The Horse and His Boy is a novel for
children by C. S. Lewis, published by
Geoffrey Bles in 1954. It was the fifth
published of seven novels in The
Chronicles of Narnia and one of four
that Lewis finished writing before the
first book was out. It is volume three
in recent editions, which are sequenced
according to Narnia history. Like the
others it was illustrated by Pauline
Baynes and her work has been retained in
many later editions.
The Horse and His Boy is the only book
of the Narnia series that features
native rather than English children as
the main characters, and the only one
set entirely in the Narnian world. It is
set in the period covered by the last
chapter of the inaugural book, The Lion,
the Witch, and the Wardrobe, during the
reign of the four Pevensie children as
Kings and Queens of Narnia. Though the
Pevensies appear as minor characters,
the main characters are two children and
two talking horses who escape from
Calormen north into Narnia. En route
they pass through Calormen's capital
city, where they learn of Calormen's
plan to invade Archenland, Narnia's
southern neighbor. When they reach
Archenland, they warn the king of the
impending invasion.
Macmillan US published an American
edition within the calendar year.
Plot summary 
A boy by the name of Shasta is found as
a baby and raised by Arsheesh, a
Calormene fisherman. As the story
begins, Shasta overhears Arsheesh
agreeing to sell him to a powerful
Calormene feudal nobleman, Anradin. He
is relieved to discover that Arsheesh is
not his real father, since there was
little love between them. While Shasta
awaits his new master in the stable,
Bree, the nobleman's stallion, astounds
Shasta by speaking to him. He is a
talking horse from Narnia who was
captured by the Calormenes as a foal. He
tells Shasta that Anradin will treat him
cruelly, and Shasta resolves to escape.
The horse suggests that they escape a
life of servitude by riding north
together to Narnia. They meet another
pair of escaping travellers, Aravis, a
young Calormene aristocrat, and her
talking horse, Hwin. Aravis is fleeing
to avoid a forced marriage with Ahoshta,
the Tisroc's grand vizier.
The four must travel through Tashbaan,
the bustling capital of Calormen. There
they encounter a procession of visiting
Narnian royalty, who mistake Shasta for
Corin, a prince of Archenland, who was
separated from their group earlier that
day. Unsure what to do, Shasta goes with
the Narnians and overhears their plans
to escape from Calormen to prevent a
forced marriage of Queen Susan with the
Tisroc's son, Rabadash. Shasta escapes
when the real Prince Corin returns.
Meanwhile, Aravis has been spotted by
her friend Lasaraleen. She asks
Lasaraleen not to betray her, and to
help her escape from Tashbaan.
Lasaraleen cannot understand why Aravis
would want to abandon the life of a
Calormene princess or refuse marriage
with Ahoshta, but she helps Aravis
escape through the palace. On the way,
they hide when the Tisroc, Rabadash, and
Ahoshta approach. Aravis overhears the
Tisroc and Rabadash discussing the
Narnians' escape. Rabadash is still
determined to have Queen Susan and wants
to invade Narnia to seize her. The
Tisroc gives Rabadash permission to
invade Archenland and Narnia while High
King Peter is preoccupied battling
giants to the north.
Aravis rejoins Shasta and the horses
outside Tashbaan, and tells them of the
plot. The four set out across the
desert, and a lion frightens them into
fleeing swiftly enough to outrun
Rabadash's army. Shasta arrives in
Archenland in time to warn Archenland
and Narnia of the approaching
Calormenes. When Rabadash and his army
arrive at the castle of King Lune in
Archenland, they find their prey waiting
for them, and a battle ensues. There is
no clear outcome until an army from
Narnia, led by Edmund and Lucy,
reinforces the defenders. The Calormenes
are defeated, and Rabadash is captured.
Anradin is among those who fall in the
battle.
Rabadash rebuffs King Lune's offer of
conditional release, and is transformed
by Aslan into a donkey. His true form
will be restored if he stands before the
altar of Tash at the Autumn Feast.
However, he will become a donkey
permanently if he ever strays thereafter
more than ten miles from the Temple of
Tash. For this reason, Rabadash pursues
peaceful policies when he becomes
Tisroc, as he dare not risk the ten mile
limit by going to war.
The victorious King Lune recognizes
Shasta as Cor, the long-lost identical
twin of Prince Corin and, as barely the
elder of the two, the heir to the
throne. He was kidnapped as a baby to
counter a prophecy that he would one day
save Archenland from its greatest peril,
but Shasta's timely warning has
fulfilled the prophecy. Aravis and
Shasta live in Archenland thereafter and
eventually marry. Their son, Ram,
becomes the most famous king of
Archenland.
