For this Worldbuilding Wednesday, let’s take another look at Narniaworld. Pics are all AI and I take no credit for any of them.
Interior of The Marmalade Roll restaurant located at the Beaversdam resort
Children’s play area at the Beaversdam resort swimming pool
The Great Waterfall flume ride, one design for the rafts (it’s supposed to be a pavender)
The White Witch’s Castle, proposal for a themed restaurant
The Royal Baths of Tashbaan, part of The Great Souk or the water park
Reason for Delay, by Hayapi
This wasn’t labeled as Narnian art, but it so clearly is! Somehow Tash has made it into our world but taken a tumble, now he’s clogging up the commuter rail system. I hope he’s dead and not just stunned.
If you’re a scholar of The Chronicles of Narnia, you’ll know that the White Witch’s Captain of the Secret Police, a wolf named Maugrim, received a name change when The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe was published in the U.S. in 1950. That change was to Fenris Ulf, a name familiar to those who read Norse mythology. It’s that of the giant wolf prophesied to kill Odin, king of the gods, at the end time of Ragnarok.
I had thought for a long time that Macmillan made the change because Maugrim was too obscure or confusing; but it turns out Lewis was the one who did. In all my research I haven’t found out why. Fenris Ulf was the name I heard when I first read LWW (or rather it was read to me) and that is the one that sounds “right.”
A young Skandar Keynes (Edmund) and one of the stunt animals for the Disney version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
But apparently, HarperCollins, who came to hold the rights to the books, eventually disagreed; they rescinded the change in 1994 and since have been using the original British text which includes Maugrim. Which I admit is also an evocative name, sounding like “More-grim” which describes the fierce character, with suggestions that he’ll maul you with his wolf teeth; but doesn’t have the same mythological ring.
A Reddit thread discussing this issue revealed that editions in some other countries, too, received the change to Fenris Ulf. One poster nicely headcanoned the issue by positing that Maugrim was the creature’s name, but Fenris Ulf his title. Sounds good to me.
Of course wolves have always received a bad rep in hairy tales, a rep that only began to be redeemed in Richard and Wendy Pini’s Elfquest comics in which wild elves rode friendly wolves instead of horses. Both elves and wolves had Native American inspired names. The dire wolves of House Stark in A Game of Thrones served a similar function, acting as protectors, and in fact inspired a craze for wolf-dog hybrid pets when the show began airing. That Lewis used them as villains in LWW was a no-brainer. Memories of the Gestapo were still strong post-WWII; plus, the groups of Nazi submarines that harassed European shipping routes were regularly called wolfpacks by the allies. It wouldn’t have been hard to equate the ruthlessness and ferocity of Nazi troops with wolves.
Maugrim shows his Gestapo roots in this sketch by D34tHn0Te
Thus, going by both Maugrim and Fenris Ulf, I think the White Witch’s wolves would have had unpleasant, vaguely Germanic-Scandinavian names that varied with the occasional physical characteristic one.
What happened to the wolves after LWW? They aren’t mentioned again in the Chronicles, aside from the Wer-Wolf in Prince Caspian. I like to think they were pardoned by Aslan and went somewhere else to live, having learned the hard way not to mess in human affairs, and likely gave their offspring less murderous-sounding names after that.
(There’s enough about Maugrim that I could do a whole other post about theatric costuming and artwork depictions.)
Other named wolves in fantasy media have been The Jungle Book’s Akela, Gmork in The Neverending Story, and Moro from the anime Princess Mononoke. The Harry Potter series featured Fenrir Grayback and Remus Lupin, both good-aligned werewolf characters with appropriately wolfy names.
| Baulenz
Blacklurk Drakvor Fenria Fjogrum Grayhood Grissym Jaghar Malefu Naublim Nightbluff |
Raudreth
Rhinchar Sagvilm Scarpad Smerkand Tonderag Traunarg Umbraung Umngrel Ursvulf Viersalt |
The Narnian calendar system was never elaborated on by C. S. Lewis. We do know there’s a Christmas, a Midwinter snowball dance, and Summer Bacchanals, which, though are not mentioned as taking place on the summer solstice, are similar enough to Beltane that they likely might. There’s also the name of one month — Greenroof — mentioned.
Since I always wondered what other months there were, here’s my headcanon of them. There are only six for simplicity.
| Snowgay
Rainbloom Greenroof Sunmorn Leafdrop Shiverwood |
January, February
March, April May, June July, August September, October November, December |
These Evergreen Library hardcover versions of The Chronicles came out in 1965. All seven books had been released by this point, but for this series, only these five were published. The cover artist was Giorgio de Gaspari. I’d never seen this artwork before and was struck by how different it was from post-1970s depictions.
