The Many Faces of the White Witch – Part I

A deadly White Witch quartet.

The Icon

The most iconic character (after Aslan the Lion, that is) of The Chronicles of Narnia is The White Witch, the villainess of both the first book and the sixth, and referred to in all the others. She’s a sorceress, a wicked queen, a petty spoilsport, a warrior general, and a femme fatale all in one. When the series begins (I’m using the old chronology here, of publication date) she has ruled the once-fair land of Narnia for a hundred years, covering it in eternal winter, and ruling it with the help of her secret police force of wolves (shades of Hitler and Mussolini) and army of evil dwarves, wraiths, hags, and haunts. A prophecy has been made that she will lose her power when the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve sit on the thrones at Cair Paravel, so she polices her realm most closely for visitors of human blood. When Lucy, the youngest  of the Pevensie kids, stumbles into the realm through the titular wardrobe, the real story begins.

The White Witch’s name is given as Jadis in the text, though she’s never referred to by it, and that name is given through the medium of a written order and not spoken. But she’s the same Jadis who appears five books later in The Magician’s Nephew as a sorceress-queen who kills the entire population of Charn with a single spoken magic word.

In LW&W she’s regal, brittle, thorough, and calculating, as well as being tall and inhumanly beautiful. No misshapen wart-faced witch, she. In Pauline Baynes’s illustrations she has long black hair which has become iconic for the character, even though her hair color was never mentioned by Lewis.

Illustration by Pauline Baynes.

We meet her first in the forest when she comes upon young Edward, who has stumbled into Narnia in the hope of proving his sister Lucy wrong about its existence. Here, in the first visual depiction of her, she stops her sleigh and looks at him in an unfriendly way.  It’s so simple and delicate, yet so strong, how she frowns and leans forward with her whip in her hand, and Edward raises his hand to his mouth in astonishment. In a later illustration it’s implied she uses the same whip on him, though the sinisterness is undercut by the silly Turkish slipper-like shoes she wears which are inappropriate for a wintry forest.

Barbara Kellerman played the White Witch in the BBC live-action version from 1988. Her depiction adhered closely to both the original illustration and the character as depicted in the book: haughty, brutal, slightly mad. You can believe she’s ruled Narnia for a hundred years.

Tilda Swinton’s version from the 2005 Disney big screen movie. The sled design is right-on, but overall I am not a fan of this depiction. Though a wonderful actress, Swinton lacks the vitality of Kellerman’s version (despite her turn as a faux-Boudicea in the battle scenes.) Her White Witch is less brash and fun, and more distant. Autistic, almost. Swinton specifically asked to play the role as a blonde, to draw attention away from the witch being seen as a POC with dark hair, and towards a more Aryan one with allusions to Nazi Germany. But the blonde dreadlocks are just wrong. How does she comb them?

Well, I guess she doesn’t. The flowing hair she wears for the the big battle scene was supposedly Aslan’s.

As for the metal headpiece, the two points that come down over her forehead do not make sense. How easy would it be for it to get knocked out of position  and the points penetrate her skull or eyes? And the spangly blue gown she wears in the throne room, with its wide shoulders and exaggerated neckline, is too cartoonish  for Swinton’s slender frame.

An illustration by Christine Birmingham for one of the later editions of LW&W. I like this one even better than Baynes’. It’s evocative of a cold, clear afternoon on a forest road, and the palette is attractive:  pale blue, red, white, and gold against which Edmund’s human coloration stands out. The White Witch wears her hair pulled back, looking both cruel and serene.

I wish I knew the name of the artist who made the wonderful rendition above, but I can’t read Russian. It’s almost perfect, save for some difficulties of scale: both Edmund and the reindeer are far too small.

A close-up showing the witch in all her marvelous cruelty.

A fan’s version of the meeting. The White Witch and Edmund, by Briana Gallegos

Edmund and the Witch, by Kelsey Michele

In this one Edmund meets the White Witch by moonlight. He’s in his pajamas, as happened in the movie, instead of short pants like in the book. He’s shivering so we know it’s cold, and the White Witch is about to offer him a hot drink as she does in the book. She’s got a smirk on her face which is out of character, but otherwise, it’s OK.

