Remember the Signs

I love The Silver Chair. The characters are most relatable and the journey fascinating, though there's not as much action as in others. (Whatever would the movie-makers do with this one?) I've already written another SC post about Puddleglum.
Here's what you need to know: Protagonists Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb are sent to Narnia on a quest to save the lost Prince Rilian, King Caspian's son, from his enchanted imprisonment. Because of a blunder of Jill's, the two are split up when they first arrive and so Jill is alone given by Aslan the Four Signs that will lead them on their journey.

Heaven's Fruit

First of all, to my approximately 2 regular readers, I'd like to apologize for missing a couple weeks. I have no excuse, I was just lazy. My only hope is that absence makes the heart grow fonder. To anyone else who may have stumbled upon, enjoy.
Whenever I eat a particularly juicy grape or sweet strawberry, I think of this paragraph from LB. It comes just after Tirian, the last King of Narnia, arrives in the New Narnia (heaven). He has just met the Seven Friends of Narnia and they all begin to explore together. (The Seven Friends of Narnia are everyone from our world who has visited Narnia, excluding Susan -- a topic for another post. They are Digory, Polly, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace and Jill.)

Puddleglum's Speech

 Puddleglum is by far one of the most charming creatures in Narnia. He's a pessimist and always cautious, but also delightfully brave and loyal. Or as he would say, he likes to expect the worst and then put a good face on it. Puddleglum was based on a gardener of the Lewis' named Fred Paxford. According to Jack's stepson, Douglas Gresham, he was "a simple and earthy man who might be called a cheerful, eternal pessimist. If you said good morning to him, he might reply, 'Ah! Looks like rain afore lunch, though; if'n it don't snow or hail, tha's.'" Puddleglum's character is introduced in SC and accompanies Eustace and his friend, Jill Pole, on the quest to find the lost prince, King Caspian's son, Rilian. Prince Rilian has been kept captive for ten years under the spell of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, a witch who rules the Underland. Puddleglum becomes a hero by thwarting her nearly successful attempt to put them all under a spell using a green powder put in the fire, playing her mandolin, and making them doubt the existence of Narnia and Aslan. He stomps his webbed foot (he's a Marshwiggle, a creature who's sort of a cross between a man and a frog) in the fire, breaking the spell and then gives this wonderful speech:

Father Christmas

In light of Christmas coming in two days, I thought I'd better do a Christmas themed post. The obvious choice then would be to discuss the appearance of Father Christmas in LWW.
The White Witch has cast a spell over Narnia to make it 'always winter and never Christmas' for the past century. Once the four Pevensie children arrive and 'Aslan is on the move' the Witch's curse begins to break, which we see when Father Christmas arrives to give the children and the Beaver's gifts. Lucy receives a healing potion and a dagger, Susan a bow and arrow and a magic horn that will bring aid when and Peter a sword and shield. Edmund misses out because he's with the Witch at the time.
When they hear him coming, the children think it's the Witch since she also travels via sleigh and reindeer, but instead are given this pleasant surprise.

Turkish Delight

It seems appropriate to do the post on Turkish Delight in December, it being a snowy treat. In LWW,  Turkish Delight is, basically, a symbol of sin. It's how the White Witch tricks Edmund into giving her information about his siblings and is partly how she persuades him to betray them. I've been looking forward to this post  for a while; it's a fun one. But I knew I had to actually make Turkish Delight to have the authority to be able to write about it. And now I have!

Eustace’s Un-Dragoning : Part 3 : Letting him

If you haven’t yet done so, you should read part 1 and part 2. The final part of this series is the actual un-dragoning, which happens like this:

“Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke –‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

Eustace’s Un-Dragoning : Part 2 : Trying and failing

If you haven’t read the first part, you may do so here. As the passage continues, Eustace recounts his attempts to shed his dragon skin himself.

“And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I’d never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden – trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells – like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.”