The ship Shadow

The ship Shadow was a trading galley from the Andrades, bound for Hort Town with a cargo of furs and ivories. It was in the harbor of the Port of Gont when the Harbormaster, at the request of the mage Ogion, arranged for Ged to take passage aboard her to Roke Island. The ship's master was a big, fat man in a red cloak trimmed with pellawi-fur, who gruffly asked Ged if he could work weather or bring the wind; when Ged admitted he could not, the master told him to find a place out of the way and stay in it. The ship carried a crew of seventy, including many young lads who had already made their passage into manhood; they called Ged "Goatherd" because he was Gontish, but he proved quick to return a good word or a jeer and soon began to live as one of them, learning their work. There was no room for idle passengers, and Ged took his turn at the oars alongside the others from the time they left Gont.

The Voyage and the Storm

The Shadow sailed from Gont with the ebbtide near dawn, rowing softly out between the Armed Cliffs as sunrise reddened the Mountain of Gont behind them. They raised the high sail and ran southwestward over the Gontish Sea, passing between Barnisk and Torheven, and came in sight of Havnor, the Great Island, on the second day. For three days they worked along Havnor's eastern coast without coming to shore, then lay over one night at Kembermouth on Way Island and the next at a little town on Felkway Bay. Passing the northern cape of O, they entered the Ebavnor Straits, where they dropped sail and rowed through crowded waters, leaving Havnor astern and sailing between Ark and Ilien before turning southward across the Inmost Sea toward Roke. In the night the wind freshened to a gale; they took down both sail and mast and rowed all the next day, the ship lying steady on the waves but the steersman seeing nothing but rain. The wind grew stronger, tearing the edges of the great waves into flying tatters of foam, and the stints at the oars were shortened as the labor became very hard. Ged took his turn with the others, and when they did not row they bailed, for the seas broke heavy on the ship. The master, seeing the storm would not let them reach Roke, decided to keep south for Hort Town, a lawless place where men were often taken and sold into slavery. But Ged, catching a glimpse of a clear light to the west, insisted it was Roke Island; the master, to save his ship from the peril of the storm, headed westward toward the light, warning Ged that if he led them wrong he would throw him over to swim to Roke. They rowed across the wind's way, waves striking the ship abeam and pushing her south, until at last they passed through a curtain of storm into clear air and saw before them the high, round, green hill of Roke and the town of Thwil Bay, all in peace.

Significance and Legacy

The Shadow's name, given by the Harbormaster, darkened Ogion's face when he heard it, though he said only, "So be it." The ship itself was a sturdy, well-built galley, but its name proved a portent of the shadow that Ged would later loose and pursue across Earthsea. The voyage was Ged's first experience of the sea and of life among sailors, and it taught him the hard labor of rowing and the dangers of the open ocean. The storm that drove the Shadow off course also brought Ged to Roke by a different route, and his insistence on the light to the west demonstrated the first stirrings of his wizardly perception. The ship Shadow thus serves as both a literal vessel of transition and a symbolic foreshadowing of the darkness that will define Ged's early manhood.

The ship Shadow has also been noted for its symbolic resonance within the broader context of the novel's influence. Critics have drawn parallels between the vessel's name and the pervasive theme of naming and power in Earthsea, a concept that later appeared in works such as Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The book's impact on fantasy literature is substantial: Margaret Atwood called it one of the "wellsprings" of the genre, and it has been compared to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Notably, A Wizard of Earthsea is credited with introducing the idea of a "wizard school," a trope later popularized by the Harry Potter series. Reviewers have observed that the basic premise of a talented boy attending a wizard's school and confronting a closely connected enemy mirrors that of Harry Potter, with Ged's facial scar from the shadow paralleling Harry's scar from Voldemort. Le Guin herself commented on these similarities, stating she did not feel Rowling "ripped her off" but expressed disappointment that critics praised Rowling's books for originality, noting that "originality isn't one of them."