The Chronicles of Narnia: The Final Battle

When I started writing about The Chronicles of Narnia after re-reading it, I hadn't really intended it to turn into a series of posts, but nevertheless it has.  Here's the last one, on The Final Battle.

In the first chapter, an ape and a donkey find a lion's skin.  The ape, Shift, creates a coat for the donkey, Puzzle, out of the skin, and then Shift has the idea to tell people that Puzzle is Aslan.  There's a similar premise in one of Aesop's Fables, "The Ass in the Lion's Skin":

An ass found a lion's skin, and dressed himself up in it.  Then he went about frightening everyone he met, for they all took him to be a lion, men and beasts alike, and took to their heels when they saw him coming.  Elated by the success of his trick, he loudly brayed in triumph.  The fox heard him, and recognized him at once for the ass he was, and said to him, "Oho, my friend, it's you, is it?  I, too, should have been afraid if I hadn't heard your voice."

There's a difference in motivation (in The Final Battle, the donkey is coaxed into the lion's skin where the donkey in Aesop's fable does it of his own volition), but the two are similar.  Lewis seems to have used fairy tales in The Chronicles (I wrote about a Grimm fairy tale he seems to use in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a few weeks ago), so it's likely that he knew and used this element from Aesop too.

In Chapter Seven, Tirian frees a company of dwarfs from some Calormene soldiers.  However, they don't join his side and don't even thank him for their freedom.  Tirian and his friends walk away, but then one dwarf - Poggin - comes back to join them.  "Everyone crowded round him and welcomed him and praised him and slapped him on the back.  Of course one single Dwarf could not make a very great difference, but it was somehow very cheering to have even one.  The whole party brightened up."  I think there are two Biblical references here.  The first is Jesus' healing of ten lepers.  "When he saw them he said to them, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.'  And as they went they were cleansed.  Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice..." (Luke 17:14-15).  Jesus heals all ten lepers, but only one returns to thank Him; Tirian frees the whole company of dwarfs, but only one returns to join him.  Both also have their faith in common.  To the one leper who returned, Jesus says, "Your faith has made you well" (verse 19), and Poggin the Dwarf tells Tirian, "I'm on your side, Sire; and on Aslan's."  Since Aslan is the Christ-like figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, the faith of both the one returning leper and the one returning dwarf is the same.

The second Biblical story I think this event references is The Parable of the Lost Sheep.  Jesus tells a group of people about a man who has one hundred sheep, and after he loses one, he leaves the ninety-nine to look for the one.  "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:5-7).  The like one sheep that was found, there's Poggin, the one dwarf to return.  Similar to the "rejoicing" and "joy" in the parable, Poggin's return is "very cheering" and the party "brighten[s] up."

The rest of the things I noticed are all Biblical references and are all in Chapter Fourteen (Night Falls on Narnia).  First, Father Time rises up and blows a horn, ushering in the end of Narnia.  In Revelation chapters 8 and 9, the end of the world is also ushered in with trumpets.

Next, the Narnian creatures come up to Aslan and turn either to his left (those who look at him with "fear and hatred") or his right (those who "looked in the face of Aslan and loved him").  There's the same left-or-right separation - the same final judgement - in Matthew 25:  "And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left" (Matthew 25:33).  One of those who go to Aslan's right is "one of those very Dwarfs who had helped to shoot the Horses."  Earlier, Eustace was indignant about this, but now "he had not time to wonder about that sort of thing... for a great joy put everything else out of his head."  This, even more so than the return of Poggin the Dwarf, is the "joy in heaven over one sinner who repents."

Finally, there's the comparison between blood and the sun and the moon:

[The sun] was three times - twenty times - as big as it out to be, and very dark red.  ...  in the reflection of that sun the whole waste of shoreless waters looked like blood.
     Then the Moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red.

Similar descriptions are in Revelation 6, at the end of the world:  "the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale" (Revelation 6:12).  After Father Time blows his horn in Narnia, there's a shower of falling stars:  "these were dozens, and then scores, and then hundreds, till it was like silver rain: and it went on and on."

Clearly, the end of Narnia was inspired by the end of the world as described in the Bible.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair

This post contains spoilers.

