Narnia's history; - Filling the gaps

This is what happens when an old student of history reads through the Narnia series again.

In the Last Battle, Jill complains that they never seem to be able to see Narnia in times of peace. Jewel the unicorn assures her that Narnia has had hundreds and thousands of years of history in which nothing happened that needed to be recorded. Yet there must be more to it than that. Most of those thousands of years were before the time of the White Witch, yet in that period multiple kingdoms developed and these kings were building collections of armour and taking war for granted as part of their lives.

The most important story which C.S. Lewis neglects to tell us is probably the story of the Four Kings who ruled jointly at Cair Paravel. We can deduce their reign from the existence of the four thrones. It’s obvious when you think about it. Those thrones were built in the first place for people who needed them at the time, not just for future occupants. The Four Kings period was evidently being remembered later as a very happy time for Narnia, because the nostalgia turned into a prophecy. Those happy times would return when the four thrones were filled once again.

The descendants of Frank and Helen have also been colonising parts of the larger Narnia world. For one thing, the island groups in the eastward ocean. Galma is closest to the mainland and has remained part of the kingdom, governed by a Duke. The Terebinthians, further out, have given themselves a king and value their independence. The Seven Isles are more friendly to Caspian, so they may be under a Duke, or they may have kings who are far enough away not to be anxious about their independence.

The King of Narnia is also Emperor of the Lone Islands. At the time of the Dawntreader story, the author himself did not know how this came about. It is certainly unusual for a reigning king to name himself Emperor of a subordinate territory, unless he has taken over a pre-existing title (as happened when Victoria became Empress of India). So my theory was that the first Emperor was a local man with grandiose ideas, very conscious of his remoteness from any kind of interfering authority. Except that he would have been conscious also of being that much closer to the land of the Emperor-over-sea, which makes the title almost blasphemous. In the Last Battle, the author gives an account of King Gale of Narnia who rescued the grateful islanders from a dragon, but that does not necessarily rule out my “pre-existing title” theory. A man who would proclaim himself Emperor is just the kind of man most likely to upset a dragon, perhaps by trying to steal his gold.

The northern wilderness is occupied by a race of giants. We are not told anything about their origins. The Magician’s Nephew shows how Aslan brought Narnia into existence and gave it life. We see him, in the first place, selecting some of the ordinary animals in order to make them Talking Beasts. But he also brings life to the trees and the waters, and that gets expressed in the emergence of the dryads and nymphs and river-gods. Presumably the dwarves, the “sons of earth”, are expressing the life of the earth in the same way, and I suppose we have to look for similar processes to explain the existence of the giants and the marsh-wiggles. Fairly harmless giants are part of the population of Narnia itself. My theory is that some of the Narnian stock moved north to colonise the wilderness and evolved a more brutal physique and culture.

In the Silver Chair we are shown a sleeping giant called Father Time, who “used to be a king in Overland”. This is surely not an isolated individual, but one of the northern giants from the land just above that cave. The author is combining various legends. The Greek philosophers identified “Time” with Cronus, the king of the gods preceding Zeus. The Romans identified him with Saturn, a former king of Italy at a time of much greater freedom and happiness, a time they tried to recreate in the Saturnalia. The author is combining these myths with the later European “sleeping hero” legends. So my understanding of this giant is that he had been the ruler of the first and only good kingdom of the giants. Like Arthur, he was defeated and his kingdom was overthrown, and he was rescued from death by being placed in that state of sleep. When he re-emerges in the Last Battle, he takes his stand once more on the northern moorlands which had been his original home.

The immense mountains beyond the great waterfall on the western edge of Narnia are the backbone of a much larger continent, and there are “unknown Western lands” on the other side of them. I would locate the land of Telmar on that side of the mountains because there’s no room for it elsewhere. Aslan declines to tell the two long stories of how the Telmarines found the land of Telmar unpeopled and then found Narnia in disorder. I will offer a speculation about the second one, anyway. The reign of the four children obviously came to an end when they found their way home through the wardrobe. In the short term, this would not matter. The Talking Beasts would get on with their lives as before. But at a later stage, I surmise, the dwarves began to throw their weight around. They were always the most nearly human of the creatures of Narnia, and so the most likely to behave as badly as humans and reject human authority. I suggest that Narnia was in disorder because the black dwarves were trying to establish their own dictatorship.

If Telmar does lie to the west of the mountains, we need to make one more assumption about the geography of the Narnian world. There must be a gap of some kind at the south-western corner of Narnia, between the western mountains and the gentler southern mountains . Early Narnian colonists could pass through that gap to become the doomed first inhabitants of Telmar (killed off by the “strange unearthly things”?), and the later Telmarines could find a more comfortable land by invading Narnia in the opposite direction. This route would also explain how the Calormenes reached Lantern Waste so easily in the Last Battle, entering Narnia from the south. Just as Tash himself did a little later.

