A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia Read online

  —The Silver Chair

  Jill, Scrubb, and Puddleglum have just realized the place they struggled over yesterday was the very place Aslan told them to seek. Why is it so important for each of them to own up to their mistakes? How might this scene have played out if, instead of each blaming themselves, they pointed fingers at one another?

  MAY 29

  Facing the Dragon

  BUT LATER IN THE NIGHT Lucy was wakened, very softly, and found the whole company gathered close together and talking in whispers.

  “What is it?” said Lucy.

  “We must all show great constancy,” Caspian was saying. “A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they’re not at all afraid of fire.”

  “With your Majesty’s leave—” began Reepicheep.

  “No, Reepicheep,” said the King very firmly, “you are not to attempt a single combat with it. And unless you promise to obey me in this matter I’ll have you tied up. We must just keep close watch and, as soon as it is light, go down to the beach and give it battle. . . .”

  “Perhaps it will go away,” said Lucy.

  “It’ll be worse if it does,” said Edmund, “because then we shan’t know where it is. If there’s a wasp in the room I like to be able to see it.”

  The rest of the night was dreadful, and when the meal came, though they knew they ought to eat, many found that they had very poor appetites. And endless hours seemed to pass before the darkness thinned and birds began chirping here and there and the world got colder and wetter than it had been all night and Caspian said, “Now for it, friends.”

  They got up, all with swords drawn, and formed themselves into a solid mass with Lucy in the middle and Reepicheep on her shoulder. It was nicer than the waiting about and everyone felt fonder of everyone else than at ordinary times.

  —The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

  Why would facing the dragon together make the company feel fonder of each other than usual? Have you ever experienced a similar sense of camaraderie in a time of danger?

  MAY 30

  Who Believes Nowadays?

  DON’T YOU GO TALKING about things you don’t understand, Nikabrik,” said Trufflehunter. “You Dwarfs are as forgetful and changeable as the Humans themselves. I’m a beast, I am, and a Badger what’s more. We don’t change. We hold on. I say great good will come of it. This is the true King of Narnia we’ve got here: a true King, coming back to true Narnia. And we beasts remember, even if Dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was King.”

  “Whistles and whirligigs, Trufflehunter!” said Trumpkin. “You don’t mean you want to give the country to the Humans?”

  “I said nothing about that,” answered the Badger. “It’s not Men’s country (who should know that better than me?) but it’s a country for a man to be King of. We badgers have long enough memories to know that. Why, bless us all, wasn’t the High King Peter a Man?”

  “Do you believe all those old stories?” asked Trumpkin.

  “I tell you, we don’t change, we beasts,” said Trufflehunter. “We don’t forget. I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as firmly as I believe in Aslan himself.”

  “As firmly as that, I dare say,” said Trumpkin. “But who believes in Aslan nowadays?”

  “I do,” said Caspian. “And if I hadn’t believed in him before, I would now. Back there among the Humans the people who laughed at Aslan would have laughed at stories about Talking Beasts and Dwarfs. Sometimes I did wonder if there really was such a person as Aslan: but then sometimes I wondered if there were really people like you. Yet there you are.”

  —Prince Caspian

  What are Trufflehunter and Caspian’s reasons for believing Aslan is real? Why is it hard for Trumpkin to believe in Aslan? Are there certain things that you have trouble believing in because of others’ scorn?

  MAY 31

  The Witch-Queen’s Green Powder

  [THE WITCH-QUEEN] stood dead still in the doorway, and they could see her eyes moving as she took in the whole situation—the three strangers, the silver chair destroyed, and the Prince free, with his sword in his hand. . . .

  “How now, my lord Prince,” she said. “Has your nightly fit not yet come upon you, or is it over so soon? Why stand you here unbound? Who are these aliens? And is it they who have destroyed the chair which was your only safety?”

  Prince Rilian shivered as she spoke to him. And no wonder: it is not easy to throw off in half an hour an enchantment which has made one a slave for ten years. Then, speaking with a great effort, he said:

  “Madam, there will be no more need of that chair. And you, who have told me a hundred times how deeply you pitied me for the sorceries by which I was bound, will doubtless hear with joy that they are now ended forever. There was, it seems, some small error in your Ladyship’s way of treating them. These, my true friends, have delivered me. I am now in my right mind, and there are two things I will say to you. First—as for your Ladyship’s design of putting me at the head of an army of Earthmen so that I may break out into the Overworld and there, by main force, make myself king over some nation that never did me wrong—murdering their natural lords and holding their throne as a bloody and foreign tyrant—now that I know myself, I do utterly abhor and renounce it as plain villainy. And second: I am the King’s son of Narnia, Rilian, the only child of Caspian, Tenth of that name, whom some call Caspian the Seafarer. Therefore, Madam, it is my purpose, as it is also my duty, to depart suddenly from your Highness’s court into my own country. Please it you to grant me and my friends safe conduct and a guide through your dark realm.”

