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")

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.