Nettles, Care, and Stillness:
The Heroine’s Journey of Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters

Many epics explore man’s domination over the natural world as he conquers and subjugates. These are tales of epic battles, courageous warriors who are unsurpassed at killing or performing other dangerous feats. Still, even through the most ancient tales races the current of the classic heroine’s journey – goddesses and women like Isis, Demeter, Changing Woman, Spider Woman, Hi’iaka and Pele, Coatlicue, Cerridwen, Medusa, Scheherazade, Draupadi, Sita, Janet, Hina, Brunhild, and so many fairytale questors. Their heroine’s journey, so varied among them, involves descending into darkness or the wilderness and emerging with a new mature certainty after their brush with mortality. “These journeys into darkness represent death—only by completely surrendering to the unknown can the heroine transcend her existence and learn the wisdom and magic of mortality” (Frankel, 2010, p. 124). Like traditional male heroes, these women occasionally fight, but more often use the wisdom of nature, empathy, and craft magic to accomplish their goals. Opening oneself to the mysticism of the forest and the spirits there symbolizes listening to the wisdom of adulthood in the subconscious and wielding these powers to become a matriarch.

The true goal of the heroine is to become this archetypal, all-powerful mother. Thus, many heroines set out on rescue missions in order to restore their shattered families: a shy princess knits coats of nettles to save her six brothers from a lifetime as swans, Psyche quests for her vanished lover. Demeter forces herself into the realm of the dead to reclaim her daughter, while Isis scours the world for her husband’s broken body. Little Gerda in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale quests all the way to Finland to rescue her playmate from the unfeeling Snow Queen. This goal does not indicate by any means that the girls are trying to “stay at home” or “play house.” Though they redeem beloved family members or potential husbands, these heroines work as hard as any fairytale hero. And they do it without swords. (Frankel, 2010, p. 4)

In this tradition, Juliet Marillier’s evocative first novel Daughter of the Forest retells the fairy tale of “The Six Swans” in historic Ireland, following the love story between Sorcha and Hugh. Their daughter Liadan narrates the second novel Son of the Shadows, and their granddaughters tell the third through sixth. The books exemplify the heroine’s journey – challenges of enduring, weaving, healing, and understanding, all while cherishing nature as an ally.

Swans and Nettles

As the first book opens, the seven siblings’ dead mother Niamh is a source of blessing and protection but also the forest. In fact, the child Finbar, most spiritual of the brothers, observes that their mother left a piece of herself to each of them: balance, kindness, ancient stories and riddles, faith (Marillier 2000, pp. 20-21). As Finbar adds later, “Don’t forget what our mother said, as she lay dying. We must touch the earth, we must look into the sky and feel the wind. Like pools on the same stream, we must meet and part and meet again. We belong to the flow of the lake and to the deep beating heart of the forest” (Marillier 2000, p. 97). The birch tree that contains their mother’s spirit is their special place, and they huddle around it for protection, to pray and to commune with nature. Indeed, their home of Sevenwaters in Erin (Ireland) is hidden in the forest and the uncanny realm is particularly close. Sorcha, the youngest child and only daughter, narrates:

We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the fair folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life—not to say you’d meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who’d strayed too far into the forest and disappeared or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms and gone away for a while and come back subtly changed. (Marillier 2000, p. 21)

The siblings repeat many times that their strength comes from unity, imagery paralleled in the seven streams of Sevenwaters. Meanwhile, author Juliet Marillier acknowledges her heavy environmentalism as she describes the historic destruction of the forests in Ireland. As she adds, “There used to be a rich, powerful belief system based on natural law and the story deals with a period when Christianity displaced that natural law from much of Ireland. The family at Sevenwaters is struggling to preserve both forest and faith as the two are inextricably linked” (Marillier, 1999). In such times, spiritual leaders kept everything in balance: “The midwives and healers, the smiths, the poets and storytellers all had their roles to play in keeping the balance between the people and Mother Nature. When something slipped out of alignment, it had to be bent and woven back into the flow and harmony of nature” (Starhawk and Valentine, 2000, 9).

