books 1, 2 and 5, respectively The Witches of Eileanan, The Pool of Two Moons and The Skull of the World, as well as the series in general.
