• About

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Category Archives: Narnia

Stepping Westward

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narnia, Narrative Methods

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aman, Beliefs, Bran, cult statues, heroa, immrama, Istari, Ithaka, Mael Duin, Middle-earth, monotheistic, N.C. Wyeth, Odysseus, religion, Rip Van Winkle, Saint Brendan, Saruman, shrines, Stone Table, temples, The Grey Havens, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, Tireisias, Tolkien, Valar, Valinor, ziggurats

Dear readers, welcome as always.

Although there are no temples or shrines to him (the closest thing is perhaps the Stone Table),

narnia stone table

Aslan

1653963a

is clearly someone with divine powers and his influence is felt directly and indirectly throughout all of the Narnia books.

JRRT once said that Middle-earth had a monotheistic religion, but the traces, as has been written about more than once, are almost invisible.

There are no ziggurats,

Ancient_ziggurat_at_Ali_Air_Base_Iraq_2005

no temples,

templeofheraselinus

no cult statues

Athena_Parthenos_LeQuire

no shrines

97_full

no heroa (shrines for demi-gods or heroes).

heroon

The Valar are mentioned once (some of Faramir’s men call on them to protect them from a mumak), of course, and there is that ceremony of standing and looking west before a meal.

That idea of looking west has long interested us, mainly because, in much of western tradition before the Age of Exploration, the west was looked upon as a place of uncertainty, if not outright fear.

Although Odysseus, in Odyssey 9, is careful to point out that his home island, Ithaka, lies farthest towards dusk in its island group, in Odyssey 11, in the far west lies the Land of the Dead,

lykaon-painter-odysseus-and-elpenor

to which Odysseus sails

Odysseus_Sirens_BM_E440_n2

to consult the seer, Tireisias,

Teir.1993.01.0348

on the way to get home. This is, then, hardly a choice direction in which to sail, for all that Tireisias does provide some guidance.

The same is true for a series of stories about immrama, “voyages” (literally “rowings around”) in Old Irish, not only secular stories, like those of Mael Duin

mailduin

and Bran,

Broighter_Gold,_Dublin,_October_2010_(03)

but a famous religious one about Saint Brendan.

brendan

In each of these stories, sailing westward commonly means sailing rather haphazardly among sea monsters and islands with strange people or creatures. There is also the possibility of time distortion: the voyager believes himself gone in terms of a few years, at most, when, instead, he may have been gone for much longer (as in Washington Irving’s short story, “Rip Van Winkle”, in which Rip, falling asleep in the Catskill Mountains after drinking with the ghosts of the crew of the explorer Henrik Hudson’s ship The Half Moon, thinks that he has been gone only overnight when, instead, he’s been gone for twenty years.)

rip-van-winkle.wyeth

(by one of our all-time favorite illustrators, N.C. Wyeth, from his Rip Van Winkle, 1921—the whole work is available, with all of its wonderful illustrations, to download for free at the Internet Archive, may their beards grow long!)

“To go west”, probably based upon the idea of the sinking sun, as an older English expression has the meaning of “to die/to fail catastrophically” (now people in the US seem to be replacing it with “to go south”, which has none of the older resonance, unfortunately), but it ties in very nicely with these older beliefs about what lies west of Europe, so full of danger and mystery.

But then we come back to that looking west.

In the belief system of Middle-earth, westward across the sea lies the continent of Aman, and on that continent is Valinor, home of the Valar, those powerful and immortal beings who are perhaps to be likened to the archangels of Christian belief—with a bit of patron saint and even Norse and Greco-Roman pantheons thrown in. (We admit to having a very shallow knowledge of Arda theology, being less interested in the finer points of belief than in the adventures and the cultures and the languages of Middle-earth.)

The Istari, the five wizards are from there and it’s for us one of the most melancholy moments when, after his murder by Grima, it is clear that Saruman is denied a return.

jwyatt-sarumande

Gandalf, however, is permitted to return, as are Bilbo and Frodo (and, in time, Sam, apparently), all part of the defeat and disembodiment of Sauron.

greyhavens

The elves are also allowed to make the voyage to Aman, although they have their own separate place there, and, when Gandalf leaves, so do Galadriel, Celeborn, and Elrond, part of a slow general leave-taking of the Elves.

No human is admitted however, to the Undying Lands, as they are called, and it occurred to us that perhaps, in that fact, the mortals of Middle-earth are closer to Saruman than to Gandalf or the Elves:

“To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale, shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.” (The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

Could that ceremony of looking westward also be done with a sigh, an acknowledgement that there are no undying lands for them?

