Hagsfiend (Books)

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Hagsfiend (Books)
Names
Common Name:	Hagsfiend (Books)
Scientific Name:	N/A
Appearance
Mixed appearance between a crow and an owl
Behavior
Generally considered as aggressive, frightening predators to owls; known to rip apart and tear off the heads of their defeated enemies and stab them on poles, and sometimes they have a fascination with creatures weaker than themselves, especially young animals; have been known to kill their own young When close to the Ember of Hoole, they become more "haggish"

Hagsfiends were dark creatures of nachtmagen that were also known as crowls: birds with features belonging to both crows and owls. They were able to wield the foul powers of nachtmagen, or evil magic, and were most formidable enemies to the noble and valiant owls of their time. They were thought to be extinct until almost brought back to the owl world in the final book, where it was confirmed that then they were truly extinct.

Hagsfiends can also mean the scroom of an owl that has come out of hagsmire, or an owl that resides in hagsmire. Owls that have been sent to hagsmire have been described by Gylfie to have dozens of wings, each tipped with fire.

History

Before the Books

In the ancient days, there was only one type of each bird. Over the next one thousand years, they all eventually separated into different species. At one time, there was a hybrid bird with the qualities of both a crow and owl; also known as a crowl. These two eventually separated into different species but some crowls never did. These remaining crowls became the first hagsfiends. Despite being said to have primitive brains, their gizzards were warped and they naturally had the ability to wield dark magic known as nachtmagen. They were first chronicled in the legends of Ga'Hoole revealed to the new king, Coryn and his uncle Soren by Ezylryb, who was on his deathbed at the time.

The Shattering

When the chaw of chaws are flying over the Mirror Lakes to find Eglantine and Primrose, the burning forest makes it looked like hagsmire in the reflection, and it is revealed that hagsfiend scrooms had not two, but dozens of wings tipped with fire.

The Hatchling

When Gwyndor is mobbed by crows, in his fright, he starts to see the crows as hagsfiends. Later, three hagsfiends come from Hagsmire to try to get Nyroc back to the Pure Ones, but he rejects them.

The Outcast

Coryn dresses up as a hagsfiend to frighten away some owls that guard Cory's egg. This starts the rumor of Nyra's death.

The First Collier

In the first book in the Legends trilogy, after Grank discovers his firesight and refines it to be more useful, he begins to wonder about magic itself and reveals to the readers the origins of hagsfiends.

"Dear Owl, if you are reading this book centuries from now, you probably do not know what a frightful power magic was in those days so long ago. You must first understand that in that time before time, there were fewer kinds of birds. In the most ancient of times, long before I had hatched, or even my great-great-grandparents had come into the world, there had been just one kind of songbird and one kind of seabird and one kind of bird of prey. After thousands upon thousands of years, the various species of birds separated and became distinct. There came to be robins and nightingales and larks, and so on and so forth. At one time, as unimaginable as it may seem now, there was a bird that was both crow and owl - a strange commingling of blood! Then gradually over many, many years these "crowls," as they were called, separated into distinct species. Yet, oddly enough, some never did. And these remnant crowls came to be known as hagsfiends. Their gizzards were different, warped, many said. And although they had somewhat primitive brains, these birds possessed strange inexplicable powers that could only be called magical."

―Grank, The First Collier

In this 'time before time' that he refers to, owls and crows were just evolving, and for a brief time, there was also a species that was a mix of the two. Some of them separated into owls or crows, but some didn't. These became hagsfiends, a distinct species of their own, over time. Next, after finding the Glauxian Ember (the name at that time for the Ember of Hoole, before Hoole actually got it), Grank falls into the lazy stupor. When he gets the note from Joss, Grank remembers a strange event in his childhood with Siv and H'rath. An owl had invited the three of them, who had been having fun with flying, to eat a lemming. He insisted that H'rath, the king-to-be, eat first, but Grank had an episode of seeing with magic and saw a deadly snake coiled inside, ready to strike. Grank hardly remembers it, but he was told by H'rath and Siv that he flew into the air while shouting strange words at the snake, before it went yeep. The owl had flown away during this. Later, Grank thinks more about this.

"I had many questions about what the three of us had experienced on that ice shelf in the twilight. Was the warrior indeed a hagsfiend in disguise? It was said that hagsfiends, very powerful ones, could change their appearance. Become more owl than crow, but that even in disguise they still carried the lingering scent of crow."

―Grank, The First Collier

Grank also, during his stupor with the Ember, tells the readers about the ritual of warrior hagsfiends to cut off the heads of their victims and put them on ice scythes. Later, he tells about another theory about the hagsfiends' existence, held by the Glauxian Brothers and sisters.

"-There was at that time a small group of owls - called the Glauxian Brothers - who believed that hagsfiends existed because owlkind had somehow lost its faith in Glaux, and in reason. They believed that this loss of faith and reason had created a tear, a rip in the very air of the owl universe, and it was through this tear that these creatures of rage and superstition and nachtmagen had entered our world."