The fantasy heroine’s traditional antagonist is the wicked stepmother, who has the experience of the sexual, political adult realm the young heroine lacks:

While the heroine understands the natural world, singing to her animal friends and picking flowers, the evil queen dominates the adult world: castle, servants, and politics. She clings to her position fiercely by keeping the princess a child or pawn. These stepmother-witches often represent the heroine’s internalized denigration of the feminine—these marriage-hungry, power-thieving sexpots are dark parodies of women, devouring what they don’t control. This antagonist must be faced, even accepted, for the heroine to grow into a balanced adult. Though cast as the princess’s deadliest foe, the witch-queen offers priceless knowledge of sensuality and lust that the virginal heroine must embrace. (Frankel, 2010, pp. 41-42)

In the classic fairytale, the stepmother arrives and turns all the brothers into swans, forcing the heroine to weave them magical coats to break the curse. In fact, the heroine often quests to retrieve stolen family members, symbolizing building a family and also integrating many parts of the personality as one matures. Hans Christian Andersen’s version tortures young Eliza with stinging nettles as materials, but also shows her dwelling in the magical forest, taking succor there with kindly spirits who advise her. Meanwhile, the heroine’s prohibition against speaking in this and many other tales leaves her especially vulnerable, isolated from the everyday community and unable to defend herself.

For Marillier’s adaptation, the sorceress Oonagh fills the antagonist role. As she makes Sorcha a lovely dress and combs her hair, she insists she give up working in the garden and helping the villagers, instead learning indoor pursuits like fine embroidery. Sorcha is appalled. “Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills, I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife” (Marillier 2000, p. 85). Instead, Sorcha is a healer, accustomed to caring for her community. This blends ancient and modern practice as “Radical ecofeminist philosophy embraces intuition, an ethic of caring, and weblike human/nature relationships” (Merchant, 1990, p. 101).

Oonagh is also the enemy of the natural world – she hurts and destroys what each youth values most – Liam’s fiancée, Padriac’s rescue animals, Cormack’s dog, and Sorcha’s garden. After this, she turns the brothers into swans, a symbolic moment: Since swans mate for life, they represent the heroine’s devotion, and theirs for her. In Andersen’s version of the fairytale especially, “The brothers return whenever their enchantment permits, and their steadfastness echoes Eliza’s own faith as she struggles to free them, swordless, speechless, and vulnerable” (Frankel, 2010, p. 18). Next, Eliza must “birth” them, fashioning limbs from her thread and then giving them to each swan.

After her brothers are transformed, the Lady of the Forest, queen of the Fair Folk, arrives to give Sorcha advice on how to break the spell and sends her to a place of hiding. It too evokes the magic of nature—a hidden cave hidden by “gnarled rowans and overhanging creepers” with a spring and wild garden of herbs (Marillier 2000, p. 123). Sorcha’s family have always been close to the Fair Folk, living in a balance that Oonagh threatens to disrupt. However, Sorcha must discover the magic of the unconscious world in order to displace the stronger matriarch.

Adolescents enter the forest because a part of themselves is missing—in Eliza’s case, her swan brothers and their magic. On the surface, she longs to reunite her beloved family, but beneath, she seeks to reintegrate. “I will go and seek my brothers,” she says. “I’m leaving the parents who are no longer my protective source. I’m going out to develop into a whole person who can stand independently. But I need to evoke that masculine strength hidden inside me. I’m going to quest until I find it.” As swans, her brothers have the freedom of flight, the magic of transformation, and the masculine power of will, all characteristics Eliza seeks to assimilate by seeking them. (Frankel, 2010, p. 18)

In this version, Sorcha must weave silently with starwort, a beautiful plant that stings like nettles. It is a test of endurance and persistence as well as craft. “She must learn to work in a skillful way with a plant that is a strict taskmistress. Loss of concentration, or careless hurry, would be immediately ‘stung’ back into mindfulness” (Starhawk and Valentine, 2000, 194). Along with food gathering and herbalism, there is a great deal of description of how to clumsily spin the thread with a pinecone drop spindle and to weave it on a simple wooden hand loom—a board with notches. The author observes, “The reader will find much of the detail in the book reflects my own particular interests, especially in plants and herb lore. Not that it’s very easy to grow a druid garden in the heavy and harsh climate of the Swan Valley in Australia, but I do have firsthand knowledge of Sorcha’s plants and their uses” (Marillier, 1999). Indeed, by celebrating the domestic arts, this story reclaims the ancient ways of feminism:

The dominant view is that menstruation, pregnancy, nursing, and nurturing of infants and young children should tie women to the home, decreasing their mobility and inhibiting their ability to remain in the work force. Radical feminists argue that the perception that women are totally oriented toward biological reproduction degrades them by association with a nature that is itself devalued in Western culture. Women’s biology and nature should instead be celebrated as sources of female power. (Merchant, 1990, p. 101-102).

