Jaws of Enlad

The Jaws of Enlad is a significant sea-lane in Earthsea, a narrow passage between the islands of Enlad and Oranéa. It serves as a critical threshold, marking the transition from the known Archipelago into the vast, uncharted waters of the Open Sea. For Ged, the Jaws of Enlad is a place of profound transformation and confrontation, a boundary between the world of light and the realm of darkness.

Geography and Significance

The Jaws of Enlad is a sea-lane, a narrow passage between the islands of Enlad and Oranéa. It is the gateway from the inner seas of the Archipelago to the Open Sea, the vast, uncharted ocean that stretches to the east. The passage is a liminal space, a threshold between the known and the unknown, the safe and the perilous. It is here that Ged, in his falcon form, crosses during his desperate flight from the shadow, leaving behind the lands of men and entering the desolate waters of the East Reach. The Jaws of Enlad is also the place where Ged, later in his quest, summons the shadow and begins the final chase that leads him to the edge of the world.

Ged's Falcon Flight

After escaping the Court of the Terrenon in Osskil, Ged, transformed into a great hawk, flew across the Osskil Sea and then over the Jaws of Enlad. He passed over Enlad, stooping down to drink at a lonely forest pool, but was driven on by the fear of the shadow that pursued him. He crossed the great sea-lane called the Jaws of Enlad, and went on and on, east by south, the hills of Oranéa faint to his right and the hills of Andrad fainter to his left, and before him only the sea. This flight was a desperate act of escape, but it also marked a turning point, as Ged's will to fly became the falcon's will, and he began to lose his own human identity. The Jaws of Enlad was the point of no return, the threshold beyond which he could not turn back.

The Summoning and the Chase

Later, after his recovery on Gont and his decision to hunt the shadow, Ged sailed from Gont and crossed the Gontish Sea. He set his course northwestwards to pass north of Oranéa, returning as he had come. He sailed a rough chopping sea, and after some hours, he was first in sight of Kameber Rock, the only isle between Gont and Oranéa. He ate and drank, and thought gratefully of the silent Gontishwoman who had given him the food. On past the dim glimpse of land he sailed, tacking more westerly now, in a faint dank drizzle. There was no sound at all but the small creaking of the boat and light slap of waves on her bow. No boat or bird went by. Nothing moved but the ever-moving water and the drifting clouds, the clouds that he remembered dimly as flowing all about him as he, a falcon, flew east on this same course he now followed to the west; and he had looked down on the grey sea then as now he looked up at the grey air. Nothing was ahead when he looked around. He stood up, chilled, weary of this gazing and peering into empty murk. "Come then," he muttered, "come on, what do you wait for, Shadow?" There was no answer, no darker motion among the dark mists and waves. Yet he knew more and more surely now that the thing was not far off, seeking blindly down his cold trail. And all at once he shouted out aloud, "I am here, I Ged the Sparrowhawk, and I summon my shadow!" The boat creaked, the waves lisped, the wind hissed a little on the white sail. The moments went by. Still Ged waited, one hand on the yew-wood mast of his boat, staring into the icy drizzle that slowly drove in ragged lines across the sea from the north. The moments went by. Then, far off in the rain over the water, he saw the shadow coming. It had done with the body of the Osskilian oarsman Skiorh, and not as gebbeth did it follow him through the winds and over sea. Nor did it wear that beast-shape in which he had seen it on Roke Knoll, and in his dreams. Yet it had a shape now, even in the daylight. In its pursuit of Ged and in its struggle with him on the moors it had drawn power from him, sucking it into itself: and it may be that his summoning of it, aloud in the light of day, had given to it or forced upon it some form and semblance. Certainly it had now some likeness to a man, though being shadow it cast no shadow. So it came over the sea, out of the Jaws of Enlad towards Gont, a dim ill-made thing pacing uneasy on the waves, peering down the wind as it came; and the cold rain blew through it. Because it was half blinded by the day, and because he had called it, Ged saw it before it saw him. He knew it, as it knew him, among all beings, all shadows. In the terrible solitude of the winter sea Ged stood and saw the thing he feared. The wind seemed to blow it farther from the boat, and the waves ran under it bewildering his eye, and ever and again it seemed closer to him. He could not tell if it moved or not. It had seen him, now. Though there was nothing in his mind but horror and fear of its touch, the cold black pain that drained his life away, yet he waited, unmoving. Then all at once speaking aloud he called the magewind strong and sudden into his white sail, and his boat leapt across the grey waves straight at the lowering thing that hung upon the wind. In utter silence the shadow, wavering, turned and fled. Upwind it went, northward. Upwind Ged's boat followed, shadow-speed against mage-craft, the rainy gale against them both. And the young man yelled to his boat, to the sail and the wind and the waves ahead, as a hunter yells to his hounds when the wolf runs in plain sight before them, and he brought into that spell-woven sail a wind that would have split any sail of cloth and that drove his boat over the sea like a scud of blown foam, closer always to the thing that fled. Now the shadow turned, making a half-circle, and appearing all at once more loose and dim, less like a man, more like mere smoke blowing on the wind, it doubled back and ran downwind with the gale, as if it made for Gont. With hand and spell Ged turned his boat, and it leaped like a dolphin from the water, rolling, in that quick turn. Faster than before he followed, but the shadow grew ever fainter to his eyes. Rain, mixed with sleet and snow, came stinging across his back and his left cheek, and he could not see more than a hundred yards ahead. Before long, as the storm grew heavier, the shadow was lost to sight. Yet Ged was sure of its track as if he followed a beast's track over snow, instead of a wraith fleeing over water. Though the wind blew his way now he held the singing magewind in the sail, and flake-foam shot from the boat's blunt prow, and she slapped the water as she went. For a long time hunted and hunter held their weird, fleet course, and the day was darkening fast. Ged knew that at the great pace he had gone these past hours he must be south of Gont, heading past it towards Spevy or Torheven, or even past these islands out into the open Reach. He could not tell. He did not care. He hunted, he followed, and fear ran before him. This chase, beginning at the Jaws of Enlad, was the first direct confrontation between Ged and the shadow, and it set the stage for the final, decisive encounter on the Open Sea.

Symbolic and Narrative Role

The Jaws of Enlad functions as a powerful symbol of transition and threshold. It is the place where Ged, in his falcon form, crosses from the known world into the unknown, and where he later, as a hunter, summons the shadow and begins the chase that will lead him to the edge of the world. The passage is a liminal space, a boundary between the world of light and the realm of darkness. It is also a place of memory and return, as Ged, sailing back towards Gont, remembers his earlier flight as a falcon. The Jaws of Enlad is thus a site of both departure and return, of flight and pursuit, of fear and courage. It is a key location in Ged's journey, marking the point where he stops running and begins to hunt, and where he first meets the shadow in a direct, daylight confrontation.