Eileen the Crow: Bloodborne's Hunter of Hunters

Eileen the Crow is a Hunter of Hunters: an old hunter whose job is to kill other hunters who have gone drunk with blood. She wears a crow-feather cape and a beaked mask, fights with the twin-bladed Blade of Mercy, and treats the player with a gruff, motherly concern. Over the night of the hunt she warns the player, fights beside them, and, if her quest is finished, hands over her badge and her burden. (Bloodborne)

What is a Hunter of Hunters?#

The Crowfeather Garb explains the tradition. Hunters of Hunters dress as crows to suggest sky burial. The first Hunter of Hunters came from a foreign land and gave the dead "a virtuous native funeral ritual, rather than impose a blasphemous Yharnam burial service upon them", hoping that former comrades might return to the skies and "find rest in a hunter's dream". (Bloodborne)

The Crow Hunter Badge says the badge of the hunter of hunters is passed down quietly from generation to generation, "usually to an outsider from the hinterlands". To be trusted with it, one must be strong, resistant to the seduction of blood, and gracious when taking a comrade's life. The Blade of Mercy is one of the oldest weapons of the workshop, forged with siderite, "a rare mineral of the heavens". (Bloodborne)

The Hunter rune, red-smudged, belongs to those who take the oath. These watchmen admonish those addled with blood, and anyone who threatens them, it says, "surely has an issue with blood". (Bloodborne)

Eileen's story#

Eileen first meets the player in Central Yharnam, hidden above the streets. She knows an outsider when she sees one: "What a mess you've been caught up in. And tonight, of all nights." There are no humans left, she warns. They're all flesh-hungry beasts now. (Bloodborne)

In Cathedral Ward she gives a warning. Henryk, an old hunter, has gone mad, and he is her mark. Don't go near the tomb below Oedon Chapel. (Bloodborne)

If the player goes anyway and the two of them kill Henryk together, she is grateful and a little cross. She guesses the player must have killed Father Gascoigne as well. "He was falling apart. I'm sure it had to be done. But try to keep your hands clean. A hunter should hunt beasts. Leave the hunting of hunters to me..." (Bloodborne)

The Grand Cathedral#

After the blood moon rises, Eileen is found slumped on the steps outside the Grand Cathedral. She's made "a bit of a blunder", she says, but she's taken blood, "enough to save an old woman". "No more dreams for me. This is my last chance." She tells the player to turn back; it's her score to settle. Inside waits another hunter. (Bloodborne)

When the player comes back out, she gives them her badge and rune. She isn't suited to this life anymore, she says; her glory days were long ago. "This too is hunters' work, but it bears no honor. A burden you may choose to carry." Then she says her eyes are heavy and she'll rest a while. (Bloodborne)

When Eileen turns#

If the player skips part of her quest, Eileen is found inside the Grand Cathedral instead, and she attacks. "Few hunters can resist the intoxication of the hunt... Look at you, just the same as all the rest. The hunters must die... The nightmare must end... Only I can stop this madness! The hunt makes hunters mad!" Dying, she calls the player a monster. (Bloodborne)

Even when friendly, if the player strikes her, she treats them as a drunk hunter: "Look at you, you sorry drunk." And if she wins, she says, "You still have dreams? Tell the little doll I said hello." (Bloodborne)

What the game leaves open#

• Eileen's line about the little doll is the reason many players think she was once a hunter of the Hunter's Dream herself. "No more dreams for me" points the same way. The game never confirms it. (Bloodborne)
• Whether Eileen dies after the cathedral is unknown. Her body is gone when the player returns. Some read that as death, others as the old woman getting up and leaving. (Bloodborne)
• The hunter in the cathedral is a Cainhurst knight, and many players read the fight as an echo of the Church's war with Cainhurst. The game doesn't explain why he's there. (Bloodborne)