Series continuity 
The adventures are mentioned twice in
The Silver Chair. Corin, Cor, Aravis,
Bree and Hwin all appear in the great
reunion in The Last Battle. Lucy and
Edmund still retain their memories of
their time on Earth, as evidenced by
Lucy's retelling of The Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe.
Themes and motifs 
= "Narnia and the North!" =
Bree and Shasta use the phrase "Narnia
and the North" as their "rallying cry"
as they make their escape from their
life in Calormen. They are both
motivated by a deep longing to find
their way to the place that is
ultimately their true homeland. In the
setting of The Horse and His Boy, the
reader finds a departure from the
landscapes, culture, and people of the
Narnian realms which have become
familiar in the other books. The
placement of the action in the more
alien realm of Calormen helps to convey
a sense of "unbelonging" on the part of
the characters and the reader, which
reinforces the motif of longing for a
true home.
In other works, Lewis uses the German
word Sehnsucht to encapsulate the idea
of an "inconsolable longing" in the
human heart for "we know not what." C.
S. Lewis identifies the objects of
Sehnsucht-longing as God and Heaven.
= Divine providence revealed =
After meeting up with King Lune of
Archenland and his hunting party, and
warning them of the impending Calormene
invasion, Shasta becomes lost in the fog
and separated from the King's
procession. After continuing blindly for
some way, he senses that he has been
joined in the darkness by a mysterious
presence. Engaging in conversation with
the unknown being, Shasta confides what
he sees as his many misfortunes,
including being chased by lions on two
separate occasions, and concluding with
"If nothing else, it was bad luck to
meet so many lions." His companion then
proclaims himself as the single lion
that Shasta has encountered in his
travels:
"I was the lion who forced you to join
with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted
you among the houses of the dead. I was
the lion who drove the jackals from you
while you slept. I was the lion who gave
the horses the new strength of fear for
the last mile so that you should reach
King Lune in time. And I was the lion
you do not remember who pushed the boat
in which you lay, a child near death, so
that it came to shore where a man sat,
wakeful at midnight, to receive you."
Thus it is revealed to Shasta, that, in
the incidents which he perceived as
misfortunes, Aslan, in his Divine
Providence, has been orchestrating
events for his greater purposes.
= Created proverbs =
In two conversations, both between
adults and not involving children, Lewis
has speakers use a number of proverbs
that he created; one way to convey the
flavor of Calormene culture. The
proverbs are found at the very beginning
and later in a scene where the Tisroc,
the Vizier, and Prince Rabadash have a
secret council. Proverbs in Calormene
culture are the domain of adults,
especially older, wiser adults. As a
result, Prince Rabadash is the recipient
of many proverbs, but is only able to
use one, the only proverb in this
exchange which is originally drawn from
English, "Women are as changeable as
weathercocks."
The Vizier delights in the use of
proverbs, boasting that Calormene
culture is "full of choice apophthegms
and useful maxims." Rabadash, on the
other hand, has no such appreciation and
complains, "I have had maxims and verses
flung at me all day and I can endure
them no more." When the Vizier begins
yet another proverb, "Gifted was the
poet who said...", Rabadash stifles him
with a threatened kick.
Lewis also uses the proverbs to subtly
make fun of the Calormenes. For example,
the fisherman cites a proverb, "Natural
affection is stronger than soup and
offspring more precious than
carbuncles". Myers wryly notes “Soup, of
course, varies greatly in its strength;
'carbuncle' means 'a red jewel' in
medieval romances, but its modern
meaning is 'a red sore'". Later, as the
Vizier addresses the Tisroc, he refers
to part of the same proverb, saying
“sons are in the eyes of their fathers
more precious than carbuncles",). The
relationship between the Tisroc and
Prince Rabadash is nicely paralleled by
the "carbuncle" meaning of "red sore".
Future adaptations 
Walden Media, having already made movie
adaptions of The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Voyage
of the Dawn Treader, also retains the
option to make The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Horse and His Boy in the future.
Allusions and references 
The association of Cor with horses, and
his twin brother Corin with boxing,
recalls the traditional associations of
the Spartan twins Castor and Pollux of
Greek mythology.
Researcher Ruth North noted that the
plot element of a sinful human being
transformed into a donkey as a
punishment and then restored to humanity
as an act of Divine mercy is similar to
that of The Golden Ass by Apuleius — a
classic of Latin literature with which
Lewis was certainly familiar.
See also 
Notes 
References 
Citations
Further reading 
Downing, David C.. Into the Wardrobe: C.
S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN
978-0-7879-7890-7. 
External links 
The Horse and His Boy in libraries
——immediately, the full-colour C. S.
Lewis centenary edition
C. S. Lewis at the Internet Speculative
Fiction Database
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook
