A strange creature, the swamp qilin, haunts the lonely places where the tumbled stones of the mountains foster grass and snow-water streams among the wooded gloom. The qilins' otherworldly calls are accompanied at night by the music of the “swamp gypsies,” the ena who sing in the swamp, their wandering lights always close at hand yet ever out of reach.

"Kirin" is Japanese; "qilin" is Mandarin. The choice of which to use here was pure aesthetics.