Aiel

In Robert Jordan's fantasy series The Wheel of Time, the Aiel ( /aɪˈiːl/) are a race of people. They live between the "wetlanders" in the west and the Sharans in the east, in a desert which the Aiel call The Three-fold Land and which everyone else calls the Aiel Waste. They have earned a reputation as skilled warriors; little else is known about them in the wider world. Aiel can be recognized through their height, characteristic pale eyes, and red or blond hair. Physically, they are reminiscent of the Celts; culturally, of Native Americans, Frank Herbert's fictional Fremen, and to some extent the people of Arabia and feudal Japan. Their short spears with sword-like blades, their three-pronged encircling tactics and their outrunning of horses are all derived from the Impi warriors of the Zulu. Their division into clans and septs--with fierce loyalty—mirrors Gaelic culture in Ireland and Scotland.