In re-reading The Silver Chair I found only a few things to write about (I did find an-other, but I have to do some more research on that, so I'll come back to it later).

First, there's Prince Rilian's fight with the Lady of the Green Kirtle in Underland in Chapter Twelve.  She turns herself into a serpent and wraps herself around his legs, but "the Prince caught the creature's neck in his left hand, trying to squeeze it till it choked."  With his other hand, he strikes the serpent with his sword, and with some help from Puddleglum and Eustace, "they hacked off its head."  The narrator then mentions that "the floor, as you may imagine, was a nasty mess."

Although it's been years since I've read it, I recognized the similarities between this event and Redcrosse Knight's battle with Error in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.  Redcrosse Knight descends into a hole and "he saw the ugly monster plaine, / Half like a serpent horribly displaide, / But th'other half did womans shape retaine" (canto 1, stanza 14)  Like Spenser's Error, Lewis' Lady of the Green Kirtle is half woman and half serpent (although she's either/or rather than a mix).  Redcrosse Knight attempts to strike her with his sword, but he misses his mark.  She then "lept fierce upon his shield, and her huge traine / All suddenly about his body wound" (canto 1, stanza 18), just like the Lady does to Prince Rilian.  Next, "Knitting all his force, [he] got one hand free, / Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine, / That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine" (canto 1, stanza 19).  Redcrosse Knight is able to free himself merely by choking Error where Prince Rilian still has to use his sword before he's freed, but the situation is still quite similar.  In the end, just as Rilian beheads his serpent, Redcrosse Knight "strooke at her with more than manly force, / That from her body full of filthie sin / He raft her hatefull head without remorse" (canto 1, stanza 24).  Finally, Error's "scattred brood... flockéd all about her bleeding wound, / And suckéd up their dying mothers blood" (canto 1, stanza 25).  Spenser's description is more graphic than Lewis', but the large amount of blood is common to both.

Second, there's the temptation with which the Lady of the Green Kirtle seduced Rilian.  At the end of Chapter Fifteen, Rilian recounts "the whole adventure with the older and wiser Beasts and Dwarfs" of Narnia, and "they saw how she had dug right under Narnia and was going to break out and rule it through Rilian; and how he had never dreamed that the country of which she would make him king (king in name, but really her slave) was his own country."  The situation is different, but there's some resemblance between this and the devil's temptation of Jesus in Luke 4.  "And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, 'To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours'" (Luke 4:5-7).  The devil tries to tempt Jesus with power over the world, but Jesus already had that power, just like Rilian already had (or would have) power over Narnia.

There's also the comparison between the Lady of the Green Kirtle and the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Rilian and "the older and wiser Beasts and Dwarfs... all saw what it meant; how a wicked Witch (doubtless the same kind as that White Witch who had brought the Great Winter on Narnia long ago) had contrived the whole thing."  In The Magician's Nephew, when the White Witch is still known as Jadis, she tries to tempt Digory with the fruit of the tree, just as the serpent tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden.  So the comparison that Rilian and the Narnians make is more than just a comparison of devious plots; both the Lady of the Green Kirtle (literally) and the White Witch (allusively) have the guise of a serpent.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This post contains spoilers.

When I re-read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader recently, one of the things I noticed is the magician's table in Chapter Eleven.  The narrator says that "The table was bare when they entered, but it was of course a magic table, and at a word from the old man the tablecloth, silver, plates, glasses and food appeared."  It reminded me of a similar table in "The Table, the Ass, and the Stick" in the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales.  The eldest of three sons, after he becomes an apprentice to a joiner, received a table

which had certainly a very ordinary appearance, and was made of common wood; but it had one excellent quality: - If its owner placed it before him, and said, "Table, cover thyself," the good table was at once covered with a fine cloth, and plates, and knives and forks, and dishes of roast and baked meat took their places on it, and a great glass filled with red wine, which gladdened one's heart.

