The Lady of Shallot, a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shallot, named Elaine, and also called the Fair Maid of Astolat, was a beautiful woman who lived alone in a tower on an island in the river that flows down to Camelot. She is held in her room by a curse which does not allow her to go out or even look out the window. Instead she can only see the world through a mirror, which in some versions of the story is a magic mirror but in most is just a large mirror that allows her to see what is happening in the outside world. She weaves tapestries, pictures made with thread, and uses the things she sees in her mirror--scenes of Camelot--as the subject of her tapestries.