Hello and welcome to the tenth chapter
of our Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
read-through. I'm Jem the Reader at
John the Baptist Parish Church in
Beeston, and the chapter we're going to
be looking at this time is 'The spell
begins to break.' So if you haven't read
chapter 10, buzz off and read it.
It runs from 'Now we must go back to Mr.
and Mrs. Beaver and the other three children.'
And it runs to 'But long before they had
finished enjoying themselves Mr. Beaver
said,  "Time to be moving on now". There are
a few things that struck me and jumped
out at me in this chapter perhaps rather
more haphazardly than in other chapters
because unlike the ones we've been
talking about recently not an awful lot
of plot happens here. There are a couple
of chapters where it's mostly stasis and
what we might think of a sort of
thematic development rather than lots
and lots of narrative. Perhaps this is a bit
unfair given that the beavers that are
involved and as we all know when when
the beavers are there this is a good
novel and the beavers are the central
characters in many ways
but there seems to be a certain amount
of waiting for things to kick in later
on. But there are some interesting details
when they're preparing to leave the
Beavers house. Mrs. Beaver wanders around
packing. Mr. Beaver complains that she's
not going fast enough.
They're concerned with which domestic
items they should take. There's this bit
where she says "well I'm nearly ready now"
answered Mrs Beaver at last, allowing her
husband to help her into her snow boots.
"I suppose the sewing machine's too heavy
to bring?" "Yes. It is." said Mr. Beaver. "A
great deal too heavy. And don't think
you'll be able to use it while we're on
the run, I suppose?"  "I can't abide the
thought of that Witch fiddling with it"
said Mrs. Beaver "and breaking it or
stealing it, as likely as not." Which is
you know a comic moment where she
shows her sort of domestic concerns in
the face of this extraordinary situation
they're in. But it reminded me of some
other books from around the same period. It really underlined to me the
extent to which and I've been saying
this a lot, this is a war novel, or a
novel about the political
military situation of the mid 20th
century, because it reminded me of Ian Serraillier's 'The
silver sword' which was published a
couple of years after this book,
which is a much more realistic and much
more gritty and I don't mean to
trivialise that but by comparing it to
the Beavers pottering around looking at
sewing machines and dams. But that's a
novel about children on the run in
Europe from the Nazis. But something
about my memories of reading that book
as a child connected with this when I
read it there's the combination of this
overwhelming feeling of of panic and
doom and that there are these huge
forces sweeping across history but it's
embedded in these domestic details and
that's something we noticed when we
looked at Lois writing on Bunyan two
chapters ago now, when he talked about
bringing and the great romance tradition
and the tradition of chivalry but writing
it for Bunyan in a in a domestic sense
in in the language that you might find
people using in a rural pub somewhere
in England. And that concern with
small things with with possessions with
things you love and being able to take
them with you or not being able to take
them with you I suppose connected
to the image of the silver sword. The
little little item that goes missing in
Ian Serraillier's novel and made it seem
more real. Made it seem less like these
were people who were unbelievably noble
and astonishingly good and connects it
to that sense that when things are
really dramatically bad like nationally
or internationally or globally bad
people don't suddenly stop caring
about small things and they
don't suddenly stop thinking that
they're sewing machine is really nice
and they can't bear anyone to touch it. I
really like that idea of the idea of
this Wicked Witch who'll come and most
likely mess up the sewing machine and
and it connected also to the character
of Arriety's mother in 'The Borrowers',
again another novel that was published a
couple of years after this and and it
was only recently when I was watching
the BBC adaptation 'The Borrower's' that
it struck me again just what a war novel
that is or certainly a novel about
the Blitz or about perhaps refugees and
movements of people at that time. The
when I previously looked at Idid had
seen sort of Arrietty and I'd seen her
desire for adventure and her questing
spirit and rewatching it back perhaps as
an older person slightly older person I
saw her mother's worries and her
father's almost despair at times that we
were going to have to move on again and
they won't let us stay and whenever we
try and make a home for ourselves
they'll find out and they'll move us on
it's not safe and again her mother
Arietta's mother gets a little stick in
that novel I think for being a foolish
domestic material obsessed woman who who
can't see the broad horizons of
adventure, but it really when I watched
adaptation and saw their house being
destroyed from above and all the
flashing lights it struck me I say
what of a blitz novel or a refugee novel
that is, about this desire for the
comfort and the the sadness of having to
keep moving on from things and places
that are going to be smashed up. That's a
lot to read into the detail of the
sewing machine but I don't think that
sequence is there accidentally nor is it
just I think there to poke fun at silly
women who don't understand the the
glories of of questing and the glories
of world events. It roots it in in a very
specific experience. The place they go to
also gave me pause for thought
so they they go out on their moonlight
escape and they pad over the snow
'and she found Mr Beaver was just
vanishing into a little hole in a bank
which has been almost hidden under the
bushes till you were quite on top
of it. In fact by the time she realised
what was happening only his short flat
tail was showing. Lucy immediately
stooped and down and crawled in after
him. Then she heard noises of scrambling
and puffing and panting behind her and
in a moment all five of them were inside.
