Item #: SCP-4918

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: The whereabouts of SCP-4918-1, -2 and -3 are largely unknown. Their physical descriptions, as well as their last known photographs, are available to all Foundation agents throughout Europe, to aid in containment.

SCP-4918-1 is believed to be somewhere in Western Europe, but favors the British Isles, particularly Wales and Cornwall. As they display skill with hand-to-hand and close-range combat (particularly swords), containment attempts are to be carried out long-range with the use of non-lethal munitions.

SCP-4918-2 is believed to be the most difficult to contain, due to its degree of omniscience. Currently, there is no effective way to combat this effect, and SCP-4918-2's current whereabouts are unknown. Foundation agents in areas with a large population of individuals of Irish descent are to watch for sightings of SCP-4918-2.

SCP-4918-3 is currently believed to be residing somewhere in Finland. Foundation assets are monitoring remote areas for signs of probability manipulation, including high crop yields, low rates of disease during epidemics, and large economic windfalls. SCP-4918-3's current whereabouts remain unknown.

SCP-4918-4 is currently uncontainable, due to their status as a member of the European Parliament. Foundation personnel are embedded within their security detail, and containment efforts will resume at such a time where they are removed from their position in the Parliament.

Description: SCP-4918 refers to several humanoid individuals possessing anomalous properties which first became active during the First World War. A common anomaly among all SCP-4918 instances is that they possess complete immortality.

SCP-4918-1(far right) resting during the Battle of the Scarpe, 1917.

SCP-4918-1 refers to a human male of Celtic Briton ethnicity1 standing at approximately 1.9m in height, weighing 123 kg. SCP-4918-1 possesses brunette hair, and speaks fluent Old Cornish, Old Welsh, Middle and Modern English, and some French.

SCP-4918-1 was discovered in September of 1914, following the emergence of an island off of the western coast of England, approximately 20km south of the Isle of Man. SCP-4918-1 sailed from this island along with a set of twelve nondescript women, arriving at Liverpool's port in a currach. SCP-4918-1 proceeded to harass the locals, whilst the women attempted to calm SCP-4918-1. Following the arrival of the foreign intelligence branch of the Secret Service Bureau2, the women returned to the island, which could not be located.

SCP-4918-1 exclusively spoke Old Welsh and Old Cornish upon its contact with the SSB, and communication was only established through contact with Arthur Sampson Napier, a professor of Anglo-Saxon studies in Oxford. Napier wrote of his encounter with SCP-4918-1:

For the majority of the interview, he stared at me, confused as to how I was speaking; I think my accent was unintelligible to him. Eventually, I started talking Cornish, and he instantly started speaking. He was personable, charismatic, even, but the claims he made— he rode with giants and werewolves and all manner of beings to war against Mordred. He claims to be the rightful King of Britain!

I told him I was the Earl of Sussex as a joke. I thought he was going to take off my head— he does not appreciate the Saxons.

An artifact in possession of SSB3 confirmed the legitimacy of SCP-4918-1's claim to the English throne. What followed was a protracted series of disputes between SCP-4918-1 and King George V over whether or not the latter should abdicate the Throne of England; SCP-4918-1's claim appears to be related to the fact that they neither died nor abdicated their throne, and the country functioned on the assumption they had died. Furthermore, the artifact in question only claimed that SCP-4918-1 had a valid claim to the throne of Britain, and not the throne of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and all of its Colonies. Again, Napier writes:

I sat in on another audience between the two Kings. It's clear that His Majesty is afraid— his knuckles were white from clutching the arms of his chair. His Majesty got the throne through pure luck, and there have been claims upon claims doubting his legitimacy.

Arthur is more charismatic than His Majesty can ever hope to be— he has a presence about him that tells me that he was raised in a different time, but his wisdom is timeless. Still, His Majesty has experience with the modern world— Britain, and all of its Empire. Arthur was alarmed by the prospect of the empire being so large that it touched all corners of the world.

A sample of the exchange which took place:

H.M.: People don't expect a chivalrous king. Not in war time. We must be pragmatic, we cannot afford honour, not when we've my cousin's4 army to contend with.

