Weaving by Zdenka

Sea-shawls

Young Galadriel learns to weave sailcloth with her mother in Alqualondë, with some reluctance.

". . . and the white timbers we wrought with our own hands, and the white sails were woven by our wives and our daughters." (The Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor")

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Eärwen glanced up from her weaving when she heard her daughter heave a deep sigh. Galadriel was working at a smaller loom, better suited to a child’s size. She was conscientiously sending the shuttle back and forth, but with a clear lack of enthusiasm, and she cast longing looks towards the window. The windows in the weaving room faced towards the sea and the eternal twilight of Alqualondë, as Eärwen preferred. With the lamps lit inside to aid their work, the scene outside the windows could not be seen clearly; but the gauzy blue-grey curtains fluttered in the breeze, and the cries of the gulls and the crashing of the waves carried clearly from the shore.

Eärwen went over to check on Galadriel’s progress. Though the weaving had not advanced much, at least the girl was working carefully and without mistakes. “Why are you so slow today?” she chided. “Isn't it an honor, to weave sea-shawls for Lady Uinen?”

Galadriel sighed again and didn’t answer.

“First the cloth has to be woven,” Eärwen said in a teasing tone, “and then cut and sewn together. And then the new ship is fitted with sails so that she can fly over the ocean, like a bird with wings! Isn’t it a fine thing to see?”

Galadriel scowled at her. “I know all that.” She looked away to the window again. “But it’s boring,” she muttered rebelliously.

Eärwen was silent for a moment. She had hoped to tease out what was troubling her daughter, but perhaps this was too much honesty. “The Lords of the Sea first taught us this craft,” she continued more slowly. “I learned from my mother and her sisters when I was your age. It’s a skill that our people take pride in.”

“I like our ships!” Galadriel retorted. “I like how they sail, and I like the sails when they’re on the ships. But I don’t like having to sit in here to weave them.”

Eärwen looked thoughtfully at Galadriel’s loom. She measured off a distance with her fingers. “Weave up to here, and then you can go outside to play on the beach.” She took a bit of colored thread and tied it to the outermost warp thread to mark the spot.

Galadriel brightened. She nodded with a look of determination and set back to work with more fervor.

Eärwen sat back down at her own loom and resumed her own defter weaving. She sang softly as she let the shuttle fly back and forth. Where shall my vessel go, my ship that lies a-building? North to where the air is chill, where ice clings to the rigging? No, to Alqualondë, where my love is waiting! Half-closing her eyes, she could see the ship that would bear these sails, a white-prowed vessel shaped like a swan that would sit lightly on the waves.

“I’m done!” Galadriel said at last. She jumped to her feet eagerly, fairly vibrating with impatience while her mother inspected her work. Eärwen nodded, and Galadriel ran out to the beach, shouting gleefully as she went.

Eärwen smiled and followed at a calmer pace. She found Galadriel racing up and down the sand. Eärwen looked up at the stars, admiring their beauty. Only at Alqualondë was there starlight, and to her that made it the fairest place in Aman. The distant light spilling from the Calacirya was closer to silver now than gold, as Telperion waxed and Laurelin waned.

Galadriel paused in her restless dashing to point at a ship that was sailing gracefully along the coast. “Where is that one going?”

“Fishing, I think. And then it will come back home again.”

Galadriel whirled back to look at her. The ocean breeze blew her golden-silver hair around her face. “I wish it could go even farther! The ship that I make sails for, can it sail out for years and years?”

Eärwen resisted the impulse to pull Galadriel back to her. “That would be too long a voyage, my dear. If they kept going so long, they would only find the lands that your grandparents came from, across the Sea. That place is dark and dangerous—even your grandfather’s brother was lost there, and your grandfather never found him, for all his searching.”

 “I want to go there someday.” Galadriel’s eyes were shining in the starlight. “As far as there is to go, all the way across the Sea!”

---

Chapter End Notes

"Sea-shawls" is a Norse kenning for "sails"; I've always liked that.

Protection

Galadriel learns from Melian in Doriath.

'What wilt thou weave? What wilt thou spin?'
'A marvelous thread, and wind therein
a potent magic, and a spell
I will weave within my web that hell
nor all the powers of Dread shall break.'

(The Lay of Leithian, Canto V)

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“Arda itself was created through music,” said Melian in her melodious voice. “Even now, Song can subtly alter the fabric of Arda, or even change Fate, if the singer has power, will, and intention.”

Even self-bound in flesh as Melian was, Galadriel could never mistake her for one of the Eldar. Her eyes that shone more brightly even than in those born beneath the light of the Two Trees, her voice that carried an undercurrent of lightning and thunder, and the power Galadriel could sense wrapped around her like a cloak: Melian’s body had not been born with her, and if she wished, she could cast it off and once again be pure spirit. It intrigued Galadriel, and made her curious. And she wanted fiercely to learn whatever Melian could teach. She watched intently as Melian lifted her shuttle.