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Ps

This, for us, is a rather historical posting, being our Number 100. By earlier September, we will have reached 104, making exactly two years since we began our blog. We thank you for reading, hope that you will continue to do so, that you will share our work among your friends and that, in the future, you will be willing to share your thoughts with us, as we always encourage you to do.

 

Winter is Coming

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Narnia, Narrative Methods, Villains

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

C.S. Lewis, Frozen, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, Hadrian's Wall, Hans Christian Andersen, Kay, Middle-earth, Mile castle, Puddleglum, Queen Elsa, Rammas Echor, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Lord of the Rings, The Night Watch, the Pevensies, The Snow Queen, The White Witch, Tolkien, Westeros, White Walkers, Winter is Coming

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as ever.

We were playing Sortes Tolkienses yesterday. That’s the game where we close our eyes, open The Lord of the Rings to any page, then put our finger on a line to see if we can write about it.

On page 1042 of our edition, our finger fell upon:

“…you may stay here till the Witch-king goes home. For in the summer his power wanes, but now his breath is deadly, and his cold arm is long.” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A)

The Witch-king? Oh, we thought—that Witch-king.

angmar.jpg

He has a very long history in Middle-earth, being “probably (like the Lieutenant of Barad-dur) of Numenorean descent” (from Hammond and Scull, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, 20, Note 5) and, in the quoted context rules Angmar

arnorangmar.jpg

with a command to destroy the northern Numenorean kingdom of Arnor.

What caught our attention, however, was that idea of a “cold arm”. This might be metaphorical—except for that “in summer his power wanes”, suggesting that, if he can’t control the weather, he can at least use it to his advantage.  And this set us thinking about stories in which winter was either controlled by someone or was, itself, the antagonist.

First, there is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen (1845).   Although this shares a title with a 2013 Disney film, there is really nothing else to link them. The Disney film has, of course, the Princess Elsa, whose enchanted hands can turn the world into winter (perhaps like the Witch-king?).

69147-Elsa-The-Snow-Queen.jpg

elsasicepalace.jpg

Andersen’s long fairy tale (in seven parts, or “stories”, historier, in Danish) is about the abduction of a boy and his rescue by his friend, a girl. The boy is being held by the Snow Queen, who lives in a far-off palace made of snow, the windows and doors of icy wind, lit by the Northern Lights.

snowqueen.JPEG

northern-lights-large.jpg

What particularly caught our attention here was the manner by which the boy, Kay, was stolen. He hitched his sled to the back of a sleigh, only to find that it was driven by the Snow Queen, who takes him under her robe.

lizbobzinsnowqueen.png

Liz Bobzin, “The Snow Queen and Kay”

This took us to the White Witch of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), the first of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books.

TheLionWitchWardrobe(1stEd).jpg

She picks up one of the Pevensie children, Edmund, in her sleigh and, while she doesn’t abduct him physically, she corrupts him by playing upon his greed and vanity.

bayneswhitewitch.jpg

This is an illustration of the Witch from the original 1950 book, and here are two later interpretations—the first is from the 1988 BBC production

whitewitchbbc1.jpg

the second from the 2005 film.

tildaswinton.jpg

(We like both versions—we don’t mind the Steiff Aslan in the BBC production

bbcaslan.jpg

502613_l__13430.1384493387.1280.1280.jpg

and who could ever be a better Puddleglum than Tom Baker, the fourth incarnation of Dr. Who, in the BBC The Silver Chair, 1990?

bakeraspuddleglum.jpg

We do worry a bit, however, about the changes made to the film versions of Prince Caspian, 2008, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 2010. They’re not so drastic as those we’ve come to expect from P. Jackson’s writers, but, especially in Prince Caspian, there is a tendency to change things for what appear to be marketing reasons…)

As in what appears to be the case of the Witch-king, the White Witch can control the weather and has imprisoned all of Narnia

baynesmapofnarnia.jpg

in snow and ice for a century—“always winter, never Christmas”.

The idea of a world of winter then brought us to George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, both the novels and the impressive (and addicting) television series. In the world of Thrones, the large island of Westeros—

Map_of_westeros.jpg

and the whole world, for that matter, has once suffered a winter which lasted for a generation and the fear of its return always casts a shadow over the present. During that time, the creatures known as the White Walkers appeared from the north, with armies of animated dead, and were only driven back at great cost. To prevent their return, the surviving humans built an immense wall, 700 feet high, 300 miles long, which effectively blocks entry to the lower two thirds of Westeros.

