Other posts in this series: The Odd Geography of the Utter East The Wild Lands of the North When speaking of Narnia, the name can mean both the country, and the world. Narnia-the-country’s boundaries are straightforward. This is a Baynes map from Prince Caspian. North: That line of hills that has a V-shape at the …
Charming print of Aslan, Lucy, and Susan by artist Dave Quiggle.
Let’s continue to explore Narnia’s four corners by moving from the Utter East to the Wild Lands of the North. The north has always been a wild, untamed place in Lewis’s mythos. In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, giants live there, which High King Peter battles as part of his royal duties. In …
Of all the places in Narnia, I’m most fascinated by the Utter East, that area of Narnia-the-World that lies over the Eastern Sea. It’s one of the most transcendent of Lewis’s creations – full of so much rich, mystical bizarreness that those passages remain one of my favorite pieces of writing, any writing, to this …
The 1970 version and a more recent one (right) The Silver Chair is my favorite Narnia book. The protagonists travel across and into many worlds — the mountains of Aslan’s country, the swamp of the marsh-wiggles, the bleak moors and the bleaker ruins of the giants; then the cavernous underworld and the subterranean city of …
Let’s finish this series about the White Witch with some odds and ends. First up, this depiction of Snow White’s evil queen by artist Colleen Doran. She’s holding up a bloody heart by a string. Though not Lewis’s character, she could very well be her, and the heart would be Edmund’s or Aslan’s. Next, a …
White Witch was a prog-glam band from the early 1970s.
I’m going to round out these posts with some depictions that, while they don’t depict the White Witch, would make very nice White Witches. The first would-be witch is the Winter Carnival Snow Queen. These depictions are common in the English theater form known as the Pantomime, or panto for short. Pantomimes are usually performed …
In last weeks’ Worldbuilding Wednesday I took a look at the etymology of Prunaprismia and how other women of Telmar might have been named. This week, I’ll look at the men. I think Lewis designed his names with French and Spanish in mind. The pronunciation of them, glottal and oily, recalls spoken Italian as …
In 1984 The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe received its first official stage treatment, and it’s been staged regularly ever since. In fact, it’s become a staple of children’s theater. It’s easy to see why. The story is simple, the characters memorable, the action clear-cut. Though it seems it would be difficult to do with …