Stardust

by

Neil Gaiman

Stardust: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
The star looks significantly more human in the morning. Tristran fashions her a crutch, explaining to her that he expected a rock, not a girl. But he has to take her back because Victoria promised him anything he wanted, and he’s driven by love to continue with his quest. The star remains derisive, refusing to get up when Tristran asks her to. Finally, she gets up, but she can’t stand on her broken leg. Tristran makes her a splint and, soon after, they leave the glade slowly. Tristran feels extremely guilty, but he tells himself it’s all for Victoria and tries to make conversation. He asks why she fell, and she imperiously shows him the thing that hit her. It’s a yellow stone on a chain, and now she has to carry it with her. She can’t, or won’t, say why.
Even as the star looks so human in the morning, Tristran remains intent on completing his quest and bringing her back to Victoria. Her being human rouses some empathy in Tristran, but he still doesn’t question whether it's right or okay to imprison another human being. The yellow stone on the chain that the star carries—presumably, the Power of Stormhold—suggests that the star is imprisoned in two ways. She’s first imprisoned by Tristran himself, and then by the responsibility she has to carry the Power of Stormhold until one of the two living brothers finds her and takes it.
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The star refuses Tristran’s offer of food, and then they continue through the woods. The path is rough, and finally, the star asks if there’s a road they could use instead. Immediately, Tristran knows there’s a road and a clearing nearby. They head for the clearing. In the middle is a gemstone-studded crown, and Tristran and the star hear drums. Screaming, a unicorn and a lion crash into the clearing, clearly engaged in a fight. The unicorn is terrified, and the star tells Tristran to stop the animals so they don’t kill each other. As the lion leaps onto the unicorn, Tristran thinks he obviously can’t do anything. But he finds himself in the middle of the clearing, thinking of the nursery rhyme “The Lion and the Unicorn.” In it, the lion “beat[s]” the unicorn three times, “His power to maintain.”
Tristran’s knowledge of Faerie’s roads and landforms again suggests that he belongs here. Additionally, something instinctual in him now seems to understand the power and the value of the written or spoken word. This is why, while he expresses doubt that he can’t break up the animals’ fight, he nevertheless immediately understands that the key to breaking it up is in the nursery rhyme “The Lion and the Unicorn.” The rhyme itself was written to symbolically discuss the relationship between England and Scotland, but in Stardust, taking it literally—with the lion and the unicorn as characters—is fun and satisfying.
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Tristran picks up the crown and approaches the animals. Gently, he tells the lion to let the unicorn go, placing the crown on the lion’s head. Purring proudly, the lion disappears, while the star approaches and comforts the injured unicorn. Tristran and the star wait with the unicorn all night, Tristran playing with the silver chain that binds the star to him until he falls asleep.
Tristran realizes, thanks to the nursery rhyme, that the lion simply wants to know that it won—so giving it the crown shows the lion it won, allowing it to feel okay ending the fight. Tristran playing with the chain suggests that he’s becoming more uncomfortable with the implications of trapping a fellow human being, potentially after seeing the star express so much concern and empathy for the unicorn, a fellow living being that was also being unjustly targeted.
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Meanwhile, Morwanneg whips her goats as they draw her chariot down the path. She’s headed for another witch’s caravan, as she saw the cooking fire earlier. When she arrives, the old woman is roasting a hare, a colorful bird chained to a perch nearby. The old woman asks Morwanneg to swear that she means her no harm, which Morwanneg does. They exchange pleasantries about the goats and about the bird, who, the old woman explains, stays a bird because she gave something valuable away years ago and caused a lot of trouble. The woman then introduces herself as Madame Semele—though Morwanneg knows that when Semele was young, she was called “Ditchwater Sal.” Morwanneg introduces herself in turn.
The novel continues to develop Morwanneg’s character. She’s selfish, she’s cruel, she’s self-important: she whips her (enslaved) goats even as they work, and she inwardly refers to Madame Semele as “Ditchwater Sal,” a humorously rude name that lets Morwanneg feel superior. Madame Semele, for her part, justifies enslaving the bird—who is implied to be the young woman who gave Dunstan the flower—because she causes trouble. In turning the woman into a bird, Madame Semele literally dehumanizes her—she’s no longer human.
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Madame Semele fetches beautiful bowls, knives, and a pot of herbs. She then divides the hare, giving Morwanneg the front half, and explains that the pot of herbs will replace salt. As they eat, Morwanneg asks about the herb blend—and Madame Semele reveals that one of the herbs in it is limbus grass, which causes a person to tell the truth when they ingest it. When Madame Semele asks, Morwanneg reveals that she’s after a fallen star and plans to cut the star’s heart out “while her heart is still her own,” as this is a cure for aging. Madame Semele cackles—now she can go find the star herself and regain her youth. But Morwanneg casts a spell on Madame Semele, making it so she won’t be able to see or perceive the star should she find it.
The novel continues to curse and trick nearly everyone: almost as soon as Madame Semele tricks Morwanneg, Morwanneg one-ups her by cursing her to not be able to perceive the star. What motivates both women is a desire for power, but more specifically, a desire for power that they tie to youth. What’s important to both of them is to become young again. The star herself, then, begins to function as the embodiment of youth and vitality, making her a prime target for these elderly witches. Interestingly, though, these women essentially want to have their cake and eat it too. They’re as powerful as they are because they’re old—and they want to keep their power but look youthful.
