The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Shelter With The Professor
2. Edmund Follows And Meets Jadis
3. Through The Wardrobe Together
4. Gifts In A Thawing Wood
5. The Camp And The Stone Table
6. Battle And Crowning At Cair Paravel
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked this up again on a grey weekend, expecting a simple children's tale. What struck me was how fast it moves and how much cold it carries. First published in 1950 by Geoffrey Bles, it is the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia in the order Lewis wrote and published them. The first edition ran to 172 pages. Later books reach further back in Narnian time, but this is where most readers start. The modern printings look thicker because of large type and pictures. The original was slim, and that brevity still shapes the pace.

Lewis does not linger. Within a few chapters you meet the house and the snow and the faun and the witch and the lion. You learn the moral stakes too. Edmund trades his family for sweets. Aslan pays the price in his place. Four children must grow into crowns.

Shelter With The Professor

The four Pevensies leave London during the air raids. Peter is eldest and tries to act the part. Susan is steady and cautious. Edmund is sore and quarrelsome. Lucy is youngest and most open to wonder. They are sent to the country house of old Professor Digory Kirke, a rambling place with spare rooms and long passages. Mrs. Macready the housekeeper keeps strict order. Rain keeps the children indoors.

On a wet day they explore room by room until they find one that holds only a large wardrobe. Lucy climbs inside among fur coats. She pushes past mothball smell and wool, expecting wood at the back. She finds branches instead. Then snow. Then a lamp burning alone between trees. Lewis gives this crossing only a few pages. He keeps it physical. Cold air. White ground. A light where no town could be.

By the lamp Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus. He is a faun with goat legs and a human face, carrying parcels under an umbrella. He invites her back to his cave for tea. Inside there is a bright fire and books and sardines on toast with cake. Talk turns warm, then sad. Tumnus confesses he serves the White Witch. His orders are to seize any human child found alone in the wood and hand the child to her. He says he cannot do it.

Almost no time has passed in England. Lucy tells her story. Edmund mocks her. Peter is kind but unsure. Susan is gentle but doubtful. The pattern matters for all that follows. Lucy speaks truth and meets disbelief. Edmund knows something and hides it. Peter wants fairness. Susan wants safety.

Edmund Follows And Meets Jadis

Edmund gets in next while sulking after Lucy. He reaches the same wood and the same lamp. Bells sound on the cold air. A sledge stops before him, drawn by reindeer and driven by a dwarf. On it sits a tall woman in white fur. This is Jadis, the White Witch, who styles herself Queen of Narnia. Her manner is proud and chill, though she can sound sweet when she needs facts.

She draws out his name and his family. Edmund boasts a little and tells more than he should. She gives him Turkish Delight from a small box. Lewis describes it as sweet and light, melting as it touches the tongue. Edmund eats one piece, then another. Hunger for it grows as he eats. The treat is enchanted to make the eater crave more and to soften his will toward the giver. Under its spell Edmund agrees to bring his brother and sisters to her castle. She promises favor. She hints he might rule as prince under her.

Soon after he meets Lucy, who has slipped back in on her own. She has been with Tumnus again. Edmund pretends pleasure at seeing her, then denies Narnia later back in the house. He claims he only played along to tease her. Lucy is crushed. Peter rebukes Edmund. Susan looks worried. The lie does more harm than open doubt.

Peter and Susan take the matter to the professor. He listens and asks plain questions. Has Lucy lied before. Has Edmund been unkind before. If Lucy is truthful by habit, why dismiss her now. His counsel stops the teasing.

Through The Wardrobe Together

All four enter together when hiding from Mrs. Macready during a house tour. They crowd into the wardrobe to avoid being seen. They push to the back and find snow rather than panels. This time even Edmund must own that Lucy told the truth. Peter begs her pardon outright. Susan frets about borrowed coats and the walk back. Edmund says little.

Lucy leads them to the home of Tumnus. The door stands ajar. Inside the rooms lie wrecked. The fire is cold. A paper fixed to the door states the faun was seized by the Secret Police for comfort to enemies of the Witch. Lucy weeps. She blames herself for leaving him exposed. Peter looks grave. He begins to feel the weight of being eldest in a place with laws and prisons.

