Duck/Mallard is dubiously identified with Tanamoril (the name means “youngest brother”), the piper and magician of many folktales. It is not known how far the tales confuse him with Tanamil.
Concerning Robin, we may point to the belief that a robin can answer the questions of those in trouble.
Gull seems to be the same as the Southern hero Gann, whom the witch Cennoreth went in search of.
The Weaver herself has been identified with the Lake Lady, the Fates, and with the southern cult figure of Libby Beer, but not satisfactorily. The witch Cennoreth is the most likely possibility. She is frequently called the Weaver of Spells. A drawback is that, like Gann, she figures only in stories told in the South. However, the name Cennoreth—which is a Southern form; the (unrecorded) Northern form would be Kanarthi—can be interpreted as River Daughter (Cenn-oreth), although another interpretation would make it Woman of the North (Cen-Noreth).
The places mentioned are harder to determine. Of several rivers which flow northward, the most probable river is perhaps the Aden, which has a tidal wave, or bore, on occasions, known as the Credin. It flows from its rising in Long Tarn toward the Rath Estuary in Aberath, but it is hard to make the Aden fit the Weaver’s description unless we postulate some major upheaval in the landscape since the days of the story. It has been calculated that her account should give the river a source somewhere above Hannart, near where the coats were found, but no river flows north from there today.
Elthorar Ansdaughter,
KEEPER OF ANTIQUITIES
AT HANNART IN NORTH DALEMARK
About the Author
DIANA WYNNE JONES wrote more than forty award-wining books of fantasy for young readers. For her body of work, she was awarded the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy and the World Fantasy Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
www.dianawynnejones.com.
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Other Works
Also by
DIANA WYNNE JONES
Archer’s Goon
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Dark Lord of Derkholm
Dogsbody
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The Homeward Bounders
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The Merlin Conspiracy
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Power of Three
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The Time of the Ghost
Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories
Warlock at the Wheel and Other Stories
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Year of the Griffin
Yes, Dear
THE WORLDS OF CHRESTOMANCI
Book 1: Charmed Life
Book 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant
Book 3: The Magicians of Caprona
Book 4: Witch Week
Book 5: Conrad’s Fate
Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I
(Contains books 1 and 2)
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume II
(Contains books 3 and 4)
Credits
Cover art © 2005 by Dan Craig
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
Cover © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Maps by David Cuzic
Copyright
The Spellcoats copyright © 1979 by Diana Wynne Jones
First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Macmillan London Ltd.
Published in 1993 by Mandarin, an imprint of Reed Consumer Books Ltd.
First published in the United States in 1979 by Atheneum.
Published in 1995 by Greenwillow Books.
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EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062200822
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The Chrestomanci oversees the magic in all the worlds. Omnibus editions of the first four novels featuring Diana Wynne Jones’s most beloved characters. Contains Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Witch Week, and The Magicians of Caprona.
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With the help of Christopher Chant, can Conrad figure out who is pulling the possibilities and putting his world at risk … and also stay ahead of his dark fate? A Chrestomanci Book.
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At Wizard’s University, Wizard Derk’s griffin daughter Elda and her fellow first-year students encounter tyrannical tutors, boring lectures, and truly terrible refectory food.
Dogsbody
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Polly tries to reconcile her two sets of memories and discover the truth behind her friendship with musician Tom Lynn in time to save him.
www.harperteen.com • www.dianawynnejones.com
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Through her window, Ann watches person after person disappear through the gate of Hexwood Farm. Then strangeness spreads from Earth right out to the center of the galaxy.
The Homeward Bounders
After Jamie discovers that mysterious beings are manipulating worlds in an elaborate game, they send him bouncing from world to world—until he tries to use their own rules to defeat them.
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Diana Wynne Jones, The Spellcoats
(Series: The Dalemark Quartet # 3)
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