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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stardust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Aging, and Maturity
Love and Ownership
Home and Belonging
Rules
The Value of Literature
Summary
Analysis
Diggory’s Dyke is a huge cut in several hills revealing chalk deposits. Anyone traveling to Wall must pass through the Dyke, though few pay much attention to the structure made of sticks and twigs alongside the path. Septimus watches it from the top of the nearby hills for several days and watches the woman who lives there (Morwanneg) stop all travelers coming through the Dyke. This woman, he’s certain, killed Primus. Septimus prefers to poison people when possible, but this woman doesn’t seem to eat. Ultimately, he creeps to the house one dark night and lights a fire in the hut’s wall using paper from a poetry collection as tinder. Then he waits by the door with a club while his dead brothers watch. Primus is the only one unconvinced by Septimus’s plan.
Readers may infer that Morwanneg is checking caravans for Yvaine, creating some tension, as Madame Semele is headed for Wall herself. Septimus is, to his credit, following the rules dictating that he must avenge Primus’s death before he can assume his role as the Lord of Stormhold. However, it seems like a bad omen when he uses a poetry collection as tinder. This suggests that Septimus devalues literary works, and he cuts himself off from any wisdom they might have to offer by burning instead of reading the poems.
Themes
The flames engulf the hut, and Septimus feels like he’s won. But then a small red snake bites his heel through his boot. As he sits down to take his boot off, he realizes his foot is numb—and then the fire goes out. Morwanneg appears behind Septimus, whose heart beats erratically, and scolds him for preying on a vulnerable old lady. She picks up the snake and puts it around her wrist. Septimus doesn’t die until dawn. Then his ghost says that none of his brothers will be Lord of Stormhold, and the dead brothers all disappear.
Ironically, while Morwanneg seeks Yvaine’s strong and beating heart, she kills Septimus with a venom that makes his heartbeat both weak and erratic. Septimus’s inability to follow through with killing Morwanneg seems, at this point, to mean that there’s no one to rule the Stormhold. It also seems to support the eighty-first Lord of Stormhold’s assertion that his children are weaker than he was, as none of them managed to survive.
Themes
Madame Semele’s caravan drives through Diggory’s Dyke, and she asks the old woman—Morwanneg—what happened to her house. Morwanneg complains about kids these days playing pranks, and then she demands to know who’s traveling with Madame Semele. Madame Semele can’t help but answer, and she says she has her mules, a servant girl in bird form, and a man in a dormouse’s body. Morwanneg sends Madame Semele on, and Yvaine, sleeping in the caravan, has no idea how much danger she was in. Once the caravan is well past Diggory’s Dyke, the bird sings with glee, not stopping even when Madame Semele threatens it.
Morwanneg’s curse on Madame Semele ends up hurting Morwanneg: Madame Semele believes she’s telling the truth about all the beings traveling with her, and Morwanneg doesn’t realize she should double check the caravan instead of taking Madame Semele at her word. This points to Morwanneg’s hubris: it never occurs to her that her own curse would end up protecting the star.
Themes
The caravan finally reaches the meadow outside Wall. People are setting up tents as Madame Semele pulls the dormouse out of its cage and touches its head with a glass daffodil. Tristran now sits before her, angry, though Madame Semele insists she kept up her end of the bargain. Yvaine joins Tristran, and they watch as Madame Semele turns the bird into a young woman who looks only a bit older than Tristran. Something about her seems familiar. Yvaine points to the chain binding the young woman to the caravan, and while Tristran agrees it’s terrible, he doesn’t think they can do anything to help.
Technically, Madame Semele did what she said she would—but that doesn’t mean Tristran appreciates having his autonomy violated for weeks. The young woman, again, is Tristran’s mother, which explains why she looks familiar. Her seeming youth suggests that whatever human-like being she is, she ages differently than mortal world humans. Both Tristran and Yvaine now take offense to the young woman’s chain, a symbol of her enslavement. Their sadness and concern reflect their understanding that it isn’t appropriate to own another human being.
Themes
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Tristran and Yvaine head for the gap in the wall, Tristran explaining that they’ll visit his parents and then Victoria. But he realizes he hasn’t thought of either of them in a long time, and suddenly, it makes no sense to give the star to Victoria when he knows she’s “not a thing to be passed from hand to hand, but a true person in all respects and no kind of a thing at all.” Still, he loves Victoria. He decides to figure it out later, though he also realizes he doesn’t know anymore what color Victoria’s eyes are. Yvaine asks if Tristran is sure about this, and he assures her that while he’s nervous, it’ll be fine. Yvaine follows him to the gap.
In this passage, Tristran comes to several shocking realizations. Most important to his coming of age, he recognizes and respects the star’s autonomy and personhood—and that she isn’t something he can or should own and gift to Victoria. Then, there are numerous clues that Tristran has moved on from his love for Victoria and his desire to live out his life in Wall. He’s far more focused on Faerie, and in particular, on Yvaine—perhaps foreshadowing a choice to stay in Faerie.
Themes
