His Dark Materials
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His Dark Materials

Queen Serafina Pekkala was the queen of the Lake Enara clan of witches. Her dæmon, Kaisa, had the form of a snow goose.[3]

Biography[]

Serafina was born around the end of the 17th century to the Lake Enara clan queen.[4]

Relationship with Farder Coram[]

In the 1950s, Serafina Pekkala fell into a swamp and was about to drown after being attacked by a large red bird. Farder Coram pulled Serafina into his boat and shot the bird, which he then realised was another witch's dæmon. Serafina told him that any time he needed help, he could call on her.[5]

Serafina and Farder Coram fell in love and the couple had a son. Serafina acknowledged that she would have gladly given up her witch ways to be a proper gyptian wife to Coram, but she was a witch and it just wasn't possible. Their young son fell victim to an epidemic and died.[4]

Reign as Queen[]

Not long after the death of her son, Serafina's mother died and she became Queen of the Lake Enara clan. When Farder Coram was hit by a Skraeling's envenomed arrow, Serafina sent herbs and spells to help him recover but did not feel able to face him in person. Her duty as queen, with the threat of witch-wars and instability to her clan, kept her from regaining contact with him.[4]

Bolvangar[]

After Lyra Belacqua fulfilled the prophecy by picking out the right cloud-pine at Martin Lanselius's house in Trollesund, Kaisa visited her on the gyptians' ship at night and talked to Lyra, Coram van Texel and John Faa where they discussed Bolvangar. Kaisa continued to follow the gyptians' progress further into the North.[3]

When Lyra was taken by Samoyed hunters, Kaisa followed her to Bolvangar. When the fire bell drill went off and all the children went outside, Kaisa took his chance and flew down to where Lyra was. Lyra had taken the opportunity to explore the site and had gone to an outhouse where they stored severed dæmons. Kaisa helped to break the lock on the door and also on the cages inside and escorted the dæmons out, helping them fly and look for their humans.[6]

As Lyra escaped Bolvangar, witches came down from the skies to assist the children, fighting off the Tartars who guarded the site. Serafina was one of the witches but soon went to assist Lee Scoresby by helping pull his balloon.[2]

Svalbard[]

As they flew to Svalbard, Serafina talked first to Lee about how Lyra was the child in the witches' prophecy and they were on her side of the war, and then to Lyra briefly about what they must do next.[2]

As they got nearer Svalbard, some cliff-ghasts attacked the witches who were pulling the balloon, which they managed to get away from, but when another witch clan attacked, the witches lost hold of the balloon and it went tumbling away.

The balloon, which Lyra, Roger Parslow and Iorek Byrnison had fallen out of, was borne to Nova Zembla with Lee still in it. Some of the witches had managed to stay with the balloon and were assisting him.[1]

Fog[]

After Lord Asriel had opened the window between Lyra's world and the world of Cittàgazze, a great fog filled the North. Serafina was desperately trying to find Lyra somewhere but got engulfed in the fog. She and Kaisa managed to find another witch's dæmon who was in a frenzy because his witch had been captured.

Serafina flew down to the land where a boat was mooring and found her way on board by making herself unnoticed. On the ship, she discovered Marisa Coulter and some officials from the Magisterium. They had moved from a conference room to a room where a witch was lying, with broken legs. Serafina could barely watch as Marisa snapped two of her fingers and forced the witch to tell her about Lyra.

Serafina, unable to watch any longer, answered the witch's pleas for Yambe-Akka, the witch goddess that would visit a witch when she was about to die. Serafina came forward, smiling, bending down to kiss the witch whilst planting a knife into her chest. The witch's suffering had ended.

Serafina soon fought her way out, killing Cardinal Sturrock, before flying away to Trollesund with Kaisa. Here, they talked to Martin the Witch-Consul about what was happening. Martin told her of the rumours going around in Trollesund and that the Magisterium was assembling a large army. Martin told her that Lord Asriel's servant, Thorold, could give her more information.

Serafina flew to Svalbard and found Thorold, who talked to Serafina about what he thought Asriel way doing. Thorold told her he thought Asriel was waging a higher war than one against the Magisterium, he was going to kill the Authority.[1]

Homeland[]

Serafina travelled back to Lake Enara where she staged a meeting with her witches. Ruta Skadi flew to the lake and joined the council on the night, Serafina also invited Lee who was particularly shocked as no man had ever been known to join a witch council before. At the council, the clan decided that they should search for Lyra in Cittàgazze. Serafina gave a little scarlet flower from her crown to Lee after he decided to try and find Stanislaus Grumman and told him that, should he ever need help, to call her with it.[1]

Cittàgazze[]

After flying into the new world, the witches discovered how different it was to theirs. They travelled for many days, finding new lands that were flooded, new species that attacked them and saw the Spectres below them, none of which could fly.