Melian sang as she wove, weaving melody with her voice as she passed the threads under and over each other, so that both song and threads were part of the pattern. Galadriel could see the light welling through the weave of the cloth, colored beams crisscrossing each other like threads. Melian sang of the Sun and the Moon, the deepest roots of the trees and the height of the mountains, her love for this land of Doriath that loved her in return, her love for her family and her people, and, always present, the Light that was at the beginning of Arda. She sang, and she called each of those things into her song. And the grey cloth she wove, that would become a cloak, took on the colors of her song. Galadriel could see how it became imbued with spells of protection, sinking into it like dye.

Lúthien shifted in her place beside Galadriel. She sat perched on her chair almost like one of her mother’s birds, her legs tucked beneath her. She smiled at Galadriel, her eyes alight with a hint of mischief, then swiveled back to face her mother. “Tell us more about what you said yesterday—that we can use parts of the physical body as well as the spirit?”

Melian nodded. “This is something that you, both of you, can do, but I cannot. I came into being outside the fabric the World, and not part of it; each of you was born inside it, from flesh and blood. If you take something that is part of you—a drop of blood, a strand of hair—it can strengthen the working. The marchwardens use one form of this, when they twist bow-strings from their own hair.”

Galadriel gathered a lock of her own hair and looked at it thoughtfully. Fëanor had wanted to use her hair in his work, long ago—not caring who she was or what she wished, but only seeking to use her as raw material, like ore from a mine. But it was another thing if she could learn to use it herself. And she would never hold back her abilities from those she loved. Melian’s power defended Doriath, but no such power protected the pine-covered hills of Dorthonion or the watchtower of Minas Tirith, where her brothers dwelt; and if Morgoth burst forth from Angband, even Nargothrond’s secrecy might not be enough.

Melian held out a shuttle full of thread, and Galadriel took it. It felt like the passing on of a sword, or a shield. She took in a deep breath, and sang as she began to weave. The threads began to shine softly with power under her hands, and Galadriel felt a surge of delight. To discover and learn new things unthought-of before, to test her abilities to the limit—was this not the reason why she had crossed the Sea? They were far below the earth, the stone vault of the cave above them carved with the shapes of branches and birds and woodland creatures, but to Galadriel, it felt as if she stood beneath a wide and limitless sky.

Lothlórien

Galadriel weaves the cloaks of Lothlórien, as young Arwen looks on.

"Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lórien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make. ... You are indeed high in the favor of the Lady! For she herself and her maidens wove this stuff . . ." (The Fellowship of the Ring, "Farewell to Lórien")

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The sunlight filtered down through the golden leaves and lit the wooden floor of the talan that was Galadriel’s weaving-room. Her attendant maidens sat about her, busied with their own work, and her young granddaughter sat on a pile of cushions at her feet.

Galadriel sang as she wove, slipping power in among the threads. As the cloth grew under her hands, it took on many hues and many changes of light: the golden mallorn leaves and flowers of elanor in the grass, moonlight shining over the river Nimrodel, the memory of Doriath and Nargothrond and the pine-woods of Dorthonion where she had walked long ago with her brothers. There too was the twilight of Alqualondë, sands glimmering like pearl under the unclouded stars. And each of the women in the circle joined in with her in turn, adding her voice and the images of what she held most dear. Their voices blended together in harmony, and the thread under their fingers shone gently with light as the swift shuttles flew back and forth.

Arwen joined in too, singing in a sweet and clear childish voice. Though her power was still small, she instinctively added something of her own to the song. Galadriel caught flickers of images: the Hall of Fire in Imladris, the Bruinen rushing over stones.

When the song came to an end, Galadriel looked at her thoughtfully. “Would you like to learn this kind of weaving, Arwen?”

Arwen nodded eagerly. “It’s pretty. And I know the cloaks help to keep people safe. I want to do that too. My brothers say I’m too young to ride out with them, but I want to learn this!”

Galadriel smiled and rested her hand on Arwen’s dark head. “I didn’t have the patience for it when I was your age. But if you would like to learn, I will gladly teach you. And I believe you have a talent for it.”

Seeing Arwen looking up at her with bright eyes, she could not help thinking of Lúthien, and of Melian who had taught her so much. Some of the techniques and patterns she used now, she had learned from the Silvan Elves when she first came to Lothlórien, or among the skilled folk of Eregion, where so many ideas were exchanged until Sauron destroyed it all. But she remembered too what she had learned far across the Sea, her mother’s hands showing her how to hold the shuttle, and the white sails of Alqualondë.

She motioned for Arwen to stand beside her and placed the shuttle in the girl’s small hand, putting her own hand over it to guide her. “This is how you begin . . .”