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

  —The Last Battle

  How could Emeth’s service in the name of Tash actually be in the name of Aslan? What do you think it means that all find what they truly seek?

  SEPTEMBER 10

  What About This Mother of Yours?

  BUT WHAT ABOUT this Mother of yours whom you pretend to love so?” [said the Witch.]

  “What’s she got to do with it?” said Digory.

  “Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of that apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother’s bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the color coming back to her face. She will tell you the pain is gone. Soon she will tell you she feels stronger. Then she will fall asleep—think of that; hours of sweet natural sleep, without pain, without drugs. Next day everyone will be saying how wonderfully she has recovered. Soon she will be quite well again. All will be well again. Your home will be happy again. You will be like other boys.”

  “Oh!” gasped Digory as if he had been hurt, and put his hand to his head. For he now knew that the most terrible choice lay before him.

  —The Magician’s Nephew

  The Witch is asking Digory to choose between following Aslan’s directions and healing his mother. Why is that the most terrible choice? What is the hardest choice you’ve ever had to make?

  SEPTEMBER 11

  Enchanted Turkish Delight

  THE QUEEN LET another drop fall from her bottle onto the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.

  While he was eating, the Queen kept asking him questions. . . . She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and kept on coming back to it. “You are sure there are just four of you?” she asked. “Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?” and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight, kept on saying, “Yes, I told you that before,” and forgetting to call her “Your Majesty,” but she didn’t seem to mind now.

  At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves. But she did not offer him any more. Instead, she said to him,

  “Son of Adam, I should so much like to see your brother and your two sisters. Will you bring them to see me?”

  “I’ll try,” said Edmund, still looking at the empty box. . . .

  “It is a lovely place, my house,” said the Queen. “I am sure you would like it. There are whole rooms full of Turkish Delight, and what’s more, I have no children of my own. I want a nice boy whom I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I am gone. While he was Prince he would wear a gold crown and eat Turkish Delight all day long; and you are much the cleverest and handsomest young man I’ve ever met. I think I would like to make you the Prince—some day, when you bring the others to visit me.”. . .

  “There’s nothing special about them,” said Edmund, “and, anyway, I could always bring them some other time.”

  “Ah, but once you were in my house,” said the Queen, “you might forget all about them. You would be enjoying yourself so much that you wouldn’t want the bother of going to fetch them. No. You must go back to your own country now and come to me another day, with them, you understand. It is no good coming without them.”

  —The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

  What weaknesses of Edmund’s does the Queen play upon? Looking back, when in your life has someone taken advantage of a weakness of yours to get something from you?

  SEPTEMBER 12

  A Horrible Emptiness Called the Sky

  I’LL BE SWORN ’TIS AN HONEST GNOME,” said the Prince. “Let go of it, friend Puddleglum. As for me, good Golg, I have been enchanted like you and your fellows, and have but newly remembered myself. And now, one question more. Do you know the way to those new diggings, by which the sorceress meant to lead out an army against Overland?”

  “Ee-ee-ee!” squeaked Golg. “Yes, I know that terrible road. I will show you where it begins. But it is no manner of use your Honor asking me to go with you on it. I’ll die rather.”

  “Why?” asked Eustace anxiously. “What’s so dreadful about it?”

  “Too near the top, the outside,” said Golg, shuddering. “That was the worst thing the Witch did to us. We were going to be led out into the open—into the outside of the world. They say there’s no roof at all there; only a horrible, great emptiness called the sky. And the diggings have gone so far that a few strokes of the pick would bring you out to it. I wouldn’t dare go near them.”

  “Hurrah! Now you’re talking!” cried Eustace, and Jill said, “But it’s not horrid at all up there. We like it. We live there.”

  “I know you Overlanders live there,” said Golg. “But I thought it was because you couldn’t find your way down inside. You can’t really like it—crawling about like flies on top of the world!”

  —The Silver Chair

  Why would living on the outside be so horrible for Golg? What value is there in trying to see things from another point of view?

  SEPTEMBER 13

  Trumpkin Meets Aslan

  AND NOW!” said Aslan in a much louder voice with just a hint of roar in it, while his tail lashed his flanks. “And now, where is this little Dwarf, this famous swordsman and archer, who doesn’t believe in lions? Come here, Son of Earth, come here!”—and the last word was no longer the hint of a roar but almost the real thing.

  “Wraiths and wreckage!” gasped Trumpkin in the ghost of a voice. The children, who knew Aslan well enough to see that he liked the Dwarf very much, were not disturbed; but it was quite another thing for Trumpkin, who had never seen a lion before, let alone this Lion. He did the only sensible thing he could have done; that is, instead of bolting, he tottered toward Aslan.