"Wherever is this?" said Peters voice
sounding tired and pale in the darkness.'
(I hope you know what I mean by a voice
sounding pale) "It's an old hiding place
for beavers in bad times" said Mr. Beaver
"and a great secret. It's not much of a
place but we must get a few hours' sleep."
Now
that location this this hiding place of
old known to beavers in bad times does
something to the temporal structure of
the of the novel though very subtle. I
modeled on a bit at the beginning of
this series in the first episode about
the different kinds of time that were
operating in the novel. The wants of
romance and questing adventures and
fairy tale and folklore and the 'this
happened during the war that's just over'
when this particular political and
economic set of circumstances which we
call evacuation happened. And the idea
that there are two kinds of time
brought together. That of course as I
didn't mention the time is a crucial
notion in the Christian faith and indeed
the Jewish faith the idea that God
operates in history and that the the
historical time the genealogical time
the quotidian time is also the time of
marvels and the supernatural breaking in
upon that time or indeed operating
through that time. And here we seem to
have a slight shading of the kind of
time that's happening there's been an
emphasis so far on stasis on the fact
that things don't change that there's
this awful locked frozen wintery time
and they used to be summers they used to
be great time these to be and so that
the time is kept alive by talking about
and telling stories and those who seem
to be disjointed here I was really
interested by this this little hint that
Narnia has historical time. It doesn't
doesn't just have the the Golden Age
when it was all good and the seasons
happened naturally and Salinas and
Bacchus were around and the night and
the dryers were there and then this
disjunct this continual present it has
gradations this suggestion that there
are bad times in history and people have
weathered them by going up these hiding
places and sort of waiting things out
but there is not just these two states but
that time flows through bad times and
can go out again. Now as I say it's a
relatively small point and I'm not
suggesting that the CS Lewis was drawing
graphs of con
concepts of time but I think it's
interesting that as the the chapter
called 'the spell begins to break'
develops we start seeing a more
historical a more narrative form of time
developing through here. And as I say I
think it is the third suggesting we've
had that there's such a thing as
fighting against bad times like this and
that time linearly flows through them
and will come out the other side. This is
of course as we'll discover in
later chapters
perhaps because Aslan is on the move
and that supernatural kind of time is
beginning to operate and to cooperate
we might say, within linear and
historical time. Then comes one of the
passages that a lot of people remember
very fondly from this novel. I've
suggested that perhaps Turkish delight
is the most famous secret novel this is
some people's favorite bit where a
certain character arrives. 'In fact they
were all sitting up with their mouths
and eyes wide open listening to a sound
which was the very sound they'd all been
thinking of (and sometimes imagining they
heard) during their walk last night. It
was the sound of jingling bells." Now I've
previously suggested that the arrival of
the White Which is a bit of a bait and
switch in this novel where the novel
tells us about these white reindeer who
seem a bit magical and then we see a
harness with bells on it and we see a
little elf-like or dwarf-like man, who's
wearing polar bear skin and a cap with a
tassle on it and there's an extraordinary
person in the sledge. And you and I never
have thinking Father Christmas and of
course it's not it's the White Witch who
is the sort of inverse of Father
Christmas. She's pale she's pinched and
thin. She takes away rather than giving.
She is white with little red touches of
red, rather than being red with little
touches of white. Here the characters
have been terrified of hearing a harness
of jingling bells and they hear it and
Mr. Beaver goes off to see what
it is and comes back and says "it's al-
right it's alright! It's not her". And
Father Christmas turns out to be there
and says "she's kept me out for
many years but I've managed to break in".