Lord Hugh of Harrowfield, called Red, finds Sorcha and brings her home with him to Britain. Her forest is contrasted with his estate when she sees the orderly fields and cleared roads. As she thinks despairingly: “How would a swan fly to Harrowfield? A swan does not go by tracks, and bridges, and paths under trees” (Marillier 2000, p. 285). While Christian priests have a larger role in this land, Sorcha still spies people following the old ways. There’s also a tradition of conservation as Hugh shows her the oaks he planted and tells her his father’s lesson that one who chops down trees must plant an equal number. As Sorcha’s destined love interest, Hugh is more sensitive than many in the civilized land. When he asks how the Fair Folk understood what Sorcha was saying, she mimes that they could read her mind but someone like him cannot. Still, he is the best in the household at interpreting her meaning and finally tells her he’s learning to listen without words.

On one memorable day, Red takes Sorcha to a beautiful secluded beach, a secret place where seals bask. As Sorcha observes:

This was one of those places where the harmony of natural things is quite untouched; Where worlds meet and speak; Where men and women must tread with the utmost care…. I felt the power of that place all around me, soaking into me, soothing my spirit and filling me with joy. It was a feeling not easily told in words; The same feeling that had come to me at times in the deepest, most secret places of the forest, or sitting on the rooftops of Sevenwaters, talking to Finbar without any words. All is well. All will be well. The wheel turns, and returns. This was a place of soul healing. (Marillier 2000, p. 283).

Red tells her that they’ve come there to find such a feeling of reassurance: “Can you understand that I wish to see those hands at rest, just for a day?” (Marillier 2000, p. 283). Clearly, he too feels the peace here. While she runs on the sand and collects shells, he sketches her, celebrating her wild freedom. To her joy, in this sacred place, her druid brother Conor comes and speaks to her as he flies above.

With gestures, Sorcha tells Red how the human and otherworlds are linked – imagery that extends to the interlocked rings emblem of Sevenwaters. Neo-pagan spiritualist Starhawk agrees, explaining, “All things are interconnected, including the human and natural worlds. Earth-based spirituality is based on our love for nature, our identification with the seasons, cycles, animals and plant communities” (1989, p. 178).

Sorcha and Hugh have grown up enemies, since the Britons have conquered the Irish’s three sacred islands near the Isle of Mann. Sorcha describes Little Island, Greater Island, and The Needle as “Places of high mystery. Places of immense secrecy; The heart of the old faith.” As she adds, “No Britain should ever have set foot on the islands. Nothing would be right until we drove them out. That was the way everybody told it” (Marillier 2000, p. 14). In colonizer tradition, the Britons appear unaware of this meaning, since they only mention them in terms of strategy. Hugh tells her several times that he sees no need to sacrifice men for ancient grudges though his uncle is continuing the war. However, their real worth is in preserving the natural and spiritual world—the true quest through this generational saga. Gradual conversations between the children of Sevenwaters and the Fair Folk and animalistic Old Ones reveal that the Islands are the final refuge of the otherworld folk – if they are not regained, with a guardian to keep the faith, the magic of the forest will fade. The Old Ones tell their chosen people, their human descendants at Sevenwaters:

The forest is old. It is one of the last safe dwelling palaces for our people and for—the others. The forest will guard you and yours, and you will enjoy great power and prosperity if you remain true. But you must play your part as well. The old ways dwindle, and the secret places are safe no more; they’re laid open, despoiled. You and your heirs will be the people of Sevenwaters, and your influence in the mortal world must be used to keep the forest and its dwellers safe—all of its dwellers. There are few such places of refuge left in the land of Erin, and they grow fewer with each turn of the wheel. (Marillier 2001, p. 224).

The Fair Folk came later as colonizers who forced the Old Ones into the secret places: caverns under the hill or back across the oceans. As Conor adds, “And there are the smaller, less powerful folk who have their own place in the web of life. The sylphs of the upper canopy, the strange fishlike dwellers in the water, the silkies of the wide ocean, the small folk of toadstool and tree stump.” He insists, “They are a part of the land as great oak and field grass are, as gleaming salmon and bounding deer are. It is all one and the same, interlinked and interwoven; and if a part of it fails, if a part of it is neglected, is neglected, all becomes vulnerable” (Marillier 2001, p. 221). Of course, this phrasing about interconnection sounds like the language of modern environmentalism: “The survival of the species necessitates a renewed understanding of our relationship to nature, of our own bodily nature, and of nonhuman nature around us; it necessitates a challenging of the nature-culture dualism and a corresponding radical restructuring of human society according to feminist and ecological principles” (King, 1989, p. 22).