I'm not sure if the table in the Grimms' fairy tale inspired Lewis' table, but I think there's pretty strong evidence for it.  There's a famous Lewis quote advocating the reading of fairy tales (of which the Grimms' are among the most well-known), and the descriptions of the two tables are quite similar.  It's not specifically given, but the "word from the old man" might very well be "Table, cover thyself," and the specific items that are spread on each table are the same (table cloth, cutlery, plates, food, and glasses) and are listed in a very similar order.

Next, I noticed the birds in Chapter Fourteen (The Beginning of the End of the World).  An old man comes out to meet the travellers, and a flock of birds flies to him.  Lucy sees "one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like a little fruit, unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for it was too bright to look at.  And the bird laid it in the Old Man's mouth."  Shortly there-after, the old man introduces himself as Ramandu and explains that "every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age.  And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again" as a star.

The "live coal" to the man's mouth is the same description that's given in Isaiah 6:  "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.  And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for'" (Isaiah 6:6-7).  While the "live coal" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn't actually a coal and doesn't serve the same function as the coal in Isaiah, its description as such seems to indicate the source of Lewis' image.

The other two things I noticed are in the last chapter and are also Biblical images.  First, there's the lamb that Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace meet.  After they have breakfast, the lamb's "snowy white flushed into a tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane."  Throughout the series, there's an overtone of Aslan as Christ, and this is an-other example of that.  In John 1, John the Baptist calls Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).  In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan (as a Christ-like figure) is now literally a lamb.  His "scattering light from his mane" might also be a subtle reference to the Transfiguration, when Christ "was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light" - Matthew 17:2.  There's a similar description of Aslan in The Horse and His Boy.

Second, as the children are transported back to their own world, there's "a rending of the blue wall (like a curtain being torn)."  I don't think a deeper similarity is intended, but just as a description, this also seems to be Biblical.  After Jesus is crucified, "the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51).  There's a literal curtain tearing and a simile involving one, and both circumstances involve a sort of transition.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Originally, I wasn't going to write about Prince Caspian because I didn't find a whole lot to write about in it, but then I finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (about which I did find a fair amount to write), and I figured I had to continue in the order I started.  So, while I didn't find much, here's what I found in Prince Caspian.

In Chapter Fourteen (How All Were Very Busy), Bacchus drops a pitcher into an old woman's well, and when he draws it out, "it now was not water but the richest wine, red as redcurrant jelly, smooth as oil, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew."  The water-to-wine part of this was easy enough to place: Jesus does the same thing at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12).  What I couldn't figure out at first was: if Aslan is the Christ-like figure, why is Bacchus the one changing water into wine?  (My confusion over this is an-other reason why I initially wasn't going to write about Prince Caspian.)

Eventually, though, I think I figured it out.  First, this isn't Bacchus acting by himself.  Before Bacchus draws the water from the well, Aslan heals the old woman.  "As he [Aslan] spoke, like the flush creeping along the underside of a cloud at sunrise, the colour came back to her white face and her eyes grew bright and she sat up and said, 'Why, I do declare I feel that better.'"  The healing of the old woman is itself the miracle.  Aslan effects that, and Bacchus' changing the water into wine, which - as the old woman notes - "makes a nice change," is only an-other aspect of that healing.  Bacchus is acting under Aslan's power.  As Susan notes in Chapter Eleven, "'I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan.'"

Second, Bacchus' working under Aslan is an example of how Lewis combined various elements to create his own world.  Primarily, there are the Christian elements, but here he also includes mythology.  In other places, there are elements from fairy tales and animal stories.  Having Bacchus work under Aslan provides a hierarchy into which the disparate elements are organized.

The other thing I found is a phrase in Chapter Eleven (The Lion Roars).  At first, I recognized just that the phrase "she [Lucy] fixed her eyes on Aslan" is similar to a Biblical verse, but once I looked up that verse, I found a deeper connection.  The surrounding situation is significant.  Lucy is the only one who can see Aslan, and he's told her to wake up the rest of the party and follow him.  The others are annoyed at being woken up, especially because they can't see Aslan for themselves.  "Susan was the worst," so when Lucy eventually starts leading them through the woods, she's "biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying to Susan.  But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan."