At some point, they came across a man called Joachim Lorenz and watched from the sky as his party of travellers was attacked by the Spectres. Joachim and another woman, on horseback, fled from the scene before returning a few minutes later. The witches approached him and he told them about Cittàgazze and the Spectres that haunted the world. They listened and shared information about their worlds before seeing some angels flying across the sky.

Ruta left the group and joined the angels flying to Asriel's basalt fortress. Serafina and the group continued towards the city of Cittàgazze.[7]

When they arrived, they found Lyra and another boy, Will Parry being attacked in the Belvedere tower by a group of children. The witches flew down, shooting arrows and scaring the children before rescuing the children. Kaisa flew down to speak to Lyra and told the two of them to meet the witches in a cave further into the woods as the witches couldn't stop at the moment with all the Spectres around.[8]

After the children arrived at the cave, Serafina went over to inspect Will's hand for, after acquiring the subtle knife, two of his fingers had fallen off. Serafina decided that a holding spell was needed and got ready to cast the spell in the night. When it was ready, they awoke Will and began the chanting to try and stop the blood flowing out of the wound.

The next day, the wound was still bleeding, the spell hadn't worked that night. Not long after, Ruta returned from the basalt fortress and told the witches what she had learned. She told them of how great the fortress and army was and that she wanted to pledge the witches' support there and then. She also told about the thing she had learnt about from a group of cliff-ghasts: Lord Asriel would need Æsahættr to win the war, however the witches didn't know what this was.[9]

Lee Scoresby[]

Lyra's alethiometer told her to move on however, Serafina received a call from Lee via the scarlet flower she had given him and flew to see what the problem was. When she arrived, Serafina saw that Lee had been killed by a group of Muscovites. Serafina placed Lee under a spell to prevent his body from corruption before flying to Svalbard to talk to Iorek, the bear king.

Serafina told him about what had happened to Lee and told Iorek where he was so that the bear could visit him. Serafina then set off to find the gyptians to ask them to join the war.[10]

Mulefa world[]

Later, Serafina appeared to Lyra and Will Parry's two dæmons and to Mary Malone in the mulefa world to talk to them about what they were to do next.

By the time Lyra was 20, she and Serafina hadn't seen each other since the time in the mulefa world.[11]

Physical appearance[]

Serafina had long blonde hair and green eyes,[2] and was described by Farder Coram as "thinner than some, prettier than most." She wore a crown of red flowers when acting as queen to her tribe.[1]

Powers and Abilities[]

Serafina was a powerful witch, possessed of all the standard abilities such as flying, using healing magic and controlling the weather to some extent. She was also skilled with a bow and arrow, which she used to defend herself and others.

Dæmon[]

Northern Lights chapter 11 Kaisa

Kaisa

Serafina's dæmon took the form of a large male white snow goose named Kaisa.[8]

Background[]

Like all witches and their dæmons, Kaisa and Serafina underwent a ritual process that allowed them to separate over long distances.

Personality and appearance[]

Kaisa often acted as a scout and envoy for Serafina, for example travelling to meet the gyptians at their arrival at Trollesund. Lyra was at first horrified and perplexed by his appearance as he was without his human. He showed himself to be wise and kind, much like his human, in aiding the gyptians on their quest and later using magic to help Lyra break in to the dæmon-cage and release the severed dæmons. He showed unwavering compassion as he guided the severed dæmons away from Bolvangar.

Kaisa was large and grey, with a crown of white feathers at the top of his head, and sky-blue eyes ringed with gold.

Behind the scenes[]

Appearances[]

Nl 02
HDM Wiki has 11 images of Serafina Pekkala.
Nl 02
HDM Wiki has 4 images of Kaisa.

References[]

Witches
Witch clans Lake Enara clanKeitele clanLake Ladoga clanLake Lubana clanMicokojärvi clanNania clanOnega clanTaymyr clanTikshozero clanLake Umolese clanLake Visha clan
Clan queens Ieva KaskuJulia OjalandJuta KamainenKatya SirkkaPaula PyhäjärowReina MitiRuta SkadiSara LeiroSerafina PekkalaTanja LentanaTilda Vasara
Other witches Lena FeldtMedeaSerafina Pekkala's motherYelena PazhetsTortured witchUnidentified witch
Consuls Martin Lanselius
Important Yambe-AkkaCloud-pineHolding spell
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