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A shieldmaiden no longer

This design represents Éowyn's change in heart after she meets Faramir in the Houses of Healing. The celtic Serch Bythol symbol, which is translated as everlasting love, is imposed on top of a shield, representing the shieldmaiden of Rohan turning her desire to things other than glory on the battlefield. The horseshoes and seven stars on the side represent the joining of Éowyn and Faramir as well.
‘I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’ And again she looked at Faramir. ‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.
    Then Faramir laughed merrily. ‘That is well,’ he said; ‘for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.’
    ‘Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to choose?”’
    ‘I would,’ said Faramir. And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the Houses of Healing.
—Excerpt from The Lord of the Rings, book 6 chapter 5, The Steward and the King
A shieldmaiden no longer
Published:

A shieldmaiden no longer

Published: