Grand Mother Silk Boss Guide: Every Phase and All 3 Endings

Grand Mother Silk is the boss that caps Act 2 of Hollow Knight: Silksong, and she is not a fight you stumble into unprepared. She floats above a loom-like cocoon at the top of the Cradle, swings six scissor-blades on long threads, and carries 1,224 HP split across six escalating phases. Beating her is only half the job, too: depending on what you're carrying when you walk in, the fight ends three different ways. Here's every attack, the gear that changes the outcome, and the order to learn it all in.

01Where to Find Grand Mother Silk

Grand Mother Silk waits at the top of the Cradle, the area that caps off the upper reaches of Pharloom. You can't reach her cold: the fight is gated behind your second encounter with Lace, and only opens up once that duel is finished. Treat the climb up to the Cradle as your last checkpoint to restock — there's no vendor inside the arena itself, and once the fight starts you're committed to whatever tools, crests and charms you walked in with.

This is an Act 2 capstone fight, so Team Cherry built it to test everything you've learned up to that point: blade patterns that demand clean platforming, a shrieking silk-web attack that punishes panic, and a final phase that moves faster than anything else you've fought so far. Go in at full health and with your Needolin on hand — it matters later.

02Phase 1 Through 3: Learning Her Base Kit

Grand Mother Silk doesn't deal contact damage herself; only her torso, floating above the arena, actually takes hits. The six scissor-blades around her are the real threat, and almost every attack in the first three phases is built out of them.

• Blade Flurry — three blades drop vertically, followed by three more sweeping horizontally. The horizontal wave always leaves a gap somewhere, so watch for it instead of trying to out-dash the whole line.
• Blade Walls — three blades launch in from each side of the arena at once. Time your crossing for the moment after they pass, not before.
• Blade Rain — all six blades drop straight down together, but with consistent gaps between them. Pick a gap early and commit.
• Claw Swipe — a telegraphed slash across the floor that finishes with an upward arc. This one always flows directly into Blade Rain, so start reading the follow-up the instant the swipe begins.
• Glide — short backward dashes to reposition. If you corner her, she'll break out a longer dash across the whole arena instead.

Phase 2 adds Silk Web: Grand Mother Silk shrieks and a random web pattern lights up across the entire arena before triggering. It deals three masks of damage and knocks you into a short cutscene if it connects, so treat the warning flash as a hard stop-what-you're-doing cue. Phase 3 speeds everything up again and starts chaining a third Blade Flurry set onto the first two, plus an immediate Silk Web repeat — this is where most first attempts fall apart, simply from the pace increase rather than any new mechanic.

03Phase 4 Through 6: Debris Rain, Spike Pull and the Final Sprint

At the Phase 4 threshold, Grand Mother Silk fakes a death and briefly leaves the arena while silk lines appear across the middle and sides, pulling down chunks of debris that keep falling for a few seconds. She immediately follows the debris with a needle-based attack, so don't relax the moment the rocks stop. Oddly, overall attack speed actually drops slightly here compared to Phase 3 — it's the one breather in the back half of the fight.

Phase 5 introduces Spike Pull: two or three sets of silk lines appear in random spots and yank up spiked platforms from the floor. You can clear a platform with two light hits, one heavy hit, or by just eating the hit — spikes only deal one mask. New Spike Pull sets cancel whatever's already active, so don't worry about overlapping patterns stacking damage.

Phase 6 is the sprint to the finish: every earlier attack returns at a faster clip, and most of them now deal two masks instead of one, with Silk Web bumped up to three. Spike Pull is the exception and still only costs a single mask. If you've cleanly handled Phases 1 through 5, Phase 6 is mostly about keeping your nerve — there's nothing new to learn, just less time to react.

04Gear to Bring Into the Fight

There's no shop inside the Cradle, so your loadout is locked the moment the fight starts. Favor charms that smooth out your dodge timing or extend your post-hit invincibility over anything purely offensive — this fight is long enough that surviving your own mistakes matters more than shaving a few seconds off the clock. If you're still inconsistent on Blade Walls or the Phase 3 triple Blade Flurry, it's worth running a defensive setup for a few practice attempts even if it means a slower kill, since reaching Phase 6 with health in reserve is what actually decides whether a run succeeds.