A robin flutters near and seems to beckon. They trail it to a clearing where a beaver steps forward and speaks. This is Mr. Beaver. He proves friendship by showing the handkerchief Lucy once lent to Tumnus. He bids them follow to his dam. Susan balks at trusting a talking beast. Peter judges they have no safer course. They go with him through snow that squeaks underfoot.

Supper at the dam is plain and filling. Mr. Beaver nets fish through river ice. Mrs. Beaver fries potatoes and keeps tea hot, with bread and milk to follow. Over the table Mr. Beaver drops his voice and says Aslan is on the move. The name lands hard. Peter feels a surge of courage joined to awe. Susan feels a passing sweetness like music heard far off. Lucy feels glad as on a bright morning. Edmund feels sick with dread. Aslan is the great Lion and the true King, long absent and now returned. Old songs say his coming will melt the long winter. Mr. Beaver adds the prophecy that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit enthroned at Cair Paravel, the Witch will lose her grip.

Mrs. Beaver starts to pack. Talk turns to meeting Aslan at the Stone Table. While hampers are filled, Edmund slips out into the dark and walks alone toward the Witch. By morning the rest know he has gone to betray them.

Gifts In A Thawing Wood

Flight follows. Mr. Beaver guides Peter with Susan and Lucy down along the river and into rocky cover. Mrs. Beaver rides part of the way on a borrowed sledge piled with food and wraps. Wolves hunt behind them. Ahead the air softens. Icicles drip. Birds call again. Green shows through melt. The spell that kept Narnia locked in winter without Christmas starts to fail as Aslan draws near.

On the road they meet Father Christmas, broad and kind, long absent from these parts. He hands out tools for the trials ahead. Peter gets a sword with a bright blade and a shield marked with a red lion. Susan gets a bow with arrows and an ivory horn on a cord. Lucy gets a small dagger and a tiny bottle of cordial pressed from mountain flowers grown in sunlight. A few drops can mend wounds that else would prove fatal.

This counsel has drawn fair comment since. Peter is armed for the front. The girls are armed yet urged to hold back. Lewis wrote in 1950 with fixed views on protection and rank. To his credit he lets both girls act with effect later. Susan summons rescue with the horn. Lucy saves lives with the bottle. Still the phrasing sounds dated on a modern read aloud, and a parent may pause to discuss it rather than pass it by.

Edmund meanwhile trudges to the house of Jadis and finds scant welcome. The courtyard holds figures turned to stone by her wand and set as ornaments. Inside the rooms feel bare and chill. The Witch rages to learn he came alone. She sets out by sledge to cut off the others before they reach the Stone Table, dragging Edmund with her on foot with his hands bound. His fare is dry bread and water, a thin sequel to enchanted sweets. The thaw hampers the pursuit. Runners sink in slush. Wheels stick in mud. Flowers push up where snow lay. At last she must walk, and her strength wanes with each warm mile.

The Camp And The Stone Table

Aslan's camp lies on open turf near the Stone Table, bright with tents and fires. Around it gather loyal Narnians of many kinds. There are fauns and dryads. There are centaurs and talking dogs. Peter with Susan and Lucy are bathed and fed and brought forward. Then Aslan steps out to greet them.

Lewis pictures the Lion as vast and golden, with a deep voice and a steady gaze. The girls feel shy. Peter stands firm. Aslan names Peter as future High King. He asks gently after Edmund.

Peter soon proves himself in a skirmish. Wolves under Maugrim close in on the girls during a walk in the wood. Peter runs to them with his new sword and faces Maugrim down. Peter prevails. Aslan touches him with approval and makes him Sir Peter Wolf's Bane on the field.

Edmund is freed soon after by a party sent from camp. He meets Aslan alone. Lewis does not record what passes between them. He says the boy wept and was altered, and leaves the talk veiled. This reticence suits a story for young readers, yet it leaves a gap. Edmund moves from spite to penitence within a few pages, with one private exchange to carry the change.

Peace breaks when Jadis enters camp under flag of truce. She claims Edmund by law. She cites the Deep Magic graved on the Stone Table and on the sceptre of the Emperor over the Sea. It holds that each traitor is her lawful prey and that for such treachery she has a right to kill. The host stands mute. Aslan confers with her apart from hearing. He yields himself to her in place of the boy. She accepts in triumph and names the Stone Table as the place of payment.