The same scene, by artist Deborah Maze, for a 1997 picture book adaptation. The witch here shows a little too much… glee… as she tempts an underage boy, putting her arm around him as he’s mesmerized by the steaming chalice. Well, we’ll get around to that in the section below.

 

The Snow Queen

If all these depictions seem familiar to you even if you haven’t read the book, you are right. The same scene occurs in the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale The Snow Queen, in which the glamorous, supernatural Queen of Winter encounters young Kay as he is sledding in the woods. She tempts him away from his childhood sweetheart Gerda and carries him off in her sleigh.

The Snow Queen, by Debra McFarlane

Artwork by Elena Ringo

Artwork by Angela Barrett

Illustration by Rudolf Koivu, 1940

Sometimes, as in the Russian illustration above, the Snow Queen has Kay hitch his sled to hers. Other times she bundles him up inside with her, with more than a little hint of eroticism in it.

“He’s mine, all mine!”   Illustration by Vladislav Erko

Though sex is not mentioned, it’s a tale of seduction: a young boy lured away by an older, more worldly woman who keeps him enthralled. But for all her glamor she is emotionally cold, leaving it up to Gerda to fight for what’s hers and bring him back home. I’m pretty certain Lewis played around with this motif on purpose.  Edmund, like Kay in the story, is a twisted sort, with the difference being his flaw is cruelty, while Kay’s personality has been warped by a shard from a magic mirror.

Two vintage Snow Queens, the second in a sleigh bedecked with bells, both of which Lewis may have read as a child.

 

The White Witch’s Castle

After eating the Turkish Delight, Edmund returns through the wardrobe where he lies about being in Narnia, making Lucy cry. But a few days later all of the siblings enter the wardrobe to escape a tour group, and see for themselves that Lucy was telling the truth, and Edmund lying. But they don’t know Edmund has promised the White Witch to deliver them to her. At some point during dinner with the Beavers, he sneaks off to her castle.

The White Witch’s Throne Room

Concept art from the movie. Too ornate and oversized for my taste, in the way CGI makes it all too easy to do. The white tiger was not in the original book.

Illustration by Christine Birmingham

Edmund sees the statues of the petrified Narnians as the White Witch waits expectantly for him. The scale here is better, but errs on the side of being too narrow and intimate. Edmund’s apprehension is a nice touch.

The White Witch shows her anger and Edmund cowers. Aside from the odd hitching of her arms, this depiction does a good job with her the castle. Like a Medieval church it has a vaulted ceiling and hanging lamps, and it is made of stone blocks. The wolf at her feet looks like a cross between a rat and a  lion, harking back to Aslan… but she’s the  anti-Aslan, as Lewis intended: Yin – Female – Cold – Silver  vs. Yang – Male – Warm – Gold.

An animated version of LW&W by was released by  Rankin/Bass and broadcast on CBS in 1979. I remember watching this and my brother making fun of it. Judging from the screen grab of the White Witch on her throne below, it was pretty awful. Peter’s clothes (turtleneck sweater, bellbottoms, and pointy-toed Beatle boots)  are suspiciously dated for the late 70s when disco, the punk scene, and Valley Girl fashion were entering the mainstream. How this won an Emmy award I don’t know.

 

There’s some interesting discussion about the cartoon here.

The witch on her throne.

Artwork by Leo and Diane Dillon

Leo and Diane Dillon depict a literally bubbleheaded White Witch here in their unmistakable style. There are some interesting details here, like the Negro features of the dwarf and the strange bird heads on the chair’s armrests. Her wand, more of a staff, is tipped with a skull. She seems to be baring her teeth in the same way the wolf is. Very nice image.

Edmund and the White Witch by Deborah J. J. Lee

Edmund goes from the frying pan into the fire! The White Witch looks ready to poke him with her spear here as the wolves snap and howl. The artist’s technique is very like that of Erte which is no mean accomplishment.

I’ll be posting Part II later.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 7/8/20: Narnia VI

A maenad and her leopards.

As I mentioned in last week’s Worldbuilding Wednesday, almost none of Lewis’s female Narnian creatures received a name, whether they were Talking Beasts or mythological beings. I’ve attempted to rectify that here. Naiads and maenads have Greek-type names, and dryads and hamadryads those relating to trees. As Hamadryads are bonded only to a particular kind of tree, that type became part of their name. For fun, I added in river-gods (the male equivalent of a naiad) and star people.