  Now the Witch said nothing at all, but moved gently across the room, always keeping her face and eyes very steadily toward the Prince. When she had come to a little ark set in the wall not far from the fireplace, she opened it, and took out first a handful of a green powder. This she threw on the fire. It did not blaze much, but a very sweet and drowsy smell came from it. And all through the conversation which followed, that smell grew stronger, and filled the room, and made it harder to think. Secondly, she took out a musical instrument rather like a mandolin. She began to play it with her fingers—a steady, monotonous thrumming that you didn’t notice after a few minutes. But the less you noticed it, the more it got into your brain and your blood. This also made it hard to think. After she had thrummed for a time (and the sweet smell was now strong) she began speaking in a sweet, quiet voice.

  “Narnia?” she said. “Narnia? I have often heard your Lordship utter that name in your ravings. Dear Prince, you are very sick. There is no land called Narnia.”

  —The Silver Chair

  How might the Witch-queen’s speaking so gently and playing soothing music be more effective in convincing them than if she yelled and became angry? Would this technique work on you? Has anyone ever argued an untruth to you so convincingly that you began to believe it?

  JUNE

  JUNE 1

  The Blind Dwarfs

  LUCY LED THE WAY and soon they could all see the Dwarfs. They had a very odd look. They weren’t strolling about or enjoying themselves (although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest. They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another. They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them. Then the Dwarfs all cocked their heads as if they couldn’t see anyone but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.

  “Look out!” said one of them in a surly voice. “Mind where you’re going. Don’t walk into our faces!”

  “All right!” said Eustace indignantly. “We’re not blind. We’ve got eyes in our heads.”

  “They must be darn good ones if you can see in here,” said the same Dwarf whose name was Diggle.

&nbs
p; “In where?” asked Edmund.

  “Why you bone-head, in here of course,” said Diggle. “In this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”

  “Are you blind?” said Tirian.

  “Ain’t we all blind in the dark!” said Diggle.

  “But it isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see? Look up! Look round! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers? Can’t you see me?”

  “How in the name of all Humbug can I see what ain’t there? And how can I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?”

  “But I can see you,” said Lucy. “I’ll prove I can see you. You’ve got a pipe in your mouth.”

  “Anyone that knows the smell of baccy could tell that,” said Diggle.

  “Oh the poor things! This is dreadful,” said Lucy. Then she had an idea. She stooped and picked some wild violets. “Listen, Dwarf,” she said. “Even if your eyes are wrong, perhaps your nose is all right: can you smell that?” She leaned across and held the fresh, damp flowers to Diggle’s ugly nose. But she had to jump back quickly in order to avoid a blow from his hard little fist.

  “None of that!” he shouted. “How dare you! What do you mean by shoving a lot of filthy stable-litter in my face? There was a thistle in it too. It’s like your sauce! And who are you anyway?”

  —The Last Battle

  Why couldn’t the Dwarfs see what the others could? How do we close off our own minds to what’s right in front of us?

  JUNE 2

  Aslan Tries to Help

  ASLAN,” SAID LUCY through her tears, “could you—will you—do something for these poor Dwarfs?”

  “Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.” He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low, but it set all the air shaking. But the Dwarfs said to one another, “Hear that? That’s the gang at the other end of the stable. Trying to frighten us. They do it with a machine of some kind. Don’t take any notice. They won’t take us in again!”

  Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. . . . But very soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:

  “Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

  “You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

  —The Last Battle

  What does it mean to choose cunning over belief? Why is believing so hard for the Dwarfs? Have you ever felt imprisoned in your own mind? How?

  JUNE 3

  The Giant King and Queen

  GO ON, POLE, do your stuff,” whispered Scrubb.

  Jill found that her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t speak a word. She nodded savagely at Scrubb.

  Thinking to himself that he would never forgive her (or Puddleglum either), Scrubb licked his lips and shouted up to the King giant.

  “If you please, Sire, the Lady of the Green Kirtle salutes you by us and said you’d like to have us for your Autumn Feast.”

  The giant King and Queen looked at each other, nodded to each other, and smiled in a way that Jill didn’t exactly like. She liked the King better than the Queen. He had a fine, curled beard and a straight eagle-like nose, and was really rather good-looking as giants go. The Queen was dreadfully fat and had a double chin and a fat, powdered face—which isn’t a very nice thing at the best of times, and of course looks much worse when it is ten times too big. Then the King put out his tongue and licked his lips. Anyone might do that: but his tongue was so very large and red, and came out so unexpectedly, that it gave Jill quite a shock.

