List of His Dark Materials Characters - Other Characters - Ruta Skadi

Ruta Skadi is the Latvian witch queen, and a lover of Lord Asriel. Her dæmon is a bluethroat named Sergi. She is 416 years old (The Subtle Knife), and makes appearances in The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

She accompanies Serafina Pekkala and her companions on part of their journey. She leaves, first to see the angels up above her, and she wants to help them because Lord Asriel is with them. She brings news of a mysterious weapon which turns out to be the Subtle Knife after overhearing tell of it from cliff ghasts. She is described as being very passionate, powerful, pitiless and beautiful, and has black hair and large black eyes. She wears a crown made of the teeth of tigers she killed when a tribe that worshiped them offended her. She has been a lover of Lord Asriel; when it is revealed to the witches that Lyra, Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter's daughter, is to become the second Eve, Ruta laments that as Asriel's lover, she did not become Lyra's mother, reflecting on what Lyra would have been like as a witch. In the play adaptation, however, she commits suicide after killing John Parry, her lover, in place of a more minor character (Juta Kamainen) who does not appear in the adaptation. The second part of her name, "Skadi" is a reference to a Nordic winter goddess.