Healing is the other resource to manage carefully. Grand Mother Silk rarely gives you a clean multi-second window to heal before Phase 4, so treat any lull in Blade Rain or Glide as your healing opportunity rather than waiting for a "safe" moment that may not come until the debris settles.

05Picking Your Ending Before You Walk In

This is the detail that trips people up: Grand Mother Silk has three distinct endings, and which one you get is decided by what you're carrying before the fight starts, not by anything you do during it.

• Weaver Queen — the default outcome. Walk in without the Soul Snare and Hornet binds Grand Mother Silk's power herself at the end of the fight, becoming the new Weaver Queen.
• Snared Silk — craft the Soul Snare with the Caretaker before the fight. After the kill, play the Needolin to trigger it; Grand Mother Silk gets bound toward the Void, Lace intervenes, and both fall through the portal together.
• Twisted Child — get cursed by the Twisted Bud before you walk in. After the win, vines burst out of Hornet's shell and ensnare Grand Mother Silk while a crack in her body hatches into something new.

Each ending unlocks its own achievement, so if you're going for all three you'll need separate runs, or at minimum a save you're willing to reload. One extra detail worth knowing: playing the Needolin mid-fight makes Grand Mother Silk pause once and throw her head back — no dialogue plays, and she ignores the Needolin after that first response, so there's no benefit to spamming it beyond the one cue.

How to Beat Grand Mother Silk

1. 1Grand Mother Silk is gated behind Lace's second fight in the Cradle. Clear that duel first; there's no way to reach the boss arena around it.Prereq
2. 2There's no bench or shop inside the Cradle. Heal to full, restock Silk and any consumables, and set your loadout — you're locked into it for the whole fight.5 min
3. 3Run a defensive setup for your first attempts and focus purely on reading Blade Flurry, Blade Walls, Blade Rain, Claw Swipe and the Phase 2 Silk Web shriek.10-15 min
4. 4Treat the Phase 4 fake-death as a cue to reposition, not relax — a needle attack follows the debris immediately. In Phase 5, clear Spike Pull platforms with two light hits or one heavy hit.5-10 min
5. 5Every attack returns faster and hits harder here, but nothing new appears. Keep your dodge timing tight and bank any healing windows during Glide or lulls in Blade Rain.2-3 min
6. 6Decide between Weaver Queen (default), Snared Silk (craft the Soul Snare with the Caretaker first) or Twisted Child (get cursed by the Twisted Bud first), then walk in with that item ready.Varies

06What Patch 5 Changed

The build currently live is Patch 5 (version 1.0.30000), which Team Cherry released on March 24, 2026 and has described as the last significant update before the free Sea of Sorrow expansion. The patch's confirmed changes were mostly bug fixes and localization work — Traditional Chinese support and a revised German script — plus a general pass on "some in-game items and boss encounters" for a better overall experience. Team Cherry hasn't published a changelog line naming Grand Mother Silk specifically, so treat any claim that her numbers moved in Patch 5 as unconfirmed; the HP and phase breakdown above reflects the fight as it currently plays on 1.0.30000.

Team Cherry's December 2025 teaser for Sea of Sorrow, Silksong's next free expansion after the Cradle.

07What's Next: Sea of Sorrow

Team Cherry has already confirmed what's coming after you've cleared the Cradle. Sea of Sorrow is a free, nautically themed expansion announced in December 2025, promising new areas, new bosses and new tools for Hornet once it ships sometime in 2026. Team Cherry has kept details deliberately sparse since the teaser, saying only to expect more information shortly before release — worth bookmarking the Team Cherry site if you want to catch the announcement the moment it lands.

08Final Tips for a Clean Run

Pack whatever damage output you can comfortably dodge-cancel around — this fight punishes greedy extra hits far more than it rewards raw DPS, since every phase transition resets your positioning anyway. Keep a damage-reducing charm on if your reflexes are still shaky on Blade Walls, and don't be afraid to spend a run or two just learning Phase 6's rhythm with a safe loadout before you commit to an ending-specific attempt. Once you can consistently reach Phase 6 with health to spare, go back and set up whichever ending you actually want — Soul Snare, Twisted Bud, or neither — and finish the job.