(continued in next post)

Frank and Helen were promised that their descendants would be kings in Archenland, which is more colonisation. Archenland is described a couple of times as a plateau between two southern mountain ranges, but in the story of Shasta (who crosses at the western end) Archenland is the one mountain range itself.

There was no promise about being kings in Calormen. In fact the Calormenes could not have descended from Frank and Helen, who were English. The Calormenes are non-European to the point of offending against political correctness. They must be intruders, like the Telmarines, but this does not necessarily mean that they came from Earth. The kings in the great hall in Charn were also human. Jadis was exceptionally tall only because she had giants in her ancestry. In the universe of these books, the living creatures of Earth can be duplicated on other worlds. The real clue is Tash. Tash is obviously alien both to Narnia and to Earth. Tash must originate from one of the other universes, one of the other pools in the wood. He must have developed enough power in his own right to make the crossing and invade the Narnian world, and brought the Calormenes with him to be his servants.

This brings us to Jadis, as the chief representative of evil. She is introduced into Narnia on the day of creation and escapes northwards. We are evidently meant to identify her with the White Witch, whose privilege against traitors is based on the Deep Magic “which the Emperor put into Narnia from the beginning”. The Magician’s Nephew sheds no light on his reason for doing this, but we must accept that as his secret. That still leaves the historical puzzle of how she made that privilege known, and got it accepted to the point that she was able to establish and use the Stone Table.

Part of the answer must be that something happened to the Protective Tree which Digory planted. As long as that tree flourished, she would have been unable to approach Narnia. She may have spent that waiting time bringing into existence the more genuinely evil creatures of that world, like the hags and the werewolves, perhaps corrupting them out of the creatures which Aslan provided.

I have suggested that the reign of the Four Kings was long remembered as a time of great happiness. One of the implications of that assumption is that things went downhill soon afterwards. One easy explanation is that their descendants quarrelled and endemic civil wars began. This would have been her opportunity. Civil wars mean divided loyalties and divided loyalties prompt treachery. The logic of the situation has to be that treachery is an offence against the Emperor-over-sea, who demands faithfulness, and she is deputed to punish it on his behalf. That is why the Beaver calls her “the Emperor’s hangman”. It is a logic based on Satan’s function in the Bible, which is to bring human sin to God’s attention.

As she intervened between the warring parties as neutral judge and punisher, her power would have grown exponentially. Her role as mediator would have made her an arbitrator, which would gradually have turned her into an overlord. She would have helped rival kings to eliminate each other and then eliminated the survivors. In the final paroxysms of her seizure of power, her latest victims on the Stone Table would have been the last-minute traitors against herself. Once traitors had been intimidated out of existence, the Stone Table would fall into disuse. By this time, in any case, the human population of Narnia was dead or in exile (in Archenland or the islands), and that is how Narnia is found when the four children arrive.

So there must be, in fact, more to the ancient history of Narnia than beautiful ladies looking at their reflections in pools

a reply to: DISRAELI

The most important story which C.S. Lewis neglects to tell us is probably the story of the Four Kings who ruled jointly at Cair Paravel. We can deduce their reign from the existence of the four thrones. It’s obvious when you think about it. Those thrones were built in the first place for people who needed them at the time, not just for future occupants. The Four Kings period was evidently being remembered later as a very happy time for Narnia, because the nostalgia turned into a prophecy. Those happy times would return when the four thrones were filled once again.

It has been some decades since I've read the Narnia books, but I do sort of remember the scene of the children going to Cair Paravel. I always assumed that the four thrones were actually relics of the children's own reigns as Kings and Queens. I don't remember if the children were the founders of Cair Paravel or not, I maybe just assumed that they were.

a reply to: pthena
No, Cair Paravel and the four thrones already existed in the time of the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, which was their very first experience of Narnia. So there had to be predecessors. The time-jumps in these stories are always in a forward direction. C.S. Lewis did not play around with backwards travel.

a reply to: DISRAELI

You are correct.

I don't have the book right now but I found a quote from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

"...down at Cair Paravel there are four thrones and it's a saying in Narnia time out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit on those four thrones, then it will be the end [ not ] only of the White Witch's reign but of her life..."

That's Mr. Beaver talking. First people that the children encountered.

I've read somewhere that before his death, C.S. Lewis had been planning to do some rewrites to clear up plot holes in the 'history' of Narnia -
He was aware that, because of the non linear way in which he'd written the stories, there were a few discrepancies in the historicity of the over-all narrative.

It was a tragedy, on many accounts, that his death (at only age 62) was so unexpected...

Ahh i loved those books as a kid in the early 70's....

All the best

a reply to: lostgirl
Yes, the late addition of the story of King Gale (in Last Battle) was one gap that he did manage to fill.