| The Spellcoats | |
| Author: | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Cover Artist: | Pamela Goodchild[1] |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | The Dalemark Quartet |
| Genre: | Children's, Fantasy novel |
| Publisher: | Macmillan Publishers |
| Release Date: | 12 April 1979 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages: | 256 pp |
| Isbn: | 0-333-25351-5 |
| Oclc: | 59056937 |
| Preceded By: | Drowned Ammet |
| Followed By: | The Crown of Dalemark |
The Spellcoats (1979) is the third published novel in Diana Wynne Jones's series Dalemark Quartet, but chronologically the first. The story takes place several thousand years before Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet.[2] The time period is referred to as "prehistoric Dalemark" because by the time of the other books, only legends remain from this time. The people of prehistoric Dalemark do not have a written language, but some know how to write by weaving in a language of runes using yarn of many colours and textures.
Tanaqui is a young woman. She resides in a small town called Shelling. She and four siblings look different from the rest of the townsfolk. Their family has three idols—the so-called Undying. The country is invaded by Heathens. They are the ancestors of the people of Dalemark in the other three novels. Tanaqui and her siblings flee to avoid being killed by the people of their own village; they physically resemble Heathens.
The Spellcoats is not a diary, nor is it "told" as many stories are. It is woven. Tanaqui weaves a story into a "spellcoat" that she weaves.
The first spellcoat tells of how the five siblings (Gull, Robin, Hern, Tanaqui and Duck) traveled downriver on their boat. First, they encounter the mysterious magician Tanamil, then the Heathen king Kars Adon, and finally, at the sea, the evil mage Kankredin, whose aim is to take over the power of the river by taking over the five children's souls.
The second spellcoat tells how they escape from Kankredin, but then the five siblings are captured by their own King, "the king of the natives." This king has lost his kingdom. He is bivouacking with the remains of his army trying to avoid the Heathens. The King confines the children because he needs one of the children's idols to assist him. Tanaqui continues to weave during her confinement with the King, she realizes that the spellcoats that mages wore gave them powers that were woven into their spellcoats. This convinced her that the words woven into spellcoats will have the power to defeat Kankredin.
Realizing that Tanaqui is the only one able to stop Kankredin and his mages with her weaving, her elder brother Hern convinces the combined forces of their own people and the Heathens to take a stand, and hold off Kankredin while Tanaqui completes the second spellcoat. Tanaqui weaves frantically and finally she completes her spellcoat with a waking vision she experiences.
In an epilogue written by Elthorar Ansdaughter, Keeper of Antiquities, we learn that the spellcoats were discovered hundreds of years later, during the approximate time period of Drowned Ammet and Cart and Cwidder, in the mountains of North Dalemark near Hannart.[3] Elthorar notes the close correspondence between various figures in the stories and their apparent counterparts in the legends and folktales of the people of Dalemark.
Like the other three novels of the Dalemark Quartet, The Spellcoats is a story about a physical journey, during which revelations occur. As in the other three books, the presence of magic is not readily apparent at its beginning, but slowly creeps into the story.
The five sons and daughters of Closti the Clam, born and raised in the village of Shelling across the River. Although their father never left Shelling, his children look like the heathens with their blond hair.
Blonde, bushy-haired, dark-skinned foreigners invading Dalemark.
Natives of prehistoric Dalemark.
Strange, immortal beings with mysterious powers. Humans see them as gods, but they claim they are not.
Greg Costikyan reviewed The Spell-Coats in Ares Magazine #8 and commented that "As a whole, The Spell-Coats is sufficiently good to warrant place on my Hugo Nomination ballot, and should help establish Jones' credentials as an excellent writer."[4]