In the series, characters repeat the prophecy several times “That one would come that was neither of Erin nor of Britain, yet both; one that would bear the mark of the Raven and would restore the balance…only then could the rift between our peoples be bridged” (Marillier 2000, p. 149). There’s a suggestion at the end of the first novel that the Fair Folk manipulated Sorcha and Red’s attachment to create such a bloodline.

As with the end of Lord of the Rings, the villain (Red’s warmongering uncle) brings evil modern technology to Harrowfield: a strange chemical that will make Sorcha’s execution fire blaze green and destroy her quickly and utterly. In similar imagery, when the siblings finally return home, they are most horrified at the destruction of the old trees: “On the hill once clothed in graceful birch, strong ash and noble oak, a great scar lay across the landscape, where a stand of the oldest trees had been felled and burned. Not a scrap of life was left there, no bold holly tree nor branching hawthorn to soften the wound” (Marillier 2000, p. 369). Even practical Liam, the oldest brother, criticizes this: “Wanton destruction…an act of sheer willfulness, with no intent but harm. They have not even put the wood to use, but burned it where it lay” (Marillier 2000, p. 369).  Further, the villagers have not been cared for, food has not been stockpiled for lean harvests, the borders are not guarded and free to be invaded. Their father is wandering in his wits. On their return, the siblings must put all this right and bring healing to their territory as well as the people and animals in it.

To the shock of all their household, Hugh arrives, having given up his estate and resolving to live with Sorcha forever in her forest. This is a journey for him too – from the orderly masculine world to the magic and mystery of the feminine woods and Sorcha, its guardian. She, in the meantime, has left home for the forest, bonded with its magic, explored the material masculine realm with Hugh, faced death on the scaffold, saved her siblings, and returned an adult—symbolically whole with the restoration of her brothers, husband, father, home and self. Now, having thus completed the traditional heroine’s journey, she can lead her community as matriarch. Starhawk and Valentine explain, “When we complete an initiatory process, we are different. The power we’ve gathered, the wisdom we’ve gained, the courage and fortitude with which we faced our challenges have changed us…We are capable of working magic, healing ourselves, restoring balance to the world around us” (2000, 277).

Don’t Let Go

The sequel Son of the Shadows could reference three different people: one traitor’s son, one abandoned child, and one who is both – the lost son of Lady Oonagh. Each of them falls in love with one of Sorcha’s daughters, who must decide who is worthy of love and who too bitter to be saved. The heroines reach out to all three with empathy and nature, using household magic to tempt them from darkness. Still, the choice between love and despair lies with them.

The environmentalism continues as Hugh and Sorcha’s three children, Niamh, Sean, and Liadan, grow up. Liadan observes, “Without [Hugh’s] good husbandry, Sevenwaters would be nothing more than a well-guarded fortress. Under his guidance our land had prospered” (Marillier 2001, p. 21). The book opens with the druids arriving to bless the fields and animals for Imbolc, the early spring holiday. Such rituals evoke both modern and ancient feminism. “Radical feminism instead celebrates the relationship between women and nature through the revival of ancient rituals centered on Goddess worship, the moon, animals, and the female reproductive system. A vision in which nature is held in esteem as mother and Goddess is a source of inspiration and empowerment for many ecofeminists” (Merchant, 1990, p. 101). At the same time, the forest is also still a bastion for druids and otherworldly creatures. Liadan narrates: “Even as the old faith faded and grew dim elsewhere, we witnessed its light growing ever stronger in our forest. It was as if each feast day, each marking of the passing season with song and ritual, put back a little more of the unity our people had almost lost” (Marillier 2001, p. 24)

Liadan is a healer like her mother, using herb lore to care for those in pain. Sorcha tells her, “You have my skill with healing and your father’s gift for love. He gathers all around him under his protective shade like a great forest tree. I see the same strength in you, Daughter” (Marillier 2001, p. 43). As she adds, her death through a spreading cancer will be hard for Red. “He is not one of us, not truly, though we forget it sometimes. He does not understand that this is not a true parting but simply a moving on, a changing” (Marillier 2001, p. 43). This too is a central step on the heroine’s journey—accepting a circular life cycle in which Greek Persephone dies to return each spring or the matriarchs of Sevenwaters continue to guide and protect (Frankel, 2010, pp. 159-170).