It's a similar situation in Hebrews 12:1-2:  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."  Some translations (and I believe also some liturgies) have it as "let us fix our eyes on Jesus" - the same phrase that's in Prince Caspian.  Once Lucy "fix[es]" her eyes on Aslan, she forgets the not-very-nice things she was going to say to Susan, similar to how the "sin which clings so closely" is "[laid] aside" when "looking to Jesus."

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy

About two weeks ago, I finished re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy.  As I've been re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia books this time, I've been looking for more instances of Aslan-as-Christ, which I've talked about in some other posts.  I found two in The Horse and His Boy, one of which I felt absolutely foolish for not having noticed the last time I read it.

The first (and the one I felt foolish for not having noticed before) is near the end of Chapter Eleven (The Unwelcome Fellow Traveller).  As Shasta is travelling through the woods, he becomes aware that "someone or somebody was walking beside him" and that "he had really no idea how long it had been there."  At first, Shasta can't see who it is because it's so dark, but eventually, it's revealed that the "someone or somebody" is Aslan.  After Shasta talks with him for awhile, "the pale brightness of the mist and the fiery brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared."

There are more than a few similarities between Shasta's encounter with Aslan and the two disciples going to Emmaus in Luke 24.  While the disciples are travelling they meet someone they don't know at first ("But their eyes were kept from recognizing him." - Luke 24:16).  They talk with him for awhile, but it isn't until he takes bread, blesses it, and gives it to them that they recognize him as Jesus, at which point He vanishes.

Within Shasta's conversation with Aslan, there are a few other elements that hint at Aslan-as-Christ.  When Shasta asks the lion who he is, he replies:  "'Myself,' said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again, 'Myself', loud and clear and gay: and then the third time 'Myself', whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it."  First, there's the Trinity in the three "Myself"s, and second, "Myself" seems to have some relation with God's "I AM WHO I AM" in Exodus 3.

There's also the light.  "Now, the whiteness around him [Shasta] became a shining whiteness; his eyes began to blink.  ...  He could see the mane and ears and head of his horse quite easily now.  A golden light fell on them from the left.  He thought it was the sun.  ...  It was from the Lion that the light came."  There's a similarity between this and Christ's Transfiguration:  "And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light" - Matthew 17:2.  Both descriptions involve the same elements:  the sun, whiteness, and a shining light.

The narrator then describes Aslan as - among other things - "the High King above all kings in Narnia," which seems to be a reference to Revelation 19:16: "On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."  Both are kings, but each is a higher king than all other kings.

The second instance of Aslan-as-Christ (which I actually found last time I read the book) is in Chapter Fourteen (How Bree Became a Wiser Horse).  Aslan jumps over the wall into the Hermit's courtyard and then talks with Aravis, Bree, and Hwin.  Aslan says to Bree, "You poor, proud frightened Horse, draw near.  Nearer still, my son.  Do not dare not to dare.  Touch me.  Smell me.  Here are my paws, here is my tail, these are my whiskers.  I am a true Beast."  It's a similar situation to Christ's appearing to His disciples after the resurrection.  "And he said to them, 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.  Touch me, and see.  For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'" - Luke 24:38.  "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.  Do not disbelieve, but believe.'" - John 20:27.  Where Christ offered His hands and feet and the scars in His hands and side, Aslan offers his paws, tail, and whiskers.  While it's not as close a resemblance, there's also a similarity between Aslan's jumping over the wall and Christ's appearing "although the doors were locked" (John 20:26).  Both arrive despite that which is meant to keep people out.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

This post contains spoilers.

A week or two ago, I finished re-reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I think this was only the third time I've read it, and I found a lot of things that I'd missed the other two times.

The first thing I noticed was Edmund's comment about fauns.  At the end of Chapter Four, after Edmund's met the White Witch, Lucy tells him that while she (the Witch) calls herself the queen of Narnia, she really isn't.  When Edmund asks her where she learned this, she says, "Mr. Tumnus, the Faun," and Edmund replies, "You can't always believe what Fauns say... Everyone knows it."  The narrator explains that Edmund is "trying to sound as if he knew far more about them than Lucy."