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Madame Semele is terrified, especially when Morwanneg reveals that she’s one of the Lilim—all the rumors that they’re dead are false. Morwanneg stands, puts her bowl in the fire, and says that Madame Semele will forget this encounter and the curse as soon as Morwanneg is gone—though it will irritate her to no end. The bowl bursts into fire, Morwanneg disappears, and Madame Semele exclaims that she was clumsy to let her bowl fall in the fire. She tells the concerned-looking bird that she must just be getting old.
Here, Morwanneg takes great pains to highlight just how powerful the Lilim are, in part because of their advanced age and accompanying experience. Dealing with an old (but nowhere close to as old) witch like Madame Semele is nothing for Morwanneg or the Lilim. But this passage also drops clues that Morwanneg isn’t infallible. For one, she doesn’t consider that she’s speaking in front of a bird—who’s actually an enslaved person. She dehumanizes the bird/woman and, in doing so, she may be underestimating the young woman’s power to work against her, if she so chooses.
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Primus arrives in the port town of Scaithe’s Ebb. He insists on only consuming his own food and beverage, which he keeps in a locked chest. He bribes poor children to alert him when they see newcomers arriving—particularly a tall man with “blank eyes.” The dead brothers remark on how cautious Primus is being. Before long, everyone in town knows that Primus will be sailing out on the Heart of a Dream soon. Then, one day, a boy alerts Primus that a man has arrived in town matching Primus’s description. Word spreads that Primus will leave in three days. He sells his coach and horses and gives the order that nobody should disturb him on the ship until it’s been out of port a week. The newcomer gets a job on the ship and sails out—and Primus, still on land, buys back his coach and horses.
The man Primus is looking for is presumably Septimus himself. But despite Septimus’s cleverness, Primus still seems to easily outsmart his younger brother, escaping by land and sending Septimus off to sea. That Primus can seemingly trick Septimus at all indicates that Septimus isn’t infallible, as dangerous as he may be. The dead brothers’ chatter alerts readers to how driven Primus is to succeed in his battle with Septimus.
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Back in the forest, the unicorn has been following Tristran and the star as they struggle on. Finally, though it feels “sacrilegious” to ride a unicorn, he asks the star and the unicorn if the unicorn would let her ride. It kneels down, and Tristran helps her up. Tristran then hurries to keep up with the unicorn until the star suggests he see if the unicorn will let him ride, too. It doesn’t get down to help him, so Tristran uses a fallen tree to mount. They head for a nearby village, where Tristran can find food. The unicorn slowly increases speed. Riding it is a thrilling experience. Finally, they reach a meadow by the village, and Tristran dismounts. He begs to know if the star is hungry. Crying, she says that stars eat darkness and drink light, so she isn’t hungry—but she is scared and miserable.
Some of the rules guiding life in Faerie are unspoken and seem to depend mostly on instinct, such as the idea that it’s inappropriate to ride a unicorn. But this rule isn’t, as Tristran and the star discover, set in stone: once they ask, the unicorn allows them to ride, and their journey proceeds just fine. Tristran wants to make sure that the star is fed and taken care of, a sign that he’s beginning to humanize her. She encourages him to continue to shift his thinking as she describes how frightened and upset she is. She wants him to understand how out of her element she is as a fallen star in Faerie.
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Tristran tells the star to stay with the unicorn while he goes to the village. But he can’t get the chain to release him until he says “please.” Handing her his end of the chain, he says he trusts her not to run away. In the village, a woman feeds him soup and sends him on his way with fruit and hay for the unicorn. But when he returns to the meadow, the star and the unicorn are gone. By now, the star and the unicorn are racing away to the southwest. Tristran knows he should’ve tied her up or made her come with him, but he also knows he would’ve freed her eventually—and she likely would’ve run away then. Wondering if he’ll see the star again, Tristran lies down and sleeps.
As when Tristran and the star rode the unicorn, Tristran must simply ask to free himself from the chain. His trust in the star speaks to how he’s coming to see her as a fellow living being—something that notably doesn’t fade even as she runs away from him. Rather, Tristran seems to understand that the star deserves her freedom, even though giving her freedom means that his quest will be more difficult (if not impossible).
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Meanwhile, Morwanneg stops her goats on the southern slope of Mount Belly. She can tell that the star is headed her direction. Primus, camping along the road, shivers by his campfire and eats his breakfast of roast hedgehog and cheese. Then, he casts his runes, looking for insight as to the Power of Stormhold’s whereabouts. He casts them three times, and then he remarks that it’s moving fast. Finally, the star clings to the unicorn as it races through the woods. The unicorn glows, while the star glitters. Faraway observers would think they were seeing a tiny star moving through the trees.
Multiple characters seem set to cross paths, setting the narrative up for a climactic meeting. The description of the star’s appearance as she rides through the woods suggests that even as she’s fallen to Earth, her identity as a star hasn’t changed. It’s still possible to see her as exactly what she is.
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