One of Liadan’s mentors is her uncle Finbar, who was left with one swan’s wing. He introduces himself with the words, “I am the beat of a swan’s wing on the breath of the wind. I am the secret at the heart of the standing stone. I am the island in the wild sea. I am the fire and the head of the seer. I’m neither of that world nor of this” (Marillier 2001, p. 198). He’s greatly revered in the family for his insights. As someone in between the worlds of man and animal, he gives Liadan warnings and helps her use her Sight to discover the truth.

Liadan falls for Bran, a warrior famed for blending into his surroundings, who’s tattooed like a raven and thus evokes nature. As she observes, he seems a part of the woods: “If you did not know him, you would have thought the complex pattern that marked his features was simply a trick of the light, a play of sun through the willow trees” (Marillier 2001, p. 346). Like Sorcha and the swans, questing for him means opening herself to the wildness of nature—leaving civilization and diving into the unconscious realm. Afterwards, Liadan is full of joy at her pregnancy as she feels a new bond with the land, as if she “can hear the heart of the earth beating inside” (Marillier 2001, p. 187).

For both the questing hero and heroine, the opposite sex brings forth their untapped powers, evoking the man’s gentleness and woman’s strength. Further, the highly developed animus [male guide] connects the woman with her spiritual side, making her even more receptive to her own creativity. Thus, the heroine, as well as the hero, obtains the mystical feminine energy that offers endless emotion, sympathy, nature, magic, insight, and perception. For both, this integration leads to maturity and wholeness on the journey to adulthood. (Frankel, 2010, p. 23)

Meanwhile, her enemy and suitor Eamonn lives in a walled-off fortress that repulses her. As she thinks, “I would have needed a powerful incentive to be prepared to live like this, unable to look out over trees and water, prevented from wandering the forest paths in search of berries or climbing the hill under the young oaks” (Marillier 2001, pp. 234-235). Liadan tries to help him, but he retreats into his stronghold. Succumbing to dark emotions, Eamonn clings to bitterness, gleefully torturing Bran for “stealing” “his” woman. Over a decade later in the third book, he still wallows in anger. He protests, “The Painted Man. He killed my men, he stole my woman, he robbed me of my sons. He took my future for himself. I cannot contemplate another life until I place my two hands on that man’s neck and squeeze the last breath from him” (Marillier 2002, p. 284).  As such, he embodies toxic masculinity and all that is harmful about patriarchy, in contrast with the women and their journeys:

Ecofeminism draws on feminist theory which asserts that the domination of woman was the original domination in human society, from which all other hierarchies—of rank, class, and political power—flow. Building on this unmasking of the ideology of a natural hierarchy of persons, ecofeminism uses its ecological perspective to develop the position that there is no hierarchy in nature: among persons, between persons and the rest of the natural world, or among the many forms of nonhuman nature. (King, 1989, p. 24)

The book’s climax, meanwhile, gives Liadan the ultimate ordeal: she must cross a deadly swamp, carrying her baby on her back while aiding Bran and his wounded friend. Marillier observes: “It was a pretty harsh time to live in, with one set of tough choices for a man and an equally difficult set for a woman. On the other hand, there were simpler solutions—if you were a man, you could always settle your problems with the sword. The second book in the trilogy looks at those issues, and how people can choose to step out of those sorts of restrictions if they have the courage” (Marillier, 1999). Indeed, Liadan has no weapon or shield but must endure without them, much as her mother does. It’s a terrible journey, one many urge her to abandon, but it’s her only path to saving all her loved ones.

Oonagh’s son Ciarán and his raven guide her across, and then he tells her, “A druid’s skills lie a manipulating what is already there… wind, rain, earth, fire. They lie in understanding the margins between world and other world; they lie in the wisdom of growing things” (Marillier 2001, p. 406). He calls it tricks rather than high magic, but these humble natural gifts have saved her. This is no grand battle, but a brutal test of endurance, as Liadan finds the strength to drag her loved ones to safety even as she sings, nurses her baby, and keeps faith.