A: I know nothing of chivalry. I know of honour— and the fact that you have your arse on a padded seat instead of in a saddle, riding to battle alongside your men, is enough for me to know that you are not a king.

In December of 1914, SCP-4918-1's efforts to claim the Throne of England ceased— Napier notes that this is most likely due to the fact that SCP-4918-1 would not have been able to both govern and participate in active combat.

SCP-4918-1 is listed as Arthur █████ in official British Military Records, having taken part in several military operations during the course of the First World War as a cavalry officer. SCP-4918-1 is recorded as fighting exclusively with a long or broad sword, and rode upon a brown mare which reportedly possessed anomalous properties.

A report of these anomalous properties is recorded in a letter from John ███████ to his wife Edith, prior to its seizure due to the British Army's censorship practices:

Arthur has always been a queer fellow; abnormally lucky, his horse Llamerel seems to ride between mines. And he speaks English as if he were out of time— he's taught me some of his tongue, and it is fascinating. He even produced a copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, though he informs me the incident in question actually happened to a Sir Kay, as a joke by Arthur's half-sister.

I'm sure it is the fever causing me to hallucinate, but Arthur seems to have strange properties about him. When he ran over the trenches, he took at least twenty rounds to the chest, from a machine gun, and he kept running. When he returned, not even his clothes were torn. It must have been a dream.

Others say they have seen him shot through the skull, only to stand a second later. This man is fascinating, as is the work he has presented me with— he has told me to keep the book, as a gift. And he's also told me to seek something called Beowolf(?) which a friend in the army recommended to him.

Officially, Arthur █████ died in 1976. In 2015, a video appearing to depict SCP-4918-1 at Dozmary Pool in Cornwall was taken by a tourist. The transcript of that video is below.

SCP-4918-1: Nimue!

SCP-4918-1 splashes at the water.

SCP-4918-1: Come out here, you fairy bitch!

SCP-4918-1 throws something into the water. It appears to be a large piece of iron.

SCP-4918-1: I've been out here one-hundred years and you don't even have the decency to give me back my sword?! I fought without it by my side! I watched people suffer! I could have saved them if I had Caliburn!

Tourist 1: What the hell?

Tourist 2: He's probably high on something.

SCP-4918-1: Nimue! Give it back!

A large, humanoid shape appears in the middle of the lake. It appears to be made out of water. Large amounts of digital static appears on the film.

Tourist 1: What the fuck?

Unknown Entity: (In Welsh) I don't have it anymore, Arthur.

SCP-4918-1: What do you mean? We gave it to you after Camlann!

Unknown Entity: (In Welsh) It was stolen.

SCP-4918-1: If I had it, I… I could have saved them. You could have given it to me—

Unknown Entity: (In Welsh) You thought you could be a hero if you wielded Caliburn? Europe was a charnel house. A sword wouldn't have changed that.

The Unknown Entity turns to look at the tourists. The footage after this point is corrupted beyond recovery.

SCP-4918-2 is an Irish male. SCP-4918-2 measures 2.1m in height, weighing approximately 131kg. SCP-4918-2 possesses white hair, and a burn scar on their right thumb, which is believed to have anomalous properties; specifically, this scar confers a limited form of omniscience when it is in contact with SCP-4918-2's mouth.

SCP-4918-2 commands a small army of Irish individuals, both male and female, collectively designated SCP-4918-2A. All SCP-4918-2A instances, as well as SCP-4918-2 itself, ride an unknown, possibly extinct breed of horse, and show experience with a wide variety of weaponry.

SCP-4918-2 manifested during the Gallipoli Campaign. An unknown soldier, likely of Irish descent, was seen blowing a hunting horn prior to being shot and killed by Ottoman forces. Following this, SCP-4918-2 and several -2A instances were seen tending to the dead and wounded, as well as loading all corpses onto horses.

The following is an account of an Irish soldier who discovered SCP-4918-2 instances tending to the wounded.