For one thing, it’s in a more painterly style, one that was widely used in the 1960s for fantasy books — sort of impressionistic with the flowing brushstrokes of Renoir. The colors are a little sour and heavy on the greens and golds. The art for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is done collage style, with a grouping of elements from the books, while the Prince Caspian cover depicts the scene where Peter picks up his sword, Rhindon, that was lying forgotten in Cair Paravel’s treasure room and raises it triumphantly. Which is a bait-and-switch for the budding reader, as Peter is not the “Prince Caspian” of the title.
But often the artist isn’t to blame for the cover’s gaffes. Sometimes they have a fast turnaround and can’t read the book themselves, or were not supplied with the text from the publisher. Or were given explicit instructions to “paint some English school kid with a sword in a treasure room” and nothing else.
Anyway, I feel the covers are in the spirit of the books and not that bad even if the style is dated.
Two more. Were these done by the same artist? I have my doubts. While the ship on the cover of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader references Pauline Baynes’ original art, the cover of The Horse and His Boy... yeesh. Why is Aravis wearing a pink Medieval gown and not Middle Eastern garb as was in the book? Why is she blonde and fair and like a princess in distress… and riding Bree not Hwin… and sidesaddle at that? Shasta/Cor is wearing suspiciously English Medieval garb too, for a lad from Calormen.
The cover pic here looks like the scene toward the end of the book where Rilian, Puddleglum, Jill and Eustace are leaving the underground city on Snowflake and Coalblack (hey, the artist got that right, and the kids’ fancy clothing, and Rilian’s lion shield, you’ll notice) but that’s a normal sky up there, not the cavern of the underworld. It can’t be Narnia, because, as you’ll remember, Jill and Eustace rode satyrs from the Snowball Dance to Cair Paravel, plus there was a fresh snowfall. Oh well.
(On reviewing this post, I wonder if the sky-glow to the upper left was supposed to be reflections of the heat from the Bism crack on the cavern ceiling, and the black cloud resulting from the same. I’d have to see a higher scan of the original to be sure.)
Below, several illustrations showing Jadis caught in the act of stealing a Silver Apple from the book The Magician’s Nephew. This isn’t a scene that’s popular with artists so it was my fortune to find several.
Casually she plucks and bites. He costume is similar to the Pauline Baynes drawing. Note that this scene wasn’t shown in the book but implied, as she has a “horrid stain” around her mouth from the juice when she confronts Digory at the gate.
As she eats the apple here her hand and face turn white, foreshadowing her transformation into the White Witch. The bloodlike stains at her lower lip hint at some kind of vampirism, too.
Art by Silver Steam Punk
A monochrome Jadis who has gained eternal life but become slightly haggard in the process. Now she has pointed teeth and ears like a vampire and the inside of the fruit is as red as blood.
Artwork by apassionata
In this scene Jadis has already become the White Witch, by her coloration. She watches as Digory picks an apple as instructed by Aslan; the Autumn hues of the garden — gold and brown — imply something in the freshly-created world is already dying. Perhaps it’s innocence.
A Hag and a Werewolf, executed in Midjourney. Can something this colorful and abstract also be scary? I took inspiration from the more outlandish depictions of Narnia I’ve come across.
One of the things I dislike about Prince Caspian is that, after many, many, centuries, hags and werewolves are still around, even though Lewis told us they had been eliminated at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Seems like someone didn’t do the job they were supposed to. Nevertheless, they’re there, and as such should have names.
Lewis’s conception of a Hag is a witchlike being with malevolent powers masquerading as a harmless old herbwife. I could totally see her hobnobbing and interfering with dim Telmarines even as Dr. Cornelius knows what she is.
The werewolf – or Wer-wolf according to Lewis — is more problematic. For one thing, its bite doesn’t cause its victim to turn into a werewolf; Caspian was bitten and remained fine. Another thing, it seems to have forgotten it even had a name: “I’m hunger. I’m thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy’s body and bury it with me.” Which makes it seem more of a malevolent ghostly being to me than a flesh and blood creature.
(Also… I thought the Stone Table was a holy place, sanctified by Aslan’s sacrifice all those years ago? Why can these horrible creatures hang around there? How did it lose its power for good? I’ve never seen this addressed in any scholarly writing or even fanfic, ever.)
Since I don’t like werewolves much as supernatural creatures, I gave them ugly-sounding, archaic names, while the hags got witchy ones.
| Hags
Aineth Clotna Eglina Fotatra Mafrinda Torsga Zillarhea Zilvria |
Werewolves
Churndryne Forcalc Grimvorden Jaundmortus Malraven Margras Morgos Vacculungus |
I came across this back cover in a search for Narnia images a few weeks ago. It was in connection with The Magician’s Nephew, but since there was no front cover I wasn’t sure, and the file original jpeg was titled in alphanumeric gibberish.
But, since the publisher’s name was there, I did another search.