Perhaps in the days of tales by the fireside, the girls looked on wistfully as their brothers rode off to war. “There’s magic in our lives, too,” their grandmothers would say. “We can disguise ourselves as men and pick up swords, be warrior queens like Maeve and Atalanta, or we can follow our own path.” From there emerged stories of spinning (Rumpelstiltskin), gardening (Rapunzel), weaving (The Wild Swans), housework (Cinderella), washing clothes (East of the Sun, West of the Moon), holding a loved one (Tam Lin), caring for relatives (Red Riding Hood), child rearing (Electra), and marriage (nearly all of them). As Campbell notes, generally the male is questing out in the world, while the woman quests in the home. Still, actions in the so-called “women’s domain” save the men and allow the heroines to accomplish their goals: Electra achieves vengeance on her mother, Clytemnestra, for slaughtering her father only by raising her young brother and protecting him. Janet must clasp Tam Lin in her arms whatever shape he takes in order to steal him away from the fairy queen. More daring folkloric heroines use Shakespeare’s “bed trick.” Many, like Rumpelstiltskin’s heroine, guess riddles. All of the heroines accomplish their quests without violence, valuing shrewdness and fortitude over Excalibur. (Frankel, 2010, p. 51)

After, Liadan performs a soul healing as swanlike Finbar has taught her. With the Old Ones’ coaching, in their ancient ruins, she coaxes Bran back from the abyss and shows him a world of light and love. As with Red and Sorcha, Liadan chooses a new life’s purpose for Bran and inducts him into the Sevenwaters community. By doing so, she connects his wild, natural side with their protective role over their people. Having saved her husband, son, and lands, she too has found the wisdom to achieve adulthood.

Finding Balance

Ciarán’s daughter Fainne, protagonist of book three, struggles with becoming a force of light or darkness. While not part of Sevenwaters or the forest, Fainne grows up in a cave by the sea. “In this place sky and earth and sea met and touched and parted again, and the sound of the wavelets lapping the subterranean beach was like a sigh, at once greeting and farewell” (Marillier 2002, p. 16). This too is a crossroads. “In Western Mystery tradition, the meaning of water includes self-knowledge and the dissolving, healing power of love and self-love” (Starhawk and Valentine, 2000, 68). This mirrors Fainne’s path.

Sorcha is one of her grandmothers, but Oonagh is the other. Taking the witch role once again, Oonagh tutors Fainne, adorning her and testing her in women’s arts as she did Sorcha. She also teaches her insidious shapechanging and extorts her to harm others, with her father’s life in the balance. Oonagh’s talisman, meanwhile, coerces Fainne’s obedience. As Finbar tells her later, “She senses your power and seeks to ensure you use it only for her own ends” (Marillier 2002, p. 473). He adds that wearing it on the cord Liadan once fashioned for Fainne’s mother Niamh from their family’s garments has protected her: “The one counteracts the other, as far as it can. You must thank the strong women of our family for this token of kinship, for it weaves a powerful protective spell, Fainne. Not a spell of sorcery, but something simpler and purer. Liadan worked into it the very fiber of all who dwelt at Sevenwaters” (Marillier 2002, p. 399). Once again, the gentle protection of craft magic and intention defend. Fainne has other talismans of love: Riona, the doll her mother sewed her, and a beautiful, embroidered shawl from her sweetheart Darragh.

Throughout her childhood, Darragh comes each year to share in fun and adventures. A horse trainer, he has his own quiet sensitivity. Darragh is notable for how he listens without judgement, and only cautions her on succumbing to evil. He devotedly follows her, though she believes love is a weakness and hesitates to endanger him by drawing Oonagh’s interest.

Fainne visits Sevenwaters and follows the good path and the evil one in turn, discovering who she will become. Many heroines try such roles, mopping the floor of the Wicked Witch of the West or training as apprentice to the villainess. There, Fainne meets her cousin, Liadan and Bran’s son Johnny. All believe him the Child of the Prophecy: born from two traditions, marked with a raven tattoo, and an astounding warrior and leader. In the masculine tradition, he is leading a mission to retake the islands from his British kin, one Oonagh is determined to stop rather than let the Fair Folk succeed. Fainne is trapped observing much of this as her own plot is subtler and she is no warrior.

