Coranian invaders

The Coranian invaders are the first of three calamities to afflict the Island of Britain in the story of Lludd and Llevelys. Their defining power is an extraordinary capacity to overhear speech: if the wind catches even the faintest discourse anywhere on the island, the invaders learn what was said. This makes them appear beyond injury, not because the account describes their weapons or armies, but because their knowledge prevents the Britons from acting against them unseen. Lludd ultimately defeats them through a remedy devised by Llevelys, turning the very problem of secrecy into a question of choosing a means they cannot counter.

Identity and Threat

The narrative identifies the Coranian invaders as a race that comes to the Island of Britain and names them as the first of three unprecedented plagues. It gives no leader, political organization, origin, or account of their arrival beyond that description. Their distinctive feature is instead the reach of their hearing: any discourse on the island, however quietly spoken, becomes known to them if the wind meets it. The account presents that knowledge as the reason they cannot be injured. It does not describe a conventional campaign against them; their advantage lies in being able to discover what others say and plan.

Their plague is distinct from the other two that strike the kingdom. A terrible shriek returns over every hearth on May Eve, bringing widespread loss of strength and fertility; separately, food prepared in the king’s courts disappears after the first night. At first, the causes of those latter afflictions are unknown, while the Coranians’ presence and extraordinary knowledge are already recognized. The distinction matters to the story’s structure: Lludd can seek a remedy for the invaders as one identifiable danger, even while the other calamities still require their own explanations and responses.

Lludd Seeks Counsel

The threat brings Lludd sorrow and uncertainty because he does not know how to free his kingdom. After calling the nobles together and asking for counsel, he turns to his brother Llevelys, king of France, whose wisdom is trusted. Lludd’s voyage is prepared in secrecy so that the Coranians will not learn its purpose. When Llevelys approaches with a large fleet, Lludd leaves the other ships at sea and meets him in a single vessel; the brothers embrace and welcome one another before discussing the crisis.

Their attempt to speak privately makes the invaders’ power concrete. Since ordinary speech might be carried by the wind, they use a long brass horn to converse. Yet the words passing through it reach them as harsh, hostile speech rather than intelligible counsel. Llevelys recognizes that a demon is interfering with the horn and washes it with wine, driving the demon out. Only after this obstruction is removed can the brothers communicate effectively. The episode places two distinct barriers between Lludd and a solution: the Coranians’ surveillance shapes the need for secrecy, while the demon frustrates the device chosen to secure it.

Llevelys’s Countermeasure

Llevelys gives Lludd insects and divides their use according to two possible needs. Lludd is to preserve some for breeding in case the same affliction returns. He is to braise others in water; that preparation, Llevelys assures him, will destroy the Coranians. The advice does not depend on overcoming their ability to overhear plans through the wind. Instead, it supplies Lludd with a means of acting against them without needing to conceal a spoken strategy from them.

Llevelys also specifies how the remedy is to be administered. On returning to Britain, Lludd is to summon both his own people and the Coranians to a conference, presenting the gathering as an effort to make peace. He is then to cast the prepared water over everyone together. Although the remedy is applied to the whole assembly, it will poison the Coranians and neither kill nor harm the Britons. The plan thus uses a public meeting rather than a hidden attack, while its selective effect distinguishes the intended victims from those gathered with them.

Defeat and Narrative Significance

Back in his kingdom, Lludd follows Llevelys’s instructions: he gathers his people and the Coranians, bruises the insects in water, and casts the liquid over the assembled group. The Coranian invaders are destroyed, and the Britons suffer no harm. The outcome fulfills the precise distinction promised by Llevelys and resolves the first plague without a battle described in the account. The preserved insects also leave open the possibility of preparing against a recurrence, though the narrative does not report that the Coranians return.

Their episode makes Lludd’s rule a test of judgment as much as force. The king acknowledges that he cannot resolve the crisis alone, seeks counsel from his brother, and carries out a plan whose success depends on a carefully chosen remedy and a particular gathering. The Coranians are formidable because information itself protects them; their defeat comes not from matching their surveillance with superior secrecy, but from a countermeasure that can be administered openly and harms them alone. The story therefore gives this plague a clear resolution while keeping it separate from the two other afflictions, whose causes and remedies belong to the larger sequence of Lludd’s efforts to restore the kingdom.