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.”

Eustace’s Un-Dragoning : Part 1 : Being afraid

One of the most powerful and memorable scenes of the entire series is the un-dragoning of Eustace. It occurs during VDT which is third in published order and is one of the most popular books in the series. It tells the story of King Caspian after 3 years reign, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, their cousin Eustace Scrubb, and our friend Reepicheep the mouse, who together embark on a voyage to find the seven lost lords and the end of the earth. During the journey, the friends each face an internal problem that they must conquer with Aslan's help.
It's important that you don't refer to your experience of this scene in the movie, but focus on the book version only. It is one of the many moments that really cannot be done justice cinematically. 

The scene is recollected by Eustace and told to Edmund early in the morning, before anyone else knows that Eustace has been changed back into a boy. In case you don't remember how Eustace became a dragon, or you simply don't know since the movie wasn't clear on this, among other things; after the crew lands on Dragon Island, Eustace wanders off alone to get out of working and comes across a cave filled with treasure which he takes a nap in. Then, as the book reads, "He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself."
I’ve divided this story and response into three parts. This is the first part, concerning Eustace’s reaction when he first met Aslan.

Uncle Andrew & Making Yourself Stupider

I have often interpreted the world around me in terms of things that happened in Narnia. One of those that I frequently internally reference is from The Magician's Nephew.
It is the sixth book in published order, but chronically occurs first, as it is an answer to how the world of Narnia came to be. I believe that it should still be read after LWW, a subject on which I will perhaps blog about at a later time. This particular scene from MN occurs during the creation of Narnia and the granting of the gift of speech to the beasts, but from the point of view of one of the antagonists, Uncle Andrew.

My First Visit to Narnia

I've been re-reading C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series since I first read them in Jr. High. I would have read them, as most people do, long before that, but I grew up in a conservative Christian home and witches were evil. Since the title of the first book contains "witch" I assumed I wasn't allowed to read them. I've always loved to read; I visited the library constantly as a child. During one of those visits as a teenager, I was having trouble finding a good book; I felt I'd already read all the good ones. I asked my mom for advice, and she pointed out the Narnia series. I didn't question it; the fact that she recommended it was good enough for me. Once I started, I couldn't put the books down. I was, at first, embarrassed to be reading a children's book. It was really the worst period of life to begin them because it's when one is terribly concerned about growing up. As I brought my book with me everywhere I went, I was always careful to lay it face down so no one would notice I was reading a children's fairy tale. I was caught once when a boy noticed it and told me "That's a good book." I blushed and nodded. But as Lewis wrote in his dedication of LWW, "Some day you'll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."  By the time I was in High School, I minded less and less that people knew I was a Narnia nerd, until it became my go-to "What's something unique about yourself?" answer. Recently, when I told a friend I wanted to start a blog but needed an idea and his advice was "The possibilities are endless, but you have to do it because you love it and because it flows from your essence," this was the idea I came up with. I believe we love the books we love because we relate to them in some way. We are able to see a part of ourselves in them, and at the same time be challenged by them. The purpose of this blog is to show how the goings-on in the world of Narnia relates to my life, and can relate to yours. So tell me, what was your first experience in Narnia?