Marillier adds, “It is traditional for a fantasy story to be about the struggle between good and evil, although that can be portrayed in a thousand different ways and need not be a grand epic story. Readers tend to expect a quest of some kind. Again, that need not involve slaying a dragon or saving the whole of Middle Earth, it can be an individual, personal journey to enlightenment” (Walsh, 2006). She continues explaining that while her novels may have high political stakes, she balances them with a personal journey. “As a reader, I like to be involved in the characters’ struggle to become wiser or better, so that’s what is most important in my stories. That touches me more than a quest to save the world” (Walsh, 2006). This once again fits well with the heroine’s traditional path.

This book is also concerned with the fading of the natural world as the time of the prophecy approaches. Man is becoming more civilized and thus the magic is vanishing. The Old Ones warn:

He hews the ancient trees to broaden his grazing lands; He mines the deep caves and topples the standing stones. He embraces a new faith with fervor and, perhaps, with sincerity. But he grows ever farther from the old things. He can no longer hear the heartbeat of the earth, his mother. He cannot smell the change in the air; He cannot see what lies beyond the veil of shadows. Even his new god is formed in his own image, for do they not call him the Son of Man? By his own choice he has cut adrift from the ancient cycles of sun and moon, the ordered passing of the season…that time comes in soon. Axes will be set to the great forest of Sevenwaters, until there is but a remnant of what was. An old oak here and there, hung with a wisp of goldenwood. One lovely birch by the water’s edge where once a family of clear-eyed children spoke their mother’s name and great Dana’s name in one breath. The lake itself no more than a dried-up pond. There will be no refuge for them. And when they pass, so too does our own kind. We have seen this. (Marillier 2002, p. 224).

One of the core concepts of earth-based spirituality is that of immanence: “That Goddess is embodied in the living world, in the human, animal, plant, and mineral communities and their interrelationships” (Starhawk, 1989, p. 177). This is seen in the Fair Folk but more in the Old Ones, who counsel rather than dictating. “Immanence also shifts our definition of power. Power is not only power-over—the ability to manipulate, control and punish—but also power-from-within, the inherent ability each of us has to become what we are meant to be—as a seed has within it the inherent power to root, grow, flower, and fruit” (Starhawk, 1989, p. 177). Consequently, Fainne learns this training as discipline and stillness—the root of druidic transformation.

The Old Ones appear to Fainne and try to help her accomplish her goals. However, even this constant favor can’t convince her. She protests to Conor, “Our blood is evil. No matter how hard we try, all of our choices lead to darkness. There’s no controlling that. I know” (Marillier 2002, p. 328). As Starhawk observes, “Personal power increases when we take on responsibility, and develops through our personal integrity, living our beliefs, acting on our ideas, striving for balance” (Starhawk, 1989, p. 177). This Fainne gradually learns. She tells her wicked grandmother, “It’s wrong… what you want. The forest. The Islands. You’ve got it wrong. The battle must be won, not lost. The islands must be saved, not thrown away. Without that, none of us can survive” (Marillier 2002, p. 244). Starhawk continues, “This deep connectedness with all things translates into compassion, our ability to feel with and identify with others—human beings, natural cycles and processes, animals, and plants” (1989, p. 178). This is Fainne’s quest, as she casts spells that irrevocably injure others and Oonagh counsels her to see them as expendable. Only when she repents and sees the humanity in everyone can she accept her great task.

As the battle plans coalesce to retake the islands, Fainne flies as a moth and a dove, both terribly vulnerable creatures driven by instinct. Connecting with her wild nature, she also discovers how her magic can aid others. These animal transformations through the series (along with places of intersection) emphasize the connection between humanity and the natural world. Starhawk adds that this is a vital discovery: “We must change the essential fallacy of thinking that we are somehow removed from nature…In the worldview of the earth religion, we are nature, and our human capacities of loyalty and love, rage and humor, lust, intuition, intellect, and compassion are as much a part of nature as the lizards and the redwood forests” (Starhawk, 1989, p. 178).

Darragh and Fainne both discover war is brutal and savage, the worst of patriarchy. In fact, the endangered enemy debate whether to kill all the women and children they have brought with them or give them knives so they can kill themselves. Fainne reflects with horror on how her kind family would never kill survivors and thinks, “This was all wrong; This long feud had bred a terror based on ignorance and misunderstanding. Did not these grim-faced Britons comprehend that all Sevenwaters wanted was for the Islands to be left alone? Did none of them understand what it had all been about?” (Marillier 2002, p. 461).

