The Spellcoats
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| The Spellcoats | |
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| Author | Diana Wynne Jones |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dalemark Quartet |
| Genre(s) | Children's, Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Macmillan Publishers |
| Publication date | 12 April 1979 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0333253515 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | Drowned Ammet |
| Followed by | The Crown of Dalemark |
The Spellcoats (1979) is the third published novel in Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark Quartet, but chronologically the first.
It deals with the story of five children's journey along a river in Dalemark, several hundred years before the events related in Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet. Tanaqui, the next-to-youngest, is the narrator. Her narration is not told or written but woven in a runic language into coats called spellcoats which she is weaving. When she begins weaving her first spellcoat, she is telling of events several months previous.
She tells of how during their journey, they encountered several powerful beings, including the evil mage Kankredin, Tanamil, their own deceased mother, and hints of a being known only as "The One". As the story progresses, she learns more and more about the power of her own weaving, even as her telling of past events catches up with her present. Eventually she comes to realize that Kankredin is empowered by the words on the spellcoat that he wears. When she realizes that her weaving has the power of spells, she realizes that she is the only one who can stop Kankredin.
At the conclusion of her story, she attempts to use her second spellcoat to affect events by weaving into it an event that has not happened yet. Since she must finish her coat at that point in order to make it work, Tanaqui does not tell if she succeeded or failed in the second spellcoat. In an afterword, it is explained how the two spellcoats were discovered in an archaeological dig sponsored by the Earl of Hannart from Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet.
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