We had heard the horn about half an hour before we saw the riders. I nearly caught an arrow in the face for startling them— they shouted out a warning in Gaelic.

"Friend or Foe of the Fianna?" They asked. "Friend", I told them. They looked at the other two survivors in my company— Prajheer and Allan— and ushered us over.

Blood and muck splashed around our feet. These men and women, they looked out of time— some had woad on their skin that was running, as if they had rode through a rainstorm. The Fianna, they had called themselves— heroes, one and all. But there were no cries of joy at the defeat of an enemy, because the enemy wasn't defeated. All that were here were bones trampled underfoot.

A man, large and bearded, held one of the corpses. I recognized the soldier from glimpses traded over the canteen table. He could have been the weeping man's son— the same eyes, same nose, same hair. And laying at his side was a broken horn.

Looking over the sea was a man with white hair, his hand clutched around a spear. I approached him, unsure if I should bow or not. He looked at me, and asked one thing. "What is it you desire now, more than anything? Revenge against the butchers? Victory in this battle? The wealth of a nation?"

I just replied that I wanted to see my mother. We all did. Allan had joined the army young, and none of our letters were getting through.

"A noble goal", he replied. He grabbed me by the arm and swooped me up onto his horse. The other survivors were asked where they lived, but somehow, he knew. Fionn knew my mother.

The sky blurred— stars spiraled above, and the wind blew mud from my face. I slept, and when I awoke, my mother's arms were wrapped around me, and she was sobbing.

Sightings of SCP-4918-2 are the least common among SCP-4918 instances. Reports of SCP-4918-2A instances riding into battle alongside British cavalry have been corroborated, but SCP-4918-2 itself was not seen again until the Irish War of Independence occurred in 1919.

A stone tablet recovered outside of Dublin in 1949, believed to have been inscribed by SCP-4918-2, reads as such:

When I was young, my mothers taught me the ways of the sword and the ways of magic. I love them, and I weep for them. If they could see the world as it is now, how Eire and Albion and the rest of it has suffered, they would have kept me secluded in a cave for my whole life.

I do not curse the man who blew the Dord Fiann. He was terrified, and he called for help the only way he knew how. We rode to his side, and for weeks after, our horse's feet were stained by blood. I could not stand by and watch— it was sickening, what was occurring.

I, Fionn Mac Cumhaill, am a coward. I cannot watch the senseless suffering, even if it means that I can help those who suffer. Eire called me in its time of aid, and I answered. I will not answer again.

SCP-4918-2 has reportedly been sighted throughout the New England region of the United States, among areas where individuals of Irish descent have populated.

SCP-4918-3 is an elderly male human, purportedly of Finnish heritage5 standing at approximately 1.5m in height, weight unknown. SCP-4918-3 possesses grey hair with a grey beard. SCP-4918-3 is described as being in possession of a kantele6, and wears garments made of bear pelts.

SCP-4918-3 (left) reciting poetry whilst comforting a victim of the H1N1 pandemic, 1918.

SCP-4918-3 was first sighted in the port of Helsinki on December 31st, 1917, sailing into the port of Helsinki while playing their kantele. SCP-4918-3 proceeded to conduct a New Years celebration in a small tavern in Helsinki; this building has shown anomalous properties in the intervening years.

Following the commencement of the Finnish Civil war in January of 1918, SCP-4918-3 acted as a beneficent party to both the Socialist Democratic Red Guard and the German-backed White Guard. During the Battle of Helsinki, SCP-4918-3 appeared on the rooftops throughout the city, singing a song with thaumaturgical properties. This song is believed to be a retelling of the Kalevala, and its thaumaturgical effects were only evident on individuals of Finnish descent; German forces which landed in the area were unaffected.

SCP-4918-3's song caused probabilistic anomalies to take place; bullets that would otherwise have missed their targets instead ricocheted and hit, shots that should have been fatal caused minor injuries, grenades failed to detonate. However, due to the fact that both sides of the Battle of Helsinki were affected by SCP-4918-3, it is unknown exactly how much its outcome was affected by SCP-4918-3's presence.