I thought is it's an interesting moment and
it's one of the moments where we might
pause to think about one of the puzzles
surrounding this novel. Indeed it was a
definite problem a just a disqualifying
problem as far as Tolkien was concerned
because as you probably know Tolkien
really didn't like Narnia. He didn't
think it was how you should write fantasy
novels. He didn't like it so much
that it wasn't read out at the
gatherings of the Inklings where other
books like come out of the silent planet
and the Lord of the Rings and I think
All Hallows Eve were read by members of
that group and one of the things that we
think Tolkien didn't like about it was
this blending of different kinds of
fantasy. Tolkien's often praised as an
incredibly coherent writer now he has
geography and history in prehistory and
creation myth and he has linguistics and
he has a coherent sense of how these
cultures in his fantasy world operated
and he could tell you at any point what
was going on elsewhere in the world whilst
a particular event was happening. Lewis
doesn't have this. Lewis appears to have
things all just jumbled together and
stirred up in a sort of stew so we have
nayad and dryads and we also have fauns
or as I've suggested 'Pan' and we also
have Father Christmas and we also have
talking animals and we also have this
divine figure of a Lion. These things
don't seem to have been sorted out or
synthesized in any one way it perhaps tipified by a student who asked me when I
was teaching this text and this this
last semester - how can there be Father
Christmas? After all there hasn't been a
nativity. There's missing there's no
sense in which Father Christmas is
connected to the birth of Aslan. If
Aslan is a representation of Jesus then
how come there is a father Christmas in
this world who's trying to get any
breaks in it and it mainly too simple to
say that Aslan is a representation
of Jesus-  but this is a good point I
think it points to the the disjunction
of the the mythical supernatural
elements in this text. And I think my
solution of my expounding of that
problem is is twofold one that Lewis was
deeply drawn towards, as we know, folklore
and myth and legend. And that it was part
of his personal journey back to the
Christian faith
that he like a lot of intellectuals and
writers thinkers at the time was deeply
influenced by the advances in things
like history and anthropology and
understanding of other cultures that
happened during the late nineteenth
century and the early 20th century. These
great relativising of the mesh narrative
of Christianity which also happened in
things like Marxism and psychoanalysis
and but perhaps the most striking
example for our purposes is the writing
of the Golden Bough by Frazer. [Oh Frideswide not
on the book.
I apologise that was that was our cat
Frideswide making it a determined
effort on the volume.] But yes the Golden
Bough. In which Frazer records myths
and legends of other cultures and part
of his project is to show during that
project he shows just how similar the
idea of dining and rising gods are in
other cultures to that of Christianity
and part of his purpose there is to chip
away at the idea of the uniqueness of
Christianity so suggest that actually
what seems to be the defining and
singular myth of this religion just
happens everywhere it's a perfectly natural
thing to do like people have
fertility cults or they have sky gods or
whatever and this there's there's no
reason to think that Christianity is
anything different but a normal set of
myths that's developed. Now for Lewis as
I understand it that was a powerful
argument um but it was also his way back
in that he gradually came to believe not
least with discussions with Hugo Dyson
and Tolkien and he dates on particular a
walk through the gardens of Magdalene late
in an evening where they discuss this.
The idea that this does not disprove
Christianity but rather suggests that
the truth of the Christian myth was
splintered and shattered and scattered
through all sorts of cultures that that
myths of dying and rising gods and other
cultures don't sort of don't take
precedence over Christianity rather
their preparations in human culture for
the final revelation of God in Christ
Jesus.
So for Lewis the idea of lots of other
myths and legends and his his attraction
his fascination his love for other myths
and legends is both potentially a
threat to his his Christian devotion but
also one of the ways in which he worked
his way back to it. So I think the the
specificity of things like nyads and
Father Christmas and talking animals is
important to Lewis because he loves them he
feels drawn to them. And for him through
them shines the path to Christian truth.
He's also I think a determined and
Universalist not in the sense of origin
in Universality of salvation but he
niversity in that he believes that his
Christianity is true that it is true at
all times for all people. But it is not I
think he would have a little little
sympathy for the idea that Christianity
is one of an enormous number of paths to
God and it doesn't really matter which
path you tread. For him
Christianity is a historical religion
it's a religion that concerns human
history and and defining and definitive
interventions in human history by God
and definitive revelations of God and so
if he for him if if Christianity is true
then it is true for people who lived
with beliefs in nyads and driads. Its
true for people who hung up stockings for
St Nicholas or Father Christmas and it's
true for people who believed in talk to
animals or told stories about talking
animals. I think that one of the reasons
for gathering all these mythologies
together is to bring them into a
synthesis though I suggest they're not
synthesised where Tolkien did but dream
into a synthesis in which Christian
truth can make sense of all of them.