―Grank, The First Collier

It may be that this so-called 'rip' in the universe had let magic into the world, which might have infected these crowls and twisted their gizzards.

The Coming of Hoole

Hagsfiends in the japanese cover of The Coming of Hoole

Siv is confronted by Lord Arrin and his hagsfiends at the beginning, but is saved by Svenka. Later, when Siv is on the island with Hoole, Grank, and Theo, she is ambushed by Pleek and his hagsfiend mate, Ygryk with the intent of stealing her son for themselves, because they desperately want to raise a chick together. Pleek and Ygryk are injured and flee, and so does Siv. The hagsfiend and her mate fly to Kreeth, who is creating a charm to make hagsfiends immune to the dangerous effects of saltwater on their feathers, but needs the young prince to do so. Kreeth sees Grank, Hoole, Theo, and Phineas leave for the Beyond.

To Be a King

After the Battle of Hoole, several hagsfiends revolt and form their own alliances. Among these groups include those led by Ullryck and those that joined Shadyk in the takeover of the Ice Palace. A large group of hagsfiends were killed in the desert by the power of dire wolves, who's eyes have the ability to combat fyngrots, nullifying them.

Meanwhile, Ygryk and Pleek manage to find a different egg, and Kreeth uses her nachtmagen to turn the hatchling into a changling, a specific breed of hagsfiend with the ability to shapeshift. Ygryk and Pleek are upset by this ability, and abandon her, leaving Kreeth as her caretaker. The hatchling, named Lutta, is trained to control her shapeshifting abilities, and learns to take on the form of Emerilla in order to infiltrate the Great Tree and steal the Ember of Hoole. She gets close to Hoole, eventually falling in love with him.

Later, as the owls rush head on into battle with the hagsfiends, Lutta is revealed to not be the true Emerilla, and is slain by Strix Strumajen. As she dies, she reveals that she no longer wanted the Ember, but simply wanted Hoole's love in return.

A large number of hagsfiends were killed as Hoole's army fought during Short Light, making the hagsfiends' frygnot useless against the dire wolves.

The Golden Tree

The Ember of Hoole was brought to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. Soon after, Coryn and the band embarked on a journey to take the young king's mind off of his mother. But Coryn snuck off and discovered Trader Mags (a magpie who traded the Others' belongings) with the book of the archfiend Kreeth. Before he and the band could get to it, however, Nyra sent Stryker to get it for her. Coryn found the webreader rabbit and they worked out where Nyra was. She was going to try to recreate herself and Coryn as hagsfiends with the Book of Kreeth (they already were part hag anyway). An epic battle followed. The band brought wolves to fight with them, and the Pure Ones had vyrrwolves. (Vyrrwolves are like hagsfiends, except they are wolves.) Their fyngrot was called the jaunyx, but it wasn't cast during the battle. The cave in which the battle took place had the ashes of Kludd's burned bones. Ashes of owls and bones were supposed to have great power in nachtmagen. In the end, the Guardians won, and the Book of Kreeth was taken to the Great Tree, hidden in Ezylryb's secret library.

The River of Wind

When the chaw of chaws discovered the Middle Kingdom, they came across the Dragon Owls of the Panqua Palace. Digger suddenly had the impression that they were perhaps hagsfiends in a past life. This theory was supported by Tengshu's revelations that each Dragon Owl had their own phonqua to fulfill because of past actions. The H'ryth Gup Theosang also revealed that Theo had been the first H'ryth. Otulissa then found a reason for his disappearance at the end of the third volume of "The Legends of Ga'Hoole," To Be a King. Theo had lured the surviving hagsfiends to the Middle Kingdom and was able to flatter them and use vanity and the illusion of power to render them harmless.

Exile

Pellimore suspected in her mind that the Striga, the Blue Snowy Owl at the Great Tree, was a hagsfiend.

The War of the Ember

After the Striga was routed out of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree by the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, he entered into an alliance with Nyra, leader of the Pure Ones in an attempt to create a new generation of hagsfiends and rule over the owl kingdoms by the sheer might of nachtmagen. After the Pure Ones' failed slink melf in the Middle Kingdom, Nyra disappeared.

However, she revealed to the Striga that she had ventured into the crevasses that lead into the Panqua Palace where the dragon owls resided. Nyra encouraged some of these dragon owls to escape and join her cause. Many of the dragon owls did come to her aid, pulling out their excessive feathers just as the Striga had done and flew across the Sea of Vastness into the Northern Kingdoms to the ancient remains of the Ice Cliff Palace to tend to the newly laid hagsfiend eggs. These eggs were immediately destroyed by the owls of the Middle Kingdom whenever they were found in the Panqua Palace. The nesting place was eventually discovered by Cleve and Otulissa.

Coryn then arranged for the Dire Wolves of Beyond the Beyond to be lead by Namara (formerly known as Gyllbane) to eliminate the nesting grounds of the hagsfiends. This tactic proved to be successful when the War of the Ember began because the Pure Ones then had no hagsfiend reinforcements. Despite their victory, Nyra transformed into a hagsfiend and advanced on Coryn and Soren, utilizing the fyngrot.

She was eventually killed by the former by an ice splinter that plunged into her heart. The Striga mortally wounded Coryn when trying to escape, but never got the chance before Soren sliced off his head with Ezylryb's battle claws. With the Striga's death, the threat posed by hagsfiends to the owl kingdoms was no more.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

The only reference to hagsfiends in the movie is a visual one; a giant bird statue is located in the middle of St. Aegolius' pelletorium, which is confirmed in The Art of Legend of the Guardinas: The Owls of Ga'Hoole as being a hagsfiend.

Notable Hagsfiends

• Kreeth
• Penryck
• Nyra
• The Striga
• Ygryk
• Lutta
• Ullryck
• Mycroft
• Lord Arrin
• Hengen
• Mylotte
• Hagsfiend Queen (video game)
• Bylyric (rumored to be a hagsfiend)

Description

Hagsfiends are described to be two times larger than a regular owl, with burning golden eyes that can put owls in a yeepish state. They look like a bird mixed between an owl and a crow. Their feathers are ragged and are described to be noisy fliers because of this. They carry a foul scent, and many half-hags live in their wing feathers to feast of the many pests in their feathers.

These creatures rarely go near seawater, as they have no oil in their feathers to protect themselves from the salt in the seawater. As a result, they can't shed salt water from their feathers, which makes their wings ice over, at least in the cold Northern Kingdom, and they fall into the sea.

Abilities

As mentioned above, nachtmagen is a powerful dark magic of the hagsfiend. The most well known of these is fyngrot, a hypnotic yellow light which can cause an owl to go yeep, making its wings fold and it falls to earth. There are a couple variations on it, including the nacht 'Ga, which makes an owl think it is turning into a hagsfiend, and then the hagsfiend casting it can control the owl. There is also the nacht blucken, which Pleek and Ygyrk try to use on Hoole. It works on owlets and chicks, making the chick resistant to half-hag poison and gives it a fyngrot after its eyes are ripped out.

The fyngrot can be resisted by lack of awe and surprise of a hagsfiend, the green light of a wolf of the Beyond's eyes, and, in theory, a reflective mirror. However, there were cases when Siv and Hoole looked into the eyes of hagsfiends but prevented it from having an effect on them. The wolves of the Beyond are also immune, and can use their eyes to destroy it, but only temporarily.

Staying with a hagsfiend for a long time causes an owl to lose various traits and become 'haggish." Some hagsfinds (especially Kreeth) can use various spells to render their victims helpless and aid in battle. Hagsfiends also have small "half-hags," which are flying creatures that have a poison which hagsfiends are immune to. They live under the hagsfiend's feathers and are used for tracking and battle by the hagsfiends. Despite their immense powers, their feathers lack oil and therefore become extremely heavy when they come into contact with salt water. This generally means certain death if a hagsfiend is flying over open salt water.

Offspring

The offspring of a hagsfiend starts as as egg which will grow darker as it matures until it hatches. Owls and hagsfiends cannot breed and expect the young to hatch, however this doesn't mean they are inable to mate. An example of hagsfiend/owl mating is Pleek and Ygryk, a Great Horned Owl and a hagsfiend. An immature owlet could also be turned into a hagsfiend by removing its eye, setting half-hags on it, and casting an enchantment. Ygryk learns this from Kreeth, the arch-hagsfiend.

Habits

Hagsfiends are known to rip apart and tear off the heads of their defeated enemies and stab them on poles (ice swords) of ice to make a big show of it while marching. This happened to King H'rath and Myrrthe, Siv's trusted servant.

Hagsfiends also have a strange fascination to creatures weaker then themselves, especially young animals. This is usually not associated with love as Hagsfiends have been known to kill their own young.

The closer Hagsfiends get to the Ember of Hoole, physically, mentally, and sometimes even spiritually, the more "haggish" they become. This is most seen when there is a hagsfiend in disguise, which is a hagsfiend not in its original form, possessing another creature. Which explains Nyra and the Striga's "haggishness" in The War of the Ember.

Etymology

Hagsfiend is a compound word made up of the words hag and fiend. Hag can refer to a witch, a female demon, or a similar evil spirit. Fiend can refer to a devil, a demon, or an evil and conniving person. The species’ less contemptuous name, crowl, is simply a combination of the words crow and owl, a direct reference to the two birds that crowls share traits with.

The distinction between how the names hagsfiend and crowl are used is unclear and they appear to be interchangeable.

Trivia

• In the french edition of the books, Hagsfiends are called Hagsmon.
• In German, they're called both Hägsdämonen (hagsfiends) and Hexenkreulen (witch crowls)
• Hagsfiends are described as being "twice as large as even the largest owls" in To Be a King.
• They're also said to have two long feathery tufts sticking out of their heads, almost like a Great Horned Owl or a Long Eared Owl.
• In the owl world, a succubus is a hagsfiend without wings.
• Despite her getting close to the Ember in The Outcast, it didn't appear to have made Nyra look more haggish.