What I found interesting here is that Edmund's comment about Fauns is similar to the Witch's comment from (in my edition) the previous page:  "Fauns will say anything, you know."  Not only is Edmund refuting Mr. Tumnus' opinion about the Witch, but he's doing it in a way that's like the Witch herself.  It demonstrates the power that she has over him since he ate the Turkish Delight.  In Chapter Eight when Mr. Beaver says that Edmund looks like "one who has been with the Witch and eaten her food," eating the food seems more metaphorical than literal, and at the beginning of the next chapter, the narrator seems to confirm this, saying that "there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food."

---&---

Last time I read the book (which was last year), I thought I found a reference to Luke 1.  This time I was able to pay more attention to it.  In Chapter Seven when they first hear the name of Aslan:

each one of the children felt something jump in its inside.  Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror.  Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous.  Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her.  And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

Throughout the book, there's an overtone of Aslan as Christ, particularly in his sacrifice for Edmund and his returning from the dead.  The reactions that the children have to his name are similar to Elizabeth's reaction in Luke 1:

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.  And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!  And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.' - Luke 1:41-44

In the next chapter, when Mr. Beaver talks about Aslan again, the children have "once again that strange feeling - like the first signs of spring, like good news."  The "good news" in particular hints at that Aslan-as-Christ overtone, since the word Gospel comes from words that mean "good news" or "good tale."

Edmund's reaction to the name of Aslan is different from the others' though.  At the beginning of Chapter Nine, the narrator says that "the mention of Aslan gave him a mysterious and horrible feeling just as it gave the others a mysterious and lovely feeling."  He doesn't have the same reaction as the others because he's still under the Witch's influence.  After he's been with her for a while, he begins to see that he's allied himself with the wrong side.  When spring comes (since Aslan is drawing nearer) in Chapter Eleven, "his heart gave a great leap (though he hardly knew why) when he realized that the frost was over."  He finally catches up to the others in his reaction to Aslan.

---&---

At the beginning of Chapter Twelve, as the beavers and the children (without Edmund) are just about to meet Aslan at the Stone Table, the narrator describes the setting:

They walked on in silence drinking it all in, passing through patches of warm sunlight into cool, green thickets and out again into wide mossy glades where tall elms raised the leafy roof far overhead, and then into dense masses of flowering currant and among hawthorn bushes where the sweet smell was almost overpowering.

The "cool, green thickets" here caught my attention.  It's the same description that the narrator gives in Chapter Nine (The Founding of Narnia) in The Magician's Nephew:  "They stood on cool, green grass, sprinkled with daisies and buttercups."  Not only is Narnia returning to spring after the years-long winter, but it's returning to the Narnia it was at its founding.

I think the "cool, green" description might also be a subtle reference to Psalm 23:2 - "He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters."  There's a connection of character descriptions here:  Aslan as Christ and Christ as the Good Shepherd.

In the next chapter, which returns to Edmund in the Witch's captivity, there are more descriptions that seem to be taken from Psalm 23.  The Witch "halted in a dark valley all overshadowed with fir trees and yew trees," and "it was so dark in this valley under the dark trees."  Lewis even repeats the "dark" in that second description.  Both of them are like Psalm 23:4 - "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

---&---

In Chapter Sixteen, Aslan revives the statues that the Witch has made her enemies into, starting with a lion:

He had bounded up to the stone lion and breathed on him.  ...  Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back - then it spread - then the colour seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper - then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair.

This bears some resemblance to God's creation of man in Genesis (and therefore also connects to the similarities between the Founding Narnia in The Magician's Nephew and the Genesis Creation account).  Specifically, both have the breath of life in common.  "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." - Genesis 2:7.

---&---

An-other subtle characterization of Aslan-as-Christ is in the final chapter, Chapter Seventeen.  After the battle against the White Witch, "they slept where they were.  How Aslan provided food for them all I don't know; but somehow or other they found themselves all sitting down on the grass to a fine high tea at about eight o'clock."  This is a similar situation to the Feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 4:13-21), in which Christ feeds 5,000 men, along with women and children, from only five loaves and two fish.  Both Aslan and Christ feed a large group of people through miraculous means.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew

I just wrote a short post about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, but - as it usually happens - after I posted it, I found something else I could have added.