So partly I think that the disjunction
is the point they're supposed to be
working through of the way in which Aslan can connect to and can make sense
of all these different kinds of
mythology and that those aren't
necessarily stumbling blocks to
Christian truth they can indeed be paths to
Christian truth. Now the reason I've gone
slightly round the house of this is that
I think that Father Christmas here fits
into that. We've already seen a certain
amount of talk about Pan in the
novel and in these episodes or what to
say Tumnus of which I interpret as a
figure of Pan.
Now a listener to these to these
episodes Penelope Wallis has very kindly
written to me and pointed out some much
better examples than the ones I gave I
of Pan in writings of people at the time.
I could try I should point out she
didn't say they were much better examples,
she very kind of just said over here are
some interesting examples. That's me - they
are much better examples. This me staying
at they're better. She didn't email me
to tick me off and tell me I've got bad
examples! But they are better examples
she points out that in Dorothy L Sayers
play 'The Man Born to be King' about the
life of Christ, Pilot's wife and had a
dream - as indeed she didn't in the gospel narratives - but that dream is fleshed out
and it's and it involves her hearing the
voice saying "the Great God Pan is dead"
and said "How can Pan die?" and
she's told "We crucified Him.
Don't you remember?" and this is woven
into a long tradition in Western
culture that Pan was the only God who
actually died and there was this cry
that's recorded of sailors crying after the
ship "the Great God Pan is dead!" and I
believe this became as I understand it
from scholars saying this became
associated with the idea that Pan was an
image of Christ or again in the rather
Golden Bough sense that simply Pan was
another example of a dying god we can
then we can then dissolve the Christian
revelation into just another local myth
as it were. Also she points out that in
GK Chesterton's novel the man who was
Thursday the, haha, how to give a sketch
of the plot of that novel. I won't try
you can go and read it yourselves, but
but part of the plot of that novel is a
group of anarchists or anarchist Council
who all named after the days of the week
and this is one of the least weird parts
of that novel and they're all brought
together by the chief anarchist the
president a man called Sunday and then
he's gone disappeared and they're
remembering how he seemed very different
to each one of them and I'll read you a
passage from from that novel. 'Signs eyes
will were still fixed upon the errant
orb which reddened in the evening light
looked like some rosier and more
innocent world. Have you noticed an odd
thing he said about your descriptions?
Each man found Sunday quite
different, yet
each man of you could only find one
thing to compare him to -  the universe
itself. Bull finds him like the earth in
spring,  Goggle like the Sun at noonday.
The secretary is reminded of the
shapeless protoplasm the inspector of
the carelessness of virgin forests. The
professor says he is like a changing
landscape. This is queer but it is
queerer still that I also have my odd
notion about the president. And I also
find that I think of Sunday as I think
of the whole world. "Get on the long a
little faster" said Bull,  "never mind the
balloon." "When I first saw Sunday" said
Syme slowly "I only saw his back and when
I saw his back I knew he was the worst
man in the world. His neck and shoulders
were brutal like those of some apish
God his head had a stoop that was hardly
human like the stoop of an ox. In fact I
had it once the revolting fancy this was
not a man at all but a beast dressed up
in man's clothes". "Get on" said Dr. Bull,
"and then the queer thing happened. I have
seen his back from the street as he sat
in the balcony. Then I entered the hotel
and coming around the other side of him
saw his face in the sunlight. His face
frightened me as it did everyone but not
because it was brutal not because it was
evil, on the contrary it frightened me, but
because he was so beautiful because it
was so good."
"Syme" said the Secretary "Are you ill?" "It
was like the faith of some ancient
Archangel judging justly after heroic
wars. It was laughter in the eyes and in
the mouth honor and sorrow. There was the
same white hair the same in great great
clad shoulders that I had seen from
behind but when I saw him from behind I
was certain he was an animal when I saw
him in front I knew he was a God." "Pan"
said Professor dreamily, "was a god and
an animal." 'There's another sequence later
on when they're talking about that
someone compares him to Pan. 'There was no
need anyone to cry out to Syme who had
never taken his eyes off it. He saw the
great luminous globes suddenly stagger
in the sky right itself then sink
slowly behind the trees like a setting
Sun. The man called Goggle who had hardly
spoken through all their weary travels
suddenly threw up his hands like a lost
spirit. "He is dead!" he cried "and now I
know he was my friend, my friend in the
dark."