That night Aslan walks to the Table alone. Susan and Lucy, unable to rest, trail him at a distance through moonlit trees. At the hill they see a cruel crowd with torches. The Witch waits with her knife. Her crew bind the Lion and shear his mane and mock him and strike him. Jadis drives the knife in on the stone. Then the rabble leaves to muster for war, and the girls come out to keep watch by the body. They pace and weep. They stroke the cropped mane. Small mice gnaw through the cords at his paws out of pity. Toward dawn a loud crack splits the air. The Stone Table breaks across its length. Aslan stands before them alive and greater, shaking out his mane in morning light.

He tells them of a Deeper Magic from before time. If one who never betrayed offers himself freely for a traitor, death will reverse its grip. The Witch knew the letter of the Deep Magic but not this older law. Readers versed in Christian teaching will catch the shape at once. A guiltless life given for the guilty. Lewis keeps doctrine light here. Aslan gives no sermon.

They ride on his back through fresh woods to the house of Jadis. There he breathes upon the stone figures and wakes them one by one. Tumnus clasps Lucy with tears and laughter. Then Aslan leads the revived company toward the field where Peter stands in sore need.

Battle And Crowning At Cair Paravel

The fight at Beruna by the ford is told in few pages. Peter arrays loyal beasts and wood folk against wolves and ogres and dark dwarfs under the Witch. Edmund fights with courage beyond his years and smashes her wand with his sword, taking a grievous wound in the act. As Peter gives ground, Aslan arrives with new strength from the courtyard and leaps upon Jadis and ends her.

Those who come hoping for full battle craft may feel shortchanged. Lewis spent his care on the winter and the Table, not on tactics and wounds. He wrote for children who might tire or blanch at long slaughter. The result reads brisk and clean, almost hasty after such buildup. Yet Edmund's stroke gives the clash a firm core. His valor earns pardon in deed as well as word.

Healing follows at once. Lucy pours her cordial between Edmund's lips. Color returns. Breath steadies. Aslan dubs him knight as well. Then the host marches east to Cair Paravel, the fair castle by the sea. There amid banners and music Aslan sets crowns on four heads. Peter is hailed as High King Peter the Magnificent. Susan is hailed as Queen Susan the Gentle. Edmund is hailed as King Edmund the Just. Lucy is hailed as Queen Lucy the Valiant. Each style fits growth shown in the tale. Peter learns command under fear. Susan learns care under strain. Edmund learns justice after mercy. Lucy holds truth from first tea to last wound.

Their reign is happy and busy. They grow tall and wise. They keep peace with border lands and clear the last wolves from the west. Tumnus stands high in counsel. Years pass like bright seasons.

At last a hunt for the White Stag leads them west into strange woods. They brush through thicket to the old lamp. They push through fir to felt and wood. They tumble from the wardrobe into the spare room as children, on the same wet day they left. Mrs. Macready still guides her party down the passage. No hour has passed in England though a lifetime of rule has passed in Narnia.

They pour out the tale to the professor. He credits every word. He says they will come back to that country one day, though not by that road. Lewis as narrator speaks plainly here to his young audience, as he has done throughout. He explains motives. He points morals. This chatty voice lends warmth, like a host at the fireside. It can also break the spell for older readers who prefer the tale to speak for itself.

Keep the limits in view and the book repays rereading. The snow feels true. The sweets tempt in a way children grasp. Grief at the Table lands without strain. Spring earns its joy. Against that set the thin spots. Edmund mends fast. The battle runs brief. Girls are praised yet held from the van in old terms. The teller steps in too often. Seen whole, these faults make the book easier to share rather than harder, since each invites talk on a walk home or at the table after lights out.

FAQ

Is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the first Narnia book?

It was published first in 1950 by Geoffrey Bles and opens the Chronicles of Narnia in publication order, though later books go further back in Narnian time. The first edition ran to 172 pages.

Why does Aslan offer himself on the Stone Table?

Jadis claims Edmund as a traitor under the Deep Magic. Aslan gives himself freely in Edmund's place, and the Deeper Magic from before time reverses death for such a willing and guiltless victim.

Does the book feel dated in places?

Yes in spots. Edmund mends fast, the Beruna battle runs brief, the girls are urged to hold back in old terms, and Lewis steps in to explain. The winter, the thaw, and the pardon still carry the tale.