Last July I started reading the whole Bible.  I'm only in Job so far, but I recently read something about Creation that seems to be an-other one of the Biblical parallels in the founding of Narnia that I wrote about last year.  God asks Job where he (Job) was when the earth was created:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements - surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"  (Job 38:4-7)

Because I'd just read The Magician's Nephew, "the morning stars [singing] together" sounded really familiar.  In Chapter Eight, the whole company of characters are standing in darkness when they start to hear singing.

Then two wonders happened at the same moment.  One was that the voice was suddenly joined by the other voices; more voices than you could possibly count.  They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale:  cold, tingling, silvery voices.  The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars.  ...  The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time.  If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.

I'm not sure if the stars' singing is meant to be a reference to that passage in Job, but since the founding of Narnia has connections to the Creation account in Genesis and since that Job passage also deals with Creation, I think there's something to it.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew

I recently started re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia books (I read them all around this time last year).

In Chapter Five of The Magician's Nephew, the Queen explains The Deplorable Word to Digory and Polly:  "It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it."

I didn't realize this the first time I read that part (because The Deplorable Word comes first), but The Deplorable Word is sort of the opposite of what Aslan does in Chapters Eight and Nine.  He sings Narnia into existence:

When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she [Polly] felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before.  And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction.  Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) "out of the Lion's head".  When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked around you, you saw them.

Where Aslan's singing brings things into life and existence, the Queen's Deplorable Word "destroy[s] all living things."

Creation Parallels in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew

Last month, I started reading The Chronicles of Narnia (I have an edition where all seven books are printed in one volume).  While reading The Magician's Nephew, I found multiple parallels between the founding of Narnia and Creation.

Chapter Nine (titled The Founding of Narnia) starts with "The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song.  ...  And as he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass."  Polly notices that there's a "connection between the music and the things that were happening" and that "when you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked around you, you saw them."  The Lion's singing is similar to God's speaking at Creation.  The first six days of Creation start with "And God said," followed by the existence of whatever God called into being.

A few chapters later (in Chapter Twelve), Aslan (The Lion) gives a horse wings.  He then asks the horse whether it's good, to which the horse replies, "It is very good."  It's not as similar as the parallel between God's speaking and Aslan's singing to call their respective worlds into existence, but it does bear some resemblance to the repeated "And God saw that it was good" throughout the account of Creation.

In Chapter Eleven, after the creation of Narnia, Aslan tells the Cabby and his wife that "You shall rule and name all these creatures, and do justice among them, and protect them from their enemies when enemies arise."  Aslan gives them dominion over Narnia in the same way that God gave dominion over the Earth to man:  "Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.  And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name" (Genesis 2:19).  Chapter Nine details how Aslan also brought forth creatures from the Earth:  "The humps moved and swelled till they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal," which is similar to God's forming the animals from "out of the ground."

Both accounts (Creation and the founding of Narnia) also contain the entrance of evil into the world.  In Chapter Eleven of The Magician's Nephew, Aslan declares that "before the new, clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam."  This parallels with the serpent's deception of Eve, which results in man's "knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:22).  Aslan's calling Digory a "son of Adam" strengthens the Biblical connection.

Both entrances of evil are linked with a tree, although not in the same way.  In the Bible, the tree is what evil uses in order to enter the world; in The Magician's Nephew, the tree will provide the seed for an-other tree that Aslan will plant in Narnia so that it will be protected from the Witch, the representation of evil.  The trees function differently, but both are accompanied by temptation.  The serpent tells Eve that if she eats of the tree in the Garden of Eden, "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).  In Chapter Thirteen of The Magician's Nephew, the Witch tells Digory that if he eats the fruit of the tree within the gates, "you and I will both live for ever and be king and queen of this whole world."  This tree within the gates actually bears some resemblance to the second tree in the Garden of Eden - the tree of life, which would grant man life forever if he ate of it (Genesis 3:22).

I've only just started to really get into C.S. Lewis' works, so while I've recognized a lot of the Biblical parallels he includes in The Chronicles of Narnia, I don't really know why he includes so many.