Eda's bell cittern

“
Nothing like a good distraction.
”

—Eda Clawthorne, "Eda's Requiem"

**Eda's bell cittern** is an instrument owned by Eda Clawthorne. It is capable of channeling its user's Bard Magic, allowing it to levitate objects. Following her curse taking hold of her magic, Eda can now only use the cittern to corrupt and destroy surrounding objects.

## Appearance

Eda's cittern is a boxy wooden ten-stringed instrument, arranged in five courses, with a bell-shaped body and a long, darker brown neck that angles backward slightly at its pegbox. It has three round sound holes, one of which is located on the upper middle behind the strings, with the other two being slightly smaller and located on either side near the bottom of the body.

It has cream binding with small inward notches running around the edges and sound holes of the body, the middle sound hole having yellow notches pointing into the binding, as well as light orange spots down the sides and bottom of the body. On the right side of the body, it has a small winking cloud symbol with three raindrops under it with an additional zigzag lightning bolt running through the middle of it, scorched into it by Eda.

It has a cream, protruding bridge which holds the strings further outward from the body, with the strings emerging from a dark brown tailpiece near the bottom. It has five black three-pointed tuners on either side of its pegbox, and the scroll resembles a carved wooden bird head.

## Background

Eda owned her bell cittern at least as early as her young adult years, as shown in "Eda's Requiem". In a flashback, Eda is seen with her cittern while spending time with her partner, Raine Whispers. Eda uses a fire spell to brand a raincloud symbol onto the body of the cittern. As Eda readies to play, Raine adjusts the position of Eda's fingers on the cittern, sarcastically commenting that she'd "be a mess without [them]". Eda begins playing a rendition of Raine's Rhapsody, with the cittern's magic causing her hair, and the flowers of the meadow they are in, to float weightlessly.

Many years later, Eda comes across her cittern while rummaging through a chest in her room at the Owl House. As Eda begins playing her cittern, various objects around the room start to float, causing Eda to briefly question if her magic has returned. However, the levitating objects suddenly begin decaying and turning black—a result of her still-active curse. Eda immediately ceases playing and, frustrated, returns the cittern to the chest.

Later, after Eda joins the Bards Against the Throne, Raine magically summons Eda's cittern, wanting to see if she remembers any bard spells. Eda plays a Raine's Rhapsody on her cittern, once again causing surrounding objects to smolder decay, with Raine taking note of the effect.

Raine again summons Eda's cittern after they and the BATs are ambushed by Darius and Eberwolf. Wanting to disrupt Emperor Belos' plans for the Day of Unity, Raine forms a plan to use Eda's curse to take out the two coven heads. Eda and Raine join in a duet—Eda on her cittern and Raine on their violin—with the magic of the two instruments enchanting the surrounding area. The curse quickly corrupts the spell, causing decay to spread rapidly across the ground, and begins consuming Eberwolf, Eberwolf's ratworm, Darius, and eventually even Eda and Raine themselves. The two prepare to sacrifice themselves, but after Raine sees the picture of Eda with Luz and King, realizing Eda has a family, they stop her. Eda tries to continue playing, but Raine magically sends her cittern away, stopping the spell, and causing all of the decay to retreat.

In the epilogue to "Watching and Dreaming", the cittern is seen in the possession of III, a basilisk residing at the University of Wild Magic.

## Trivia

* The idea for Eda to play the bell cittern came from series creator Dana Terrace.
* The sound of a bell cittern was approximated for the show using various lute and guitar sounds, due to composer Brad Breeck not having an actual cittern.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Breeck, Brad [@bradbreeck] (August 1, 2021). "Dana’s idea was that it would be a Bell Cittern. I didn’t have one of those but did my best to approximate the sound with various lutes and guitars 👍" (Tweet). Retrieved May 10, 2023 – via Twitter.