The Old Ones tell her she should walk out into the middle of the battle, not to do her grandmother’s bidding and kill the Child of the Prophecy, but to tell them all the truth, to intervene and stop the battle after she’s worked out the prophecy’s riddle.  Indeed, the land will be destroyed as long as men fight over it without thought. Accordingly, Fainne garbs herself in her talismans:

Perhaps my own spirit was damaged, my heart cracked in pieces, so that I could never be fine and good; so that I could never say what I felt, however much I wanted to. But Darragh’s spirits shone bright; his heart was the truest and best in all of Erin. While I wore his gift, a gift of love, I could move forward. And I had Riona, tucked in my belt, her pink skirts crumpled, her dark eyes reflective. Riona was family; She reminded me of whose daughter I really was. (Marillier 2002, p. 471)

After her long transformation into a dove, she is too weak to use her magic, but the druids help her make a circle of fire around the central players. She looks small and humble as well as helpless. Like the Sevenwaters women before her, she must risk death without weapons or mystical arts to aid her, and in so doing, change the world. This is the great ordeal, the pathway to claiming one’s power. As Fainne adds, “I had not a scrap of magic in me. My otherworld helpers were gone. My grandmother was right here watching. And now I limped forward, quite unarmed, a girl in a striped dress and a silken shawl, with a childhood toy tucked in her belt, and a great army of fearsome warriors parted, muttering, to let me through” (Marillier 2002, p. 485). In the center of the battle, she confronts Oonagh and the leaders of the opposing sides, using her insight to bring peace.

However, there is a final task for the Child of the Prophecy. Massive storms gather, forcing all the humans to leave the Islands forever. Only a Watcher must remain there in solitude, performing the rituals and discovering the ancient lore. Johnny would go mad with such a calling, since his mother took him from the forest and had him raised as a warrior, not a druid. However, the humbler Old Ones have trained a different Child of the Prophecy as a backup. Fainne’s father, who raised her in solitude in their caves, notes, “There was a pattern, set by the Fair Folk. Liadan changed that. She ensured her child could not play the part intended for him. But the prophecy does not speak of a man or of warriors and battles” (Marillier 2002, p. 503). Thus, Fainne takes this role, fulfilling the quiet spiritual side of the task—but one just as important as winning great battles. Once she wins Darragh back from his own animal transformation, and reveals her love, he joins her, likewise accepting her geas as his own. Together they become the Islands’ protectors, ensuring the magic survives.

Conclusion

The next three books continue the family saga. Three more granddaughters of Sorcha’s tangle with the Fair Folk and Old Ones over new challenges. They must bring the humble arts of craft magic, childcare, and courage to save others, even as they return a forest creature’s baby, free a sea goddess, soothe enchanted creatures and otherwise restore balance to the natural spaces. Once more, these are not warrior women but gentle crafters and seers who are more vulnerable, who love the forest and endure terrible trials to save it and their loved ones.

The special message of ecofeminism is that when women suffer through both social domination and the domination of nature, most of life on this planet suffers and is threatened as well. It is significant that feminism and ecology as social movements have emerged now, as nature’s revolt against domination plays itself out in human history and in nonhuman nature at the same time. As we face slow environmental poisoning and the resulting environmental simplification, or the possible unleashing of our nuclear arsenals, we can hope that the prospect of the extinction of life on the planet will provide a universal impetus to social change. Ecofeminism supports utopian visions of harmonious, diverse, decentralized communities, using only those technologies based on ecological principles, as the only practical solution for the continuation of life on earth. (King, 1989, p. 25)

The ecology message is clear throughout, as some characters care for the forests and some abandon them, causing all the magical creatures to dwindle. Each generation follows a heroic protector—all female and all relying on domestic crafts and empathy to save their loved ones and fulfil the prophecy. When the sacred Islands are regained, however, they establish their sovereignty by banishing all who sought to conquer them. This is a message too, of how the path to ecology sometimes requires walking away and leaving nature to flourish unencumbered. As Starhawk concludes: “Every movement, to be effective in the defense of the earth, must see its interconnections with other movements and issues, for its own survival. Unless we understand the interrelationships of human systems of oppression, and the oppression of the earth, we cannot develop a strategy.” (Starhawk, 1989, p. 180). Accordingly, the heroines force the men to see different paths besides despair and bloodshed, helping through understanding and hearth magic to repair the earth.