  “Oh, what good children!” said the Queen. (“Perhaps she’s the nice one after all,” thought Jill.)

  “Yes indeed,” said the King. “Quite excellent children. We welcome you to our court. Give me your hands.”

  He stretched down his great right hand—very clean and with any number of rings on the fingers, but also with terrible pointed nails. He was much too big to shake the hands which the children, in turn, held up to him; but he shook the arms. . . .

  I hope you won’t lose all interest in Jill for the rest of the book if I tell you that at this moment she began to cry. There was a good deal of excuse for her. Her feet and hands and ears and nose were still only just beginning to thaw; melted snow was trickling off her clothes; she had had hardly anything to eat or drink that day; and her legs were aching so that she felt she could not go on standing much longer. Anyway, it did more good at the moment than anything else would have done, for the Queen said:

  “Ah, the poor child! My lord, we do wrong to keep our guests standing. Quick, some of you! Take them away. Give them food and wine and baths. Comfort the little girl. Give her lollipops, give her dolls, give her physics, give her all you can think of—possets and comfits and caraways and lullabies and toys. Don’t cry, little girl, or you won’t be good for anything when the feast comes.”

  —The Silver Chair

  Are there moments when crying is exactly what should happen? Do you try to avoid emotion in front of others? Why or why not?

  JUNE 4

  Wild Inside

  THEY HAD PLODDED ON for about half an hour (three of them very stiff from yesterday’s rowing) when Trumpkin suddenly whispered, “Stop.” They all stopped. “There’s something following us,” he said in a low voice. “Or rather, something keeping up with us: over there on the left.” They all stood still, listening and staring till their ears and eyes ached. “You and I’d better each have an arrow on the string,” said Susan to Trumpkin. The Dwarf nodded, and when both bows were ready for action the party went on again.

  They went a few dozen yards through fairly open woodland, keeping a sharp look-out. Then they came to a place where the undergrowth thickened and they had to pass nearer to it. Just as they were passing the place, there came a sudden something that snarled and flashed, rising out from the breaking twigs like a thunderbolt. Lucy was knocked down and winded, hearing the twang of a bowstring as she fell. When she was able to take notice of things again, she saw a great grim-looking grey bear lying dead with Trumpkin’s arrow in its side.

  “The D.L.F. beat you in that shooting match, Su,” said Peter, with a slightly forced smile. Even he had been shaken by this adventure.

  “I—I left it too late,” said Susan, in an embarrassed voice. “I was so afraid it might be, you know—one of our kind of bears, a talking bear.” She hated killing things.

  “That’s the trouble of it,” said Trumpkin, “when most of the beasts have gone enemy and gone dumb, but there are still some of the other kind left. You never know, and you daren’t wait to see.”

  “Poor old Bruin,” said Susan. “You don’t think he was?”

  “Not he,” said the Dwarf. “I saw the face and I heard the snarl. He only wanted Little Girl for his breakfast. And talking of breakfast, I didn’t want to discourage your Majesties when you said you hoped King Caspian would give you a good one: but meat’s precious scarce in camp. And there’s good eating on a bear. It would be a shame to leave
the carcass without taking a bit, and it won’t delay us more than half an hour. I dare say you two youngsters—Kings, I should say—know how to skin a bear?”

  “Let’s go and sit down a fair way off,” said Susan to Lucy. “I know what a horrid messy business that will be.” Lucy shuddered and nodded. When they had sat down she said: “Such a horrible idea has come into my head, Su.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you’d never know which were which?”

  “We’ve got enough to bother about here and now in Narnia,” said the practical Susan, “without imagining things like that.”

  —Prince Caspian

  Does Susan err by waiting to see if the bear might be one of their kind? What do you think Lucy means by men going wild inside? How might that manifest itself?

  JUNE 5

  The Deplorable Word

  LOOK WELL ON THAT WHICH no eyes will ever see again,” said the Queen. “Such was Charn, that great city, the city of the King of Kings, the wonder of the world, perhaps of all worlds. Does your uncle rule any city as great as this, boy?”

  “No,” said Digory. He was going to explain that Uncle Andrew didn’t rule any cities, but the Queen went on:

  “It is silent now. But I have stood here when the whole air was full of the noises of Charn; the trampling of feet, the creaking of wheels, the cracking of the whips and the groaning of slaves, the thunder of chariots, and the sacrificial drums beating in the temples. I have stood here (but that was near the end) when the roar of battle went up from every street and the river of Charn ran red.” She paused and added, “All in one moment one woman blotted it out forever.”