  Aslan pounced. Have you ever seen a very young kitten being carried in the mother cat’s mouth? It was like that. The Dwarf, hunched up in a little, miserable ball, hung from Aslan’s mouth. The Lion gave him one shake and all his armor rattled like a tinker’s pack and then—hey-presto—the Dwarf flew up in the air. He was as safe as if he had been in bed, though he did not feel so. As he came down the huge velvety paws caught him as gently as a mother’s arms and set him (right way up, too) on the ground.

  “Son of Earth, shall we be friends?” asked Aslan.

  “Ye—he—he—hes,” panted the Dwarf, for he had not yet got his breath back.

  —Prince Caspian

  What do you think it means to be friends with Aslan?

  SEPTEMBER 14

  Eustace’s Rescue Party

  BY THE TIME HE WAS SOUND ASLEEP and snoring the others had finished dinner and became seriously alarmed about him. They shouted, “Eustace! Eustace! Coo-ee!” till they were hoarse and Caspian blew his horn.

  “He’s nowhere near or he’d have heard that,” said Lucy with a white face.

  “Confound the fellow,” said Edmund. “What on earth did he want to slink away like this for?”

  “But we must do something,” said Lucy. “He may have got lost, or fallen into a hole, or been captured by savages.”

  “Or killed by wild beasts,” said Drinian.

  “And a good riddance if he has, I say,” muttered Rhince.

  “Master Rhince,” said Reepicheep, “you never spoke a word that became you less. The creature is no friend of mine but he is of the Queen’s blood, and
while he is one of our fellowship it concerns our honor to find him and to avenge him if he is dead.”

  “Of course we’ve got to find him (if we can),” said Caspian wearily. “That’s the nuisance of it. It means a search party and endless trouble. Bother Eustace.”

  —The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

  Why would it concern their honor to find and avenge Eustace? When have you had to care for someone you seriously disliked because you felt bound by duty?

  SEPTEMBER 15

  True Colors

  BUT THE PRINCE SHOUTED SUDDENLY, “ ’Ware! Look to the Witch.”

  When they did look their hair nearly stood on end.

  The instrument dropped from her hands. Her arms appeared to be fastened to her sides. Her legs were intertwined with each other, and her feet had disappeared. The long green train of her skirt thickened and grew solid, and seemed to be all one piece with the writhing green pillar of her interlocked legs. And that writhing green pillar was curving and swaying as if it had no joints, or else were all joints. Her head was thrown far back and while her nose grew longer and longer, every other part of her face seemed to disappear, except her eyes. Huge flaming eyes they were now, without brows or lashes. All this takes time to write down; it happened so quickly that there was only just time to see it. Long before there was time to do anything, the change was complete, and the great serpent which the Witch had become, green as poison, thick as Jill’s waist, had flung two or three coils of its loathsome body round the Prince’s legs. Quick as lightning another great loop darted round, intending to pinion his sword-arm to his side. But the Prince was just in time. He raised his arms and got them clear: the living knot closed only round his chest—ready to crack his ribs like firewood when it drew tight.

  The Prince caught the creature’s neck in his left hand, trying to squeeze it till it choked. This held its face (if you could call it a face) about five inches from his own. The forked tongue flickered horribly in and out, but could not reach him. With his right hand he drew back his sword for the strongest blow he could give. Meanwhile Scrubb and Puddleglum had drawn their weapons and rushed to his aid. All three blows fell at once: Scrubb’s (which did not even pierce the scales and did no good) on the body of the snake below the Prince’s hand, but the Prince’s own blow and Puddleglum’s both on its neck. Even that did not quite kill it, though it began to loosen its hold on Rilian’s legs and chest. With repeated blows they hacked off its head. The horrible thing went on coiling and moving like a bit of wire long after it had died; and the floor, as you may imagine, was a nasty mess.

  The Prince, when he had breath, said, “Gentlemen, I thank you.” Then the three conquerors stood staring at one another and panting, without another word, for a long time. Jill had very wisely sat down and was keeping quiet; she was saying to herself, “I do hope I don’t faint—or blub—or do anything idiotic.”

  “My royal mother is avenged,” said Rilian presently. “This is undoubtedly the same worm that I pursued in vain by the fountain in the forest of Narnia, so many years ago. All these years I have been the slave of my mother’s slayer. Yet I am glad, gentlemen, that the foul Witch took to her serpent form at the last. It would not have suited well either with my heart or with my honor to have slain a woman.”

  —The Silver Chair

  Why is it so much easier for the Prince to slay the serpent when it shows its true form? Why do we so often confuse beauty with goodness?