It’s also worth reflecting on that there was plenty of miscegnation going on between Narnian natives and human beings from our world. In The Magician’s Nephew, the children of King Frank and Queen Helen are described as marrying naiads and river-gods and thus founding the human population of Narnia-the-world (as opposed to Narnia the country.) In Prince Caspian, dwarves have intermarried with humans, producing human-dwarf hybrids. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Caspian marries the daughter of a star person. Her mother is not mentioned, but since she’s living on the earth, mom was probably human as well. Star blood thus passed into Prince Rilian and down through the last kings who likely already carried naiad and dwarf blood.

This puts Aslan’s prophecy that the throne of Narnia shall only be occupied by sons and daughters of Adam and Eve into a new light. As they were from this world, they did not have the taint of dwarf or naiad or river-god; and presumably, neither did Caspian, being of a Telmarine noble family descended from South Sea pirates.

 

More Mythological Creatures of Narnia

Living Stars

Beteldu

Zularea

Marethyn

Saphomon

Demisda

Sabelin

 River-gods

Videas

Atphos

Barathus

Vinderus

Valeropus

Ganthus

 Naiads

Sayra

Villsa

Shirna

Issenta

Elspa

Persa
 Maenads

Ternia

Nephera

Uvala

Orpha

Mirlana

Fonara

 Dryads

Brightwood

Darkdew

Greenbraid

Silverjade

Feathertwig

Bluemoth

 Hamadryads

Applejoy

Starplum

Yewgrass

Snowbeech

Mosswillow

Hazelbrook

Narnia Boxed Set

This boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia was my Holy Grail for a few years. Released in 1970, it was the first time all the books were offered together in a decorated cardboard slipcase. The original Baynes drawings were used on the inside, but the covers, with their vague art deco leanings and childlike, airbrushed figures, were very much of the 1970s, and still remind me of embroidered denim, platform shoes, and cheap dangle earrings decades later. In high school I finally bought a used set at a yard sale that served me as reference and inspiration when I began writing myself.

The covers of the books all together. Each one is surreal enough to be a Magritte painting. There’s an echo in them of Rousseau as well. The scenes are caught in mid-action, yet the result is flat, frozen.  There is no affect, no irony. I wonder if it’s because some editorial decision was made not to depict the stories literally. They are Christian allegories, after all. They are mostly true to the books, except Jadis did not have red hair as depicted on The Magician’s Nephew, and the dragon head bow of the Dawn Treader is greatly oversized.


The same fantastical aesthetics are visible in the interior illustration above, for a cardboard toy, which appeared in Scholastic’s Dynamite magazine. Scholastic put out the Narnia boxed set as well. Dynamite was aimed at junior high kids and also appeared in the1970s.

From whence came the artist’s original  inspiration? More than likely Peter Max, who did this notable poster for Earth Day in 1970.

 

 

 

 

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 7/1/20: Narnia V

There were female centaurs in the Narnia movies, but not in the books.

In addition to Talking Beasts, Narnia was home to many other beings from Western mythology, as well as a few Lewis created himself. Some were referenced often, like centaurs and dwarves. Others received just one mention, like the laundry list of baddies under the White Witch’s command who bind Aslan to the Stone Table. I’ve attempted here to separate them all out.

From Grecian and Roman myth:
Fauns
Satyrs
Centaurs
“Man-headed bull” (Minotaur?)
Dryads
Naiads and River-gods
Maenads
Merpeople
Sea People
Winged Horse (Pegasus)
Unicorns
Phoenixes
Griffons
Monopods (Dufflepuds)
Incubi
Salamander

From European Myth and Folklore:
Dwarves
Giants
Ettins
Boogles
Ghouls
Horrors
Grues
Hags
Werewolves
Ogres
Orknies
Spectres
Woses
Wraiths
Dragons
Sea Serpents
Toadstool people

From Arabic Myth and Folklore:
Jinn
Efreet

Lewis’s Own Creations:
Marsh-wiggles
Earthmen
Black Dwarves and Red Dwarves (Lewis separated them into races)
Living Stars (Ramandu and Coriakin)
White Birds of the Sun

Various media adaptations added many more creatures that were not included in the books, like cyclopses, minoboars, polar bears, gorillas, gryphons, tigers, and jaguars, presumably for visual effect. Pauline Baynes, the original illustrator, also took the liberty of adding creatures not mentioned in the books.

