Know without knowing
Abilities
"Learning!" Eilonwy declared. "I've been up to my ears in learning."
As the heir to the House of Llyr, Eilonwy had latent magical ability that – supposedly – would have been realised when she came of age. As a child, she lived in Achren's palace of Spiral Castle and there was taught some techniques of sorcery. According to Eilonwy herself, she learned a spell for summoning frogs (sadly unused), and would have learned a more practical spell for opening locks, but the destruction of Spiral Castle cut short this aspect of her education. Only once, while the companions were fleeing from the Cauldron-Born in The Book of Three, did Eilonwy actually attempt to cast a spell. This involved shooting arrows at the pursuing warriors, after having 'murmured a strange phrase'
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Open-mouthed, Taran watched as the shaft began its descent: as the arrow plummeted to earth, long, silvery streamers sprang from its feathers. In an instant, a huge spiderweb glittered in the air and drifted slowly towards the horsemen.
The web spell, unfortunately, failed, since the web was too flimsy and the Cauldron-Born simply tore it away. Eilonwy explained that she had tried to learn the spell by eavesdropping on Achren, but had not listened closely enough.
At Caer Colur, Eilonwy finally sacrificed her chance to become a practising enchantress in order to thwart Achren's plan to rule through her. She retained, however, her residual magic ability, and this gave her certain talents. She could always command the light of the Golden Pelydryn, the most precious magical implement of the House of Llyr. She could tell whether food that she was about to eat had been poisoned or enchanted. She had hunches, some kind of prompting from her magical awareness; when picking up a sense of trouble at King Smoit's castle, where the king and her friends had been imprisoned, she tried to explain, 'I see the castle all crooked-wise – no, not see. Taste? No…'
. Her magic also enhanced her natural affinity with animals. She could communicate by exchanging thoughts with the wolves Brynach and Briavael, without understanding logically how this could be done.
Eilonwy's other talents included spelunking (she had explored all of the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Spiral Castle, and had a natural ability to find her way through dark places), girding swords on their owners (she performed this service for both Gwydion and Taran), and embroidering battle flags (her emblems were appropriate, even if the stitches were straggling).