Following the conclusion of the civil war, SCP-4918-3 dedicated itself to civilian efforts, namely caring for individuals who had been stricken by the H1N1 Influenza pandemic of 1918. SCP-4918-3 would visit the most affected areas of Finland, reciting poetry and singing to individuals in which symptoms of Pandemic Flu had manifested. Several of these individuals made a complete recovery within weeks of SCP-4918-3's visit.

A priest in Inari wrote this about SCP-4918-3 in a letter to their brother:

I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ, and the Saints. I have been praying over the beds of dozens of those who come in, coughing fluid from their lungs, dying, miserable. Some have tried to take their lives, but are too weak to tie a noose.

I do not know if this man that has come is a servant of God. He presents himself as a bard, playing his kantele and singing of the Sampo7 and of great exploits that he has done. He paints himself as a folk hero, a jester.

But somehow, they improve. I saw a child, who had been turning blue for the last three days, stand up and start dancing with him. Lungs that could barely breathe a day before sang and laughed. Hands that popped like cereal in milk were writing letters to their parents.

If I have just witnessed a miracle, I do not know what to say. A man who looked older than the Earth below me sang a song, and others danced to his tune. I do not know if he is divine, or devilish, but he saved so many.

SCP-4918-3 was sighted during the Winter and Continuation wars; following this, sightings have been sporadic.

SCP-4918-4 is Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, appearing as he did on the date of his death in 1190. SCP-4918-4 was recovered in Bavaria in 1914, being led down from a mountain by a child of German descent, bemoaning the absence of ravens. SCP-4918-4 was brought to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who appointed SCP-4918-4 as a military adviser. SCP-4918-4 spoke modern German upon its discovery, evidently through anomalous means.

SCP-4918-4 was reportedly reluctant to aid Wilhelm II, to the point of entering physical altercations at least four times during the course of World War I. The following recounts General Ludendorff's observations of a meeting in Berlin in early 1915, where SCP-4918-4 was present:

It was clear neither the Kaiser or His Holiness were happy. Frederick had a bloodied nose (though it had healed so quickly that I could only see bloodstains in his beard) and the Kaiser had a bruised eye. We ignored it as the meeting began.

The first item was the so-called "Weihnachtsfrieden"8. We assured the Kaiser it would not happen again, but His Holiness scoffed.

"They spent a few nights getting fat on sausages and warming their stomachs with coffee. It's essentially what Wilhelm does every day— should we begrudge his troops for wanting to live like their Emperor?"

Thankfully, I managed to have a coughing fit at this time, concealing my humor.

SCP-4918-4 appears to have privately written satirical documents critical of the war, which were published in allied territories. An excerpt from one such document, "Cousins Billy and Georgie", follows.

Cousin Georgie has lots of toy boats. Lots and lots of toy boats. Big boats, small boats, short boats, tall boats. He has a veritable navy.

Cousin Billy doesn't have any boats, and he doesn't have any money to buy them. So, when Cousin Ferdinand gets sick, he decides to ally himself with Cousin Karl to get money to buy some boats. But Cousin Georgie doesn't like Cousin Karl.

So now Cousin Billy has a lot of boats, and Cousin Georgie and Cousin Billy are breaking their own toys to spite each other.

SCP-4918-4 is the only remaining SCP-4918 instance who is known to be active. Their whereabouts were previously unknown, but in 2016, they re-emerged under the pseudonym Frederick Bismarck, a member of the European Democratic Party, shortly prior to their election to the European Parliament.

Due to their prominence in the parliament, as well as several treaties and agreements made with the Global Occult Coalition and various anomalous monitoring organizations of EU Member countries, containment is currently infeasible. However, in November of 2018, Foundation assets posing as journalists from the Daily Telegraph were able to conduct an interview with SCP-4918-4.

<Begin Log>

Agent Pullman: I'm glad we could meet, Herr Bismarck.

SCP-4918-4: Bitte, call me Frederick. You may not be in the EU for much longer, but I still like to be on a first-name basis with as many citizens as I can.