The edition was published in 1980 and the wraparound cover artwork was a new commission from Paulines Baynes, the artist who did the line drawings for the original editions. (The tormented shapes of the mountains confirm it.) If you’ll notice Fledge is the correct color (chestnut) and his wings are attached to his body in the same way as Bayne’s earlier drawing, by a featherless band of sinew as the drawing to the right shows.
But what’s interesting to me is how the landscape below has been colorized, detailed, and expanded. In the book, Narnia is newly created, hence no roads, towns, cities or other works of man; yet it’s also explicit they fly up and over what would later be named Caldron Pool and the Great Waterfall and into the hills and later mountains, following the valleys instead of going over the high peaks, which might have caused them oxygen problems.
 |
Next moment the country dropped away beneath them, and whirled round as Fledge, like a huge pigeon, circled once or twice before setting off on his long westward flight … All Narnia, many-coloured with lawns and rocks and heather and different sorts of trees, lay spread out below them, the river winding through it like a ribbon of quick-silver. They could already see over the tops of the low hills which lay northward on their right; beyond those hills a great moorland sloped gently up and up to the horizon. On their left the mountains were much higher, but every now and then there was a gap where you could see, between steep pine woods, a glimpse of the southern lands that lay beyond them, looking blue and far away.
… now a great barrier of cliffs rose before them and … (Fledge) began flying to and fro, getting higher at each turn … they could see the whole valley of Narnia stretched out to where, just before the eastern horizon, there was a gleam of the sea. And now they were so high that they could see tiny-looking jagged mountains appearing beyond the northern moors, and plains of what looked like sand far in the south… Now they were over the top of the cliffs and in a few minutes the valley-land of Narnia had sunk out of sight behind them. They were flying over a wild country of steep hills and dark forests, still following the course of the river. The really big mountains loomed ahead. But the sun was now in the travellers’ eyes and they couldn’t see things very clearly in that direction. |
 |
But the description in the book doesn’t match what we see in the 1980 picture.
It might be a view of the trio looking south, with the body of water to the left the Eastern Sea. But what’s that little island? The spit of land Cair Paravel was later built on did not became an island until Caspian’s time thousands of years later, and none Narnia’s island nations would have been that close to the coast. And the text says they did not fly over Ettinsmore and the moorlands.
If we are looking toward Narnia’s north, the only thing the water could be is Caldron Pool, but there’s no waterfall and no river, the text says they flew over both, not around them. No map shows a lake in that area either.
Of course the artist just might have been filling in troublesome blank space. But if I was child or young adult who had this edition and and was prone to geographic conjecturing, I would think for sure that body of water was Narnia’s western sea and its unseen, unknown, west coast. And that Fledge is flying so high that Polly and Digory have caught sight of it.
So, it’s possible this illustration is why so many fan maps and wikis reference a western sea even though Lewis never mentioned it. (Read my analysis of The Western Wild for more about this mystery.)
Let’s look at some more White Witch depictions — and Snow Queens, Ice Princesses, Winter Maidens, and the like — that have been modeled by celebrities. Once I started looking, there were far more than I realized. And not all of them were female… but that’s gonna warrant it’s own separate post!
First, a classic.
That’s British TV presenter Olivia Attwood dressed as the White Witch from the 1988 BBC version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s not an exact replica of Barbara Kellerman’s costume, but if you’ve watched that series, it’s pretty obvious.
Emily Blunt as Queen Freya from the 2016 movie The Huntsman: Winter’s War. That movie was a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, an earlier take on Snow White. Both movies featured Charlize Theron as the wonderfully wicked Queen Ravenna, who wiped the floor with Kristen Stewart’s princess character in the earlier movie. The Huntsman: Winter’s War didn’t do as well as the first, even though it introduced Freya the Snow Queen as Ravenna’s icy sister. The series was discontinued, but it wasn’t the fault of Freya’s silvery, shimmering outfits (even though they appear to be more than a little ill-fitting.)
Maria Schrader, a German actress and director, as a witchy winter character with a stern, angry expression.
Bridget Fonda played the Snow Queen in a 2002 TV movie of the fairy tale wearing this chic white ensemble topped with a Russian fur hat. This look should be more iconic than it is.
Singers Bjork (left) and Katy Perry (right) in avant-garde stage costumes that look chilly, icelike, and alien.
Maria Seiren, a contestant on Japan’s Got Talent, dazzles in a bridelike gown with a feathered headpiece that showed off her every movement on stage.
Lady Gaga at a 2020 music awards show (hence the mask.) Her look screams futuristic White Witch, but like many of her presentation outfits appears half-baked and hastily thrown together. In recent years she’s scaled back, given her hip and fibromyalgia problems, but they were fun while they lasted.
Gazini Ganados, Miss Universe Philippines 2019, dazzles in a showstopper of a pageant gown that recalls winter, ice… and two giant eagles on her shoulders?
No… it’s just a whimsical illustration for a French edition of Thuvia, Maid of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, depicting a Martian banth (apex carnivore resembling a multilegged lion. )