"Dead?" snorted the secretary "you will not
find him dead easily. If he's been tipped
out of the car we shall find him
rolling as a colt rolls in a field,
kicking his legs for fun." "Flashing his
hooves" said the professor "the colts do and
so did Pan." "Pan again!" said Dr Bull irritably "you seem to think Pan is
everything!"  "So he is," said the professor
"in Greek he means everything."
"Don't forget, said the secretary looking
down "that he also means panic." Anyway
that great glorious Chestertonian
rolling phrases there. And we can see
that the working out or a comparison I
think obviously between Pan and Christ
another thing that we can see in in the
Sayers is a comparison the idea that the
Pan is dead and we we crucified Him. And
again the reason why I've gone
this way around is that the appearance
of the Pan figure that we can recognize
from things like 'The Wind in the Willows'
or 'Murder Most Advertised' or 'The Man
who was Thursday' or 'The Man Born to be
King' in this novel is then succeeded by
the Father Christmas figure and it's
quite a he's quite an extraordinary
Father Christmas. I'll quote 'he was a huge
man in a bright red robe, bright as holly
berries with a hood that had fur inside
it and a great white beard that fell like
a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone
knew him because there you see people of
his sort only in Narnia you see pictures
of them and hear them talked about even in
our world, the world on this side of the
Wardrobe door. But when you really see
them in Narnia is rather different. Some
of the pictures of Father Christmas in
our world make him look only funny and
jolly but now that the children actually
stood looking at him they didn't find it
quite like that. He was so big and so
glad and so real that they all became
quite still. They felt very glad but also
solemn.' And there's something in this
this different kind of Father Christmas
this this larger and more real and more
solemn father Christmas that I think
suggests that we're seeing a gradual
revelation that's going to be completed
by Aslan. We're seeing some some hints
of Aslan's reality and Aslan's truth
and divinity in the figure of Mr. Tumnus
who first introduces Lucy to this
extraordinary world and tells her all
about the wonderful ways it used to be
but of course is in some one sense
morally corrupt because he's leading her
away in order to originally give her
over to the White Witch. And then we see
Father Christmas who was again a sort of
a folkloric figure the obviously course
whether it was from Christian legendary
substrate of Nicholas and he is
joyous and also solemn and that he's
almost unbearably real and that he sort
of very impressive to children. And
then in not so long we're going to see
Aslan himself. I wonder whether in these
figures we're seeing the characters
and indeed the reader being prepared for
Aslan. Being shown as I say some elements
that they could pick up by looking at
folklore you know by looking at the
legends of Pan by wandering around woods
and feeling that the strong tug I think
towards paganism or at least nature
worship in this novel that a lot of
novels at the time felt. And then seeing
the jolity and the joy of the Feast of
the Incarnation at Christmastide and
Father Christmas being there and and
these being things from from legend and
folklore which can prepare us for a true
understanding of divinity they
prepare us for the coming of Aslan. They
aren't worthless but they aren't the
thing itself and it will be a mistake I
think for this novel seems to tell us either
to throw them away or to fixate upon
them rather than the things that they
point to the things they can educate us
about so that's why I've taken that
rather long way around talking about the
figure of Father Christmas here because it
seems to me to be plugged into the the
folkloric and folktale legendary
elements of this novel in in quite a
precise way. Not a way, and I keep saying
this, but not a way that necessarily
means Lewis wrote this down in a
notebook and we'll find a diagram at
some point (if only because his notebooks have
been so well read already) but we're
gonna find a diagram and he he sat out
and thought how he would make this
progression, but that his mind and his
imagination which had brooded on these
things so long was preparing the reader
for the appearance of the Lion later on.
So that's what struck me about this
chapter. As I've said before I'd be
really interested to know what struck
you about it so do please leave comments
below. Next episode we're going to look
at chapter 11
'Aslan is nearer' which begins 'Edmund
meanwhile had been having a most
disappointing time.' and runs all the way
to,  "If either of you mentioned that name
again," said the Witch, "he shall be
instantly killed." So I look forward to
talking
you about it soon.