Agent Pullman: You rose to prominence fairly recently. It's hard to find much evidence of you existing before 2016.

SCP-4918-4: Yes, well, I've got a rather lengthy family line. From all the way back to the Holy Roman Empire, until the first World War— around the time Hitler came to power, my family fled for England.

SCP-4918-4 interrupts Agent Pullman's next question.

SCP-4918-4: I believe it is time that we, how do you say, "cut the bullshit'?

Agent Pullman: I'm sorry?

SCP-4918-4: And now I know you're spewing bullshit. If you had said something such as "I agree, let's talk about your policies" or "What are your thoughts on the state of the world", then you wouldn't have blown yourself. Now, who are you really?

Agent Pullman: Someone who knows that your last name isn't really Bismarck.

SCP-4918-4: Well, judging by the fact that I'm not being escorted away by men in tactical gear, I believe I can speak plainly, yes? So ask your actual questions.

Agent Pullman: Alright. From what we can tell, you and three other… for lack of a better term, people woke up during World War I. Supposedly, all of them are meant to arise in their homeland's time of need.

SCP-4918-4: Ah, yes. I ran into Arthur in a cafe in Belgium. Nice man, but he's still having trouble adapting to the times.

Agent Pullman: You're aware of the others?

SCP-4918-4: How could I not be? After a time, things like us, we're… drawn to each other. I've so far avoided the others— they seem to be keeping mostly to themselves, and I prefer to stay within Germany.

Agent Pullman: The thing is… you're all supposed to awaken in your nation's greatest time of need. World War I was a pissing match between a few family members. Not really the stuff of heroes.

SCP-4918-4: I agree. The reason Arthur was in Brussels in the first place was because he had grown sick of the machinations of "Ungentlemanly Warfare"9 and SIS.

SCP-4918-4 shakes his head.

SCP-4918-4: I don't think we were supposed to wake up, not yet.

Agent Pullman: You think it was induced? How?

SCP-4918-4: The boy I was with was meant to check if there were any ravens on the mountain— if there were no ravens, I would awaken. I went back to the mountain after the war, hoping to rest— I found the corpses of hundreds of ravens, shot dead by German bullets.

Agent Pullman: And another one was summoned by the blowing of a hunting horn. That doesn't account for the other two.

SCP-4918-4: You may want to do a recount— there were more than four countries involved in the war.

Agent Pullman: How many of you are out there?

SCP-4918-4: I'd wager there are as many Bergentruckung10 as there are countries. But that's not any of my business.

Agent Pullman: I… see. Well, er, Your Holiness—

SCP-4918-4: Frederick, please.

Agent Pullman: Frederick, I think that it's best if I leave.

SCP-4918-4: Very well. Oh, and if you run into Sir Francis, tell him that he still owes me for that boat of mine he sank.

Agent Pullman: Sir Francis… Drake?

SCP-4918-4: And I have said too much.

<End Log>

SCP-4918-5 (tentatively) refers to Sir Francis Drake. They are believed to have been present at several naval engagements in the First and Second World Wars, but little is known about this SCP-4918 instance at this time.

Footnotes

1. An ethnic group which inhabited the British Isles from the Iron age through the Middle Ages, before splitting off into the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Bretons, among other groups.

2. The organization that would later become the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6.

3. This artifact, designated SCP-████, is believed to be among the Crown Jewels of England. The modern British Occult Service has declined to let the Foundation inspect the Crown Jewels for anomalies.

4. Kaiser Wilhelm II was the first cousin of King George V.

5. A sample of SCP-4918-3's DNA, recovered from a lock of hair given to a Finnish soldier, shows genetic links to every other individual of Finnish descent; the implications of this are unclear.

6. A string instrument with origins in Finland.

7. A magical item present in the Kalevala, which serves as a good luck charm. The exact nature of the Sampo is unknown.

8. The German term used to refer to the 1914 Christmas Truce on the Western Front.

9. Referring to the British Special Operations Executive, or "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare", an espionage group active during the Second World War.

10. Literally "mountain rapture".