The size of Narnia-the-country, and the larger world that was built around it in the later books, was never explicitly stated, but to accommodate this mythological ecosystem logic dictates it would have been quite large.  The problem is the distances given in canon seem quite small. For example, at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the Pevensies reach Lantern Waste within an afternoon’s ride from Cair Paravel. As Lantern Waste marks one of the borders of that land (most commonly the northwest on maps) it implies Narnia proper reaches no more than 10 – 15 miles inland from the coast, at least in that direction. This is very small. But that’s all for another post, since Worldbuilding Wednesday is all about the names.

In making up the list I was surprised to find that most of the named Narnian creatures are male. In the books, there are no mentions of female centaurs, dwarves, satyrs/fauns, earthmen, or marshwiggles, and of all the others, only a female monopod (Clipsie in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) is mentioned by name, and rather offhandedly at that. Even Caspian’s eventual wife and Queen, Ramandu the Star’s Daughter, goes unnamed. (In the movie, though, she’s called Lilliandil.) Even the creatures that are traditionally female, like maenads, dryads, naiads, and mermaids, don’t get names. They’re referred to in clumps, as a group rather than individuals. Though the books have a balance of both male and female protagonists, with perhaps the meatier arcs going to females, the same was not true of the minor characters. Very odd.

Like the Talking Beasts, many creatures have names that refer to their characteristics or what they do. But an equal amount have a made-up name. Most of the time, given than many are of Greek origin, it’s something like Tumnus or Oreius, or rural Medieval English like Poggin or Puddleglum. I kept to those styles here.

 

Mythological Creatures of Narnia

Giants

Bramblehead

Troughgird

Bumblebrave

Wanderworth

Nubbinnoodle

Beltblister

 Centaurs

Moravias

Malthier

Runekeeper

Sunstream

Archdrake

Gandalfor

 Fauns

Verius

Raphincus

Falgus

Phoedus

Androcus

Saphus
Dwarves

Gibblenik

Flintfinder

Girdlepop

Ruggle

Maffin

Niknas

 Earthmen

Nugg

Muthgram

Gorm

Grimfor

Wigand

Storg

 Marshwiggles

Purseplum

Smagglemor

Drabseed

Toadtooth

Mudrumple

Mudbanks

Louis Wain’s Aslan

This artist’s depiction of Aslan, with its eerie staring eyes, shares a disturbing similarity to the cat pictures of popular Victorian English artist Louis Wain. Wain is often cited in psychology textbooks as a classic case of how schizophrenia alters the afflicted’s sense of reality.

 

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/24/20: Narnia IV

narnia talking fox

A charming anthropomorphized fox from the first movie.

As written by Lewis, the Talking Beasts of Narnia cover a wide range of species. The Magician’s Nephew, which was the third book Lewis wrote (but the 6th published) gives a good depiction of their genesis: they bubble up from the earth itself like bubbles of gas through hot lava. There’s an elephant, big cats, deer. Yet, there are gaps in the worldbuilding. Mice, according to Aslan in Prince Caspian, were created later, after Aslan’s ordeal on the stone table. And the more exotic species don’t enter the story at all, as characters that is. There’s a Talking Lion who plays a bit part in the first book, and an elephant in Nephew, but that’s it. Where did they all reside? How did warm climate creatures like elephants and cheetahs withstand Narnia’s winters? And speaking of those elephants, there’s a Hall of Ivory in Cair Paravel. Did they donate their tusks? Were they killed for them?

The animals that do get the most screen time are the ones Lewis would have been the most familiar with as denizens of the British countryside: foxes, bears, deer, beavers, hares, ravens. Well, bears and beavers were in short supply in England in the 20th century, but they would have been there, but for man; that’s their biome.

It is also worth reflecting on the fate of wolves. They are the only species which had given itself over to evil, during the Long Winter; but were all of them thus turned? Were they exterminated after that, or did they repent? (Someone write a fanfic about this please.)

Anyway, more talking beasts that might have existed had the series gone on.

