Gracious Wings
Gracious Wings (née No-Name) is a Harpy who terrorises the ghosts of the Land of the Dead.
No-Name is a Harpy who terrorises the ghosts in the World of the Dead. The Harpies were given power by the Authority, thousands of years ago, to see the worst in every person that entered the world of the dead. They “fed on the worse ever since” until their very hearts were sickened and rank.
Physical description
| "The thing was the size of a vulture, with the face and breasts of a woman. Will had seen pictures of creatures like her, and the word harpy came to mind as soon as he saw her clearly. Her face was smooth and unwrinkled, but aged beyond even the age of the witches… Her eye sockets were clotted with filthy slime, and the redness of her lips were caked and crusted as if she had vomited ancient blood again and again. Her matted, filthy black hair hung down to her shoulders; her jagged claws gripped the stone fiercely; her powerful dark wings were folded along her back, and a drift of putrescent stink wafted from her every time she moved." | |||
| Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass (Chapter 21) |
In effort to free the ghosts from the world of the dead, without them coming to further harm from the harpies, Lyra, Will and the Gallivespians struck a deal with the them. In return for guiding the ghosts “from the landing place by the lake.. to the new opening out into the world”, the ghosts would feed them not on the bad things inside them, but with true stories about their life. “If they live in the world, they should see and touch and hear and love and learn things”, so they would have something to tell and feed the harpies with.
So, In return for the Harpies helping Will and Lyra find a way out of the land of the dead, and for their new task to guide all of the other ghosts to the opening, Lyra gave No-Name the harpy a new name. This name was Gracious Wings.
