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Then there were places like Prythian, divided and ruled by seven High Lords—beings of such unyielding power that legend claimed they could level buildings, break apart armies, and butcher you before you could blink.

Feyre Archeron, A Court of Thorns and Roses

Prythian (pronounced: Prith-ee-en[1]) is one of the Faerie realms in existence in the world. It is divided into seven courts, each ruled by a High Lord.

Geography[]

Prythian is composed of seven separately ruled lands called "courts" consisting of four seasonal courts: the Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring Courts, and three solar courts: the Night, the Day, and Dawn Courts. It also borders the Mortal Lands to the south, with the only separation between them being the Wall, and lies east of the Kingdom of Hybern.

The name Prythian is a corruption of the ancient name for Britain, which is Brython or Britton, perhaps a nod to the silhouette of the land resembling that of Great Britain. Likewise, Hybern is a corruption of Hibernia, the ancient name for Ireland. Geographically, Hybern is an island off the west coast of Prythian, just as Ireland is an island off the west coast of Britain. Prythian is also very similar to the Welsh word for Britain: Prydain.

Seasonal Courts[]

Main article: Seasonal Courts

The geography of the seasonal courts begins with the Spring Court, the southernmost court, and the only court to border the wall that separates the Mortal Lands from Prythian. North of the Spring Court lies the Summer and Autumn Courts, Summer to the west, and Autumn to the east. The fourth and final seasonal court is the Winter Court, which lies north of the Summer and Autumn Courts.

Solar Courts[]

Main article: Solar Courts

North of the seasonal courts resides the three solar courts: the Night Court, the Day Court, and the Dawn Court. The Dawn Court resides north of the Winter Court and is known for its mountain palace in the clouds. Continuing North of the Dawn Court is the Day Court, the court said to contain much of Prythian's history within its abundance of libraries. Occupying the land to the far north is the Night Court, the largest and most feared of all of the courts.

Pyrthian

The Fae courts of Pyrthian, featuring major locations (Art by Sparklyclarke)

Other Locations[]

History[]

According to the Fae, the entire world, including Prythian, the Kingdom of Hybern, and the Mortal Lands, was birthed from a magical object of extreme and unimaginable power called The Cauldron.

Prythian is a realm of faeries divided into seven Courts: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, Autumn, Spring, Dawn, Day and Night. Each of them is ruled by a High Fae with unmatched power, they can be said to be made of power themselves.

Five hundred years prior to the beginning of A Court of Thorns and Roses, the lands of the mortal humans and the immortal Fae had no separation between them. Many Fae from Prythian and the Kingdom of Hybern abused and mistreated humans, often holding them as slaves. This, along with other factors, is what drove the humans to begin the War, a conflict which forced the immortal Fae of Prythian to choose to fight alongside the humans to help them gain their freedom or to join the King of Hybern and his ruthless commander Amarantha to defeat the humans and continue their enslavement. At the end of the War, a Treaty was established between the Fae and the humans abolishing human enslavement by the Fae and ordering the separation of Prythian from the Mortal Lands by the enormous, invisible structure called The Wall. It also stated that the Fae must remain in Prythian. If a Fae were to cross over into the Mortal Lands, the humans have a right to dispose of that Fae however they choose.

The wall is located on the southern border of the Spring Court and is two days away from the village where Feyre Archeron and her family lived.

After the war with the humans ended, Amarantha, the main commander of the army of the King of Hybern, appeared in the Courts and cleverly seized most of the powers of the High Lords and proclaimed herself as the High Queen of Prythian.

She established her stronghold beneath the Sacred Mountain of Prythian and christened her lands Under the Mountain, where she forced all citizens of the Courts to reside except for the Spring Court, since she had given the High Lord, Tamlin, forty-nine years to break a curse she had cast upon him.

Trivia[]

  • The name of the island where Prythian and the Mortal Lands south of Prythian are located has not been named in the series.

References[]


Faerie Realms
Black Land · Cretea · Hybern · Lapplund · Montesere · Prythian · Rask · Ravennia · Vallahan · Xian
Courts of Prythian
Seasonal Winter · Autumn · Spring · Summer
Solar Dawn · Day · Night
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