  SEPTEMBER 16

  Into the Waterfall

  FOR NOW THEY SAW before them Caldron Pool and beyond the Pool the high unclimbable cliffs and, pouring down the cliffs, thousands of tons of water every second, flashing like diamonds in some places and dark, glassy green in others, the Great Waterfall; and already the thunder of it was in their ears.

  “Don’t stop! Further up and further in,” called Farsight, tilting his flight a little upward.

  “It’s all very well for him,” said Eustace, but Jewel also cried out:

  “Don’t stop. Further up and further in! Take it in your stride.”

  His voice could only just be heard above the roar of the water but next moment everyone saw that he had plunged into the Pool. And helter-skelter behind him, with splash after splash, all the others did the same. The water was not bitingly cold as all of them (and especially Puzzle) expected, but of a delicious foamy coolness. They all found they were swimming straight for the Waterfall itself.

  “This is absolutely crazy,” said Eustace to Edmund.

  “I know. And yet—” said Edmund.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” said Lucy. “Have you noticed one can’t feel afraid, even if one wants to? Try it.”

  “By Jove, neither one can,” said Eustace after he had tried.

  Jewel reached the foot of the Waterfall first, but Tirian was only just behind him. Jill was last, so she could see the whole thing better than the others. She saw something white moving steadily up the face of the Waterfall. That white thing was the Unicorn. You couldn’t tell whether he was swimming or climbing, but he moved on, higher and higher. The point of his horn divided the water just above his head, and it cascaded out in two rainbow-colored streams all round his shoulders. Just behind him came King Tirian. He moved his legs and arms as if he were swimming, but he moved straight upward: as if one could swim up the wall of a house. . . .

  But before Jill had time to notice all these things fully, she was going up the Waterfall herself. It was the sort of thing that would have been quite impossible in our world. Even if you hadn’t been drowned, you would have been smashed to pieces by the terrible weight of water against the countless jags of rock. But in that world you could do it. You went on, up and up, with all kinds of reflected lights flashing at you from the water and all manner of colored stones flashing through it, till it seemed as if you were climbing up light itself—and always higher and higher till the sense of height would have terrified you if you could be terrified, but later it was only gloriously exciting. And then at last one came to the lovely, smooth green curve in which the water poured over the top and found that one was out on the level river above the Waterfall. The current was racing away behind you, but you were such a wonderful swimmer that you could make headway against it. Soon they were all on the bank, dripping but happy.

  —The Last Battle

  What might it feel like not to be afraid, even if you tried? Is that something you can imagine? How big a role does even unconscious fear play in your life?

  SEPTEMBER 17

  The Witch’s Fatal Mistake

  WHAT HAS THE LION EVER DONE for you that you should be his slave?” said the Witch. “What can he do to you once you are back in your own world? And what would your Mother think if she knew that you could have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father’s heart from being broken, and that you wouldn’t—that you’d rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is no business of yours?”

  “I—I don’t think he is a wild animal,” said Digory in a dried-up sort of voice. “He is—I don’t know—”

  “Then he is something worse,” said the Witch. “Look what he has done to you already; look how heartless he has made you. That is what he does to everyone who listens to him. Cruel, pitiless boy! You would let your own Mother die rather than—”

  “Oh shut up,” said the miserable Digory, still in the same voice. “Do you think I don’t see? But I—I promised.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t know what you were promising. And no one here can prevent you.”

  “Mother herself,” said Digory, getting the words out with difficulty, “wouldn’t like it—awfully strict about keeping promises—and not stealing—and all that sort of thing. She’d tell me not to do it—quick as anything—if she was here.”

  “But she need never know,” said the Witch, speaking more sweetly than you would have thought anyone with so fierce a face could speak. “You wouldn’t tell her how you’d got the apple. Your Father need nev
er know. No one in your world need know anything about this whole story. You needn’t take the little girl back with you, you know.”

  That was where the Witch made her fatal mistake. Of course Digory knew that Polly could get away by her own ring as easily as he could get away by his. But apparently the Witch didn’t know this. And the meanness of the suggestion that he should leave Polly behind suddenly made all the other things the Witch had been saying to him sound false and hollow. And even in the midst of all his misery, his head suddenly cleared, and he said (in a different and much louder voice):

  “Look here; where do you come into all this? Why are you so precious fond of my Mother all of a sudden? What’s it got to do with you? What’s your game?”

  —The Magician’s Nephew

  What about the Witch’s suggestion helps Digory to see her real motivations? How can we see through those people and things in life that try to tempt us away from what we know is right?

  SEPTEMBER 18

  Back Through the Wardrobe

  SO THESE KINGS AND QUEENS entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamp-post, and before they had gone twenty more they noticed that they were making their way not through branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs. Macready and the visitors were still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and so the children weren’t caught.