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The Unicorn
The Lilim are a group of three old women who are, collectively, also known as the witch-queen. They live in a small cottage in the woods in Faerie. There’s a huge mirror in their cottage, revealing three young women who live in a grand hall with a mermaid fountain—and it’s unclear if the young women are the same as the old women or if they’re future or past iterations of the old women. The Lilim keep watch for fallen stars, and when a star falls in Faerie, they regularly pursue the stars—which fall in the form of young women—and cut their hearts out. This allows the Lilim to temporarily regain their youth. When Yvaine falls, the Lilim send their oldest sister, Morwanneg, to get her heart.
The Lilim Quotes in Stardust
The Stardust quotes below are all either spoken by The Lilim or refer to The Lilim. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
The three old women were the Lilim—the witch-queen—all alone in the woods.
The three women in the mirror were also the Lilim: but whether they were the successors to the old women, of their shadow-selves, or whether only the peasant cottage in the woods was real, or if, somewhere, the Lilim lived in a black hall, with a fountain in the shape of a mermaid playing in the courtyard of stars, none knew for certain, and none but the Lilim could say.
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Chapter 5 Quotes
“I am on my way to find a star,” said the witch-queen, “which fell in the great woods on the other side of Mount Belly. And when I find her, I shall take my great knife and cut out her heart, while she lives, and while her heart is her own. For the heart of a living star is a sovereign remedy against all the snares of age and time. [...]”
Madame Semele hooted and hugged herself, swaying back and forth, bony fingers clutching her sides. “The heart of a star, is it? Hee! Hee! Such a prize it will make for me. I shall taste enough of it that my youth will come back, and my hair turn from grey to golden, and my dugs swell and soften and become firm and high. Then I shall take all the heart that’s left to the Great Market at Wall. Hee!”
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Chapter 6 Quotes
“If I but had my true youth again... why, in the dawn of the world I could transform mountains into seas and clouds into palaces. I could populate cities with the pebbles on the shingle. If I were young again...”
She sighed and raised a hand: a blue flame flickered about her fingers for a moment, and then, as she lowered her hand, and bent down to touch her chariot, the fire vanished.
She stood up straight. There were streaks of grey now in her raven-black hair, and dark pouches beneath her eyes; but the chariot was gone, and she stood in front of a small inn at the edge of the mountain pass.
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Chapter 10 Quotes
Yvaine realized that she felt nothing but pity for the creature who had wanted her dead, so she said, “Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own?”
The old woman coughed. Her whole frame shook and spasmed with the retching effort of it.
The star waited for her to be done, and then she said, “I have given my heart to another.”
“The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?”
“Yes.”
“You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do.”
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The Lilim Character Timeline in Stardust
The timeline below shows where the character The Lilim appears in Stardust. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...a grand hall, complete with a mermaid fountain, in the mirror. These women are the Lilim, “the witch-queen,” and the women in the mirror are also the Lilim. Only the Lilim...
(full context)
One of the Lilim enters the cottage with a dead stoat. She skins it, and when one of the...
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The now-young Lilim (later revealed to be Morwanneg) changes her clothes, the other two staring “hungrily” at her...
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Chapter 5
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,...
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Chapter 8
...Morwanneg has made a pool of blood, she stares through it at the other two Lilim. They scold her for wasting the last of the previous star’s heart, and Morwanneg snaps...
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Chapter 10
...do some sightseeing along the way. Yvaine turns back to Morwanneg, who says that the Lilim will be angry that she won’t return with the heart, but it will be okay....
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