 

More Narnian Creatures

Rabbits / Hares

Springlegs

Weedwinter

Quickblossom

Hollyharp

Dawndash

 Moles

Chunkstep

Popcollar

Spadebrood

Plumpling

Earthness

 Hedgehogs

Cricklehitch

Mossmouth

Wormsniggle

Pennypop

Spinebrow
Eagles

Trueseek

Windjoy

Highcrest

Stormwing

Quillfrost

 Foxes

Slypath

Bluffhunter

Redthatch

Moonglade the Vixen

Vulpina

 Wolves

Graykin

Longpace

Bruteflank

Blackfrost

Vandalpaw

Cair Paravel

Cair Paravel, Narnia’s royal castle, as depicted in a Pauline Baynes illustration from the original book, and in an artist’s concept for the movie. The movie version is larger and grander but keeps to the same outline.

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/17/20: Narnia III

Reepicheep toasts Ramandu the Star’s Daughter in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Pauline Baynes did the illustrations for all the books.

Speaking of Prince Caspian, the book contains one of the most memorable of all the series’s peripheral characters: Reepicheep the Mouse, short in stature but long on bravery. To me he was the Narnia equivalent of Scrappy-Doo, Scooby-Doo’s more eloquent little nephew: annoying.  He does introduce, however, the Narnian way of naming mice: three-syllable names based on the noises they make.

The other talking animals of Narnia have distinctive names as well, often related to what they do, filtered through a pastoral English wonderland. Moles are named Clodsley Shovel and Lilygloves. A squirrel is named Pattertwig, a badger Trufflehunter. And on and on.

Writing Narnia fanfic? Here are some ideas for your animal characters.

 

Narnian Creatures

Mice

Neepileep

Pipichip

Chippiteep

Teepisqueek

Neepinip

Cheepititch

Feepimeep

 Squirrels

Luckbranch

Patterpaws

Tumblefluff

Joytwig

Rainleaf

Fairflick

Graywhistle

 Deer

Starhorn

Snowmist

Gladfoot

Joygrove

Gallanthoof

Northsong

Lanklegs
Beavers

Logsnap

Shortbelly

Paddletail

Darkdive

Pondflapper

Coldbrook

 Badgers

Cobblefern

Moonwhiskers

Rootsnuffle

Snowmask

Hextangle

Jennysalt

 Ravens

Runefeather

Proudbeak

Goodcroak

Crookpenny

Combescry

Sootwing

Witch’s League Smackdown

This is hilarious.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/10/20: Narnia II

Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian in the movie version, decidedly older and hunkier than the character in the book.

C. S. Lewis actually wrote Prince Caspian, the second book of The Chronicles of Narnia, hot on the tail of the first.  In it, he explored an idea he had been playing around with for a while: What if King Arthur actually returned to England during the Battle of Britain as prophesied (when England was in its “darkest hour”) thereby saving the day? He cast the Pevensie children in the role of Arthur, made the peril out to be an invading kingdom bent on destroying Narnian culture, and so Prince Caspian (named after the sea, no less) was born.

Though the book was second in the series, I read it the last, and might have been spoiled for it by the other books. Still, it’s the weakest, IMO, of the Narnia books. The plot is frustrating (there’s a lot of dull wandering  around in the woods before we get to the action) and many decidedly un-Narnian elements in it that never recur, like necromancy, werewolves, and Narnia being converted into a facsimile of a repressive British town complete with a bureaucratic  school system.  If the books had stopped there, as a duology, the worldbuilding might have made sense; but the wilder and more metaphysical elements of the later books sit oddly with the modern-day (mid twentieth century) elements of this one. It’s also a disappointment for readers, I think, to discover that the Narnia they loved and knew had been been completely plowed under in the intervening years between the events of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and this one. (I could say more, and will, in a later entry.)

Prince Caspian does, though, have the simplest title of the Narnia books; and here are some alternate versions with the same sound.

 

Variations on Prince Caspian

Prince Sasdian

Prince Dysnian

Prince Testian

Prince Baskian

Prince Thesvian

Prince Nosthian

Prince Yesthian

Prince Lesrian

Prince Yösdian

Prince Rasdian

 Prince Gesthian

Prince Nassian

Prince Risrian

Prince Chestrian

Prince Tosnian

Prince Sesdian

Prince Tosbrian

Prince Missian

Prince Fuslian

Prince Thöszian