Character Analysis
Don't Look a Capaill Uisce in the Mouth
Not if you want to keep your nose anyway. Especially Skata. Skata is the piebald mare that Sean suggests be thrown back into the sea early in the novel. She's too wild to tame, and Sean believes that she's more trouble than she's worth.
If any of the capaill uisce in the novel could be considered evil, it's Skata. Describing her, Sean says, "[her] ears are long and wickedly pointed toward each other, less like a horse and more like a demon (37.48). Normally Sean has only kindness for the capaill—they kill people because it's in their nature, after all—but for Skata, he has no such sympathy.
It's no surprise when Sean's biggest human rival, Mutt, ends up riding his least-favorite capaill, Skata, although the results aren't exactly what all the foreshadowing has been leading toward. It would have been tragic if Skata killed Sean, Puck, Corr, or Dove, but it's not when Skata ends up dragging Mutt Malvern to a watery grave. He should have listened to Sean after all.