Thewallfromthenorth.jpg

The_Wall_from_the_south.jpg

In an earlier posting, we discussed the Rammas Echor, the outer boundary wall which protects the Pelennor and Minas Tirith, and what we believe to be a major influence upon Tolkien’s idea, Hadrian’s Wall, which divides England from the lands to the north.

Roman.Britain.roads.jpg

Unlike The Wall in Thrones, it is under a hundred miles long, was never more than 16 to 20 feet high, and was built of turf, timber, and stone, not solid ice. It was, however, a complex construction, with 17 forts behind it

romanfortress.jpg

and a smaller fort (now called a “mile castle”) at the end of each mile,

milecastle.jpg

with small towers set in between the mile castles.

turretonhadrianswall.jpg

It was garrisoned with thousands of soldiers over its years of occupation (begun 122AD, finally abandoned in the 5th century).

romangarrison.jpg

In Thrones, this job has been taken on by The Night Watch, a rather haphazard collection of volunteers and conscripts.

nightwatch.jpg

And, south of them, the lands of the Stark family, Wardens of the North, whose motto—a warning of the dreaded future—forms the title of this posting.

the_north_a_clash_of_kings.jpg

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Tell How

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Literary History, Military History, Narnia, Narrative Methods

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Passage to India, A Walk at Dusk, Ajanta Caves, Aslan, Aslan's How, C.D. Friedrich, C.S. Lewis, Catacombs, consular diptychs, cromlech, E. M. Forster, haugr, Late antique ivories, Malabar Caves, Narnia, Newgrange, Nicomachi, Oseberg Ship, Prince Caspian, Qin Shi Huangdi, River Boyne, Stone Table, Symmachi, Telmarines, Terracotta warriors

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

We’ve been rereading C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series and have just finished the second book, Prince Caspian. We were interested, as we read, in “Aslan’s How”.

We knew, from the text, what the place was, as Doctor Cornelius describes it:

“…it is a huge mound which Narnians raised in very ancient times over a very magical place, where there stood—and perhaps still stands—a very magical Stone. The mound is all hollowed out within into galleries and caves, and the Stone is in the central cave of all.”

In the 2008 film of Prince Caspian, this is depicted as what appears to be a stone structure which is covered in earth and trees

epic-battle-at-aslans-how-for-control-of-narnia.jpg

Aslans-how.jpg

(Spoiler Alert! Underneath the magic of CGI…)

img_8745.jpg

This version reminds us of the Ajanta Caves, an Indian Buddhist monument dating from the 2nd century BC to (perhaps as late as) the 7th century AD.

ajantacaves3.jpg

These are, as you can see from this photo, spectacular on the outside, but even more so on the inside, as they are full of a huge number of wall paintings and sculptures.

AjantaChait.jpg

Hamsa_jâtaka,_Ajanta,_India.jpg

 

(These, by the way, have their own literary history, being a model for the “Malabar Caves” which feature in the plot of E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, 1924.)

Lewis, however, was from Belfast, and we’ve always imagined that what he was actually thinking of was the Neolithic monument of Newgrange, in Eire (the Republic of Ireland).

Newgrange_ireland_750px.jpg

 

This was possibly a passage tomb—but there’s lots of scholarly discussion about that. At least it can be said that it has “galleries and caves”

newgrange plan.gif

newgrangeinterior.jpg

and, like Aslan’s How (“How” being a worn-down form of Old Norse “haugr”, “tumulus/hill”), it’s up from a river, in this case, the River Boyne, as the How is just up from the Great River, in Narnia.

In Lewis’ description, it seems that the Narnians of long ago had constructed the mound to protect an object, “a very magical Stone”. As we know from the first book in the Narnia series, this is the Stone Table on which Aslan allowed himself to be sacrificed by the White Witch.

sacrificeatstonetablemichaelhague.jpg

We’ve chosen this painting by Michael Hague because it strikes us as closer to what we imagine the scene to have been like and we prefer it to the scene in the 2005 film.

sacrificeofaslan.jpg

In particular, we differ on the table. Here’s another view of the one from the film.

stonetable.jpg

To us, it’s more likely to have been modeled on a cromlech, the remains of a Neolithic tomb, of a kind found in numbers all over western Europe and which Lewis must certainly have seen.

cromlech.jpg

The Hague painting obviously reflects this and the power of such monuments for painters goes back at least to the German Romantics. Here’s a wonderfully moody depiction (“A Walk at Dusk”, 1821) by our favorite painter of that movement, C.D. Friedrich (1774-1840).

Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_A_Walk_at_Dusk.jpg

Commonly, large artificial mounds like the How are tombs. In an earlier post, we talked about ship burials, like that of the Oseberg ship–

The-Oseberg-ship.jpg

Oseberg-Viking-ship.jpg

which must have looked like this before its excavation.

storhaugensweden.JPG

Such burials are a worldwide phenomenon. In China, perhaps the grandest is for Qin Shi Huangdi, the so-called “First Emperor” (built 246-208BC).

Qin-Shi-Huang-Mausoleum.jpg

This site was rendered even more impressive in 1974 when the first of at least 7000 life-size ceramic warriors was uncovered after a local farmer began to dig a well.

chinshiarmy.jpg

These figures were originally painted in bright colors and held bronze weapons.

reconstructingchinarmy.jpg

Recreated_colored_terracotta_warriors.jpg

Aslan’s How is not a tomb, however, but the resting place of its opposite—the broken stone which is intended to be a symbol of resurrection, and this is in keeping with the parallel between Aslan and the Christian figure, Jesus, who is believed by Christians to have been killed, entombed, but, on the third day escaped the tomb.

munich-ivory-of-the-ascension.jpg

(And we can’t show one of these wonderful late classical ivory carvings without adding another, a favorite, a so-called “consular diptych”—that is, a pair of ivory plaques joined together. They are thought to have commemorated the appointment of a member of an upper class family to the rank of consul. This diptych celebrated the appointment of someone from one or both of two families, the Nicomachi and the Symmachi, and is dated to about 400AD.)

Diptych_Nicomachi-Symmachi_collated.jpg

This idea leads us to another possible model. Outside Rome, there are miles of underground passages associated with early Christians. They served both as secret places of worship, as well as burial places.

catacomb_tour_812a4cb91e5d3a6152c63bed48e4c0c9.jpg

catacombburials.jpg

Considering that those Old Narnians who resist the rule of the Telmarines and take refuge in the How are often those who believe in the existence of Aslan as well, may we see Aslan’s How, with its central stone table as a reminder of Aslan’s sacrifice and resurrection, as the equivalent of the catacombs?

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

 

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

  • Ollamh

Categories

  • Artists and Illustrators
  • Economics in Middle-earth
  • Fairy Tales and Myths
  • Films and Music
  • Games
  • Heroes
  • Imaginary History
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Language
  • Literary History
  • Maps
  • Medieval Russia
  • Military History
  • Military History of Middle-earth
  • Narnia
  • Narrative Methods
  • Poetry
  • Research
  • Star Wars
  • Terra Australis
  • The Rohirrim
  • Theatre and Performance
  • Tolkien
  • Uncategorized
  • Villains
  • Writing as Collaborators
Follow doubtfulsea on WordPress.com

Across the Doubtful Sea

Recent Postings

  • Horning In (2) February 1, 2023
  • Horning In (1) January 25, 2023
  •  Things You/They Know That Ain’t January 18, 2023
  • Sympathy for a Devil? January 11, 2023
  • Trumpeting January 4, 2023
  • Seating December 28, 2022
  • Yule? December 21, 2022
  • Sequels and Prequel December 14, 2022
  • Rascals December 7, 2022

Blog Statistics

  • 69,219 Views

Posting Archive

  • February 2023 (1)
  • January 2023 (4)
  • December 2022 (4)
  • November 2022 (5)
  • October 2022 (4)
  • September 2022 (4)
  • August 2022 (5)
  • July 2022 (4)
  • June 2022 (5)
  • May 2022 (4)
  • April 2022 (4)
  • March 2022 (5)
  • February 2022 (4)
  • January 2022 (4)
  • December 2021 (5)
  • November 2021 (4)
  • October 2021 (4)
  • September 2021 (5)
  • August 2021 (4)
  • July 2021 (4)
  • June 2021 (5)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (4)
  • March 2021 (5)
  • February 2021 (4)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (4)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (5)
  • August 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (5)
  • June 2020 (4)
  • May 2020 (4)
  • April 2020 (5)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (4)
  • November 2019 (4)
  • October 2019 (5)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (4)
  • July 2019 (5)
  • June 2019 (4)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • April 2019 (4)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (4)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (4)
  • October 2018 (5)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (5)
  • July 2018 (4)
  • June 2018 (4)
  • May 2018 (5)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (5)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (4)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (4)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (6)
  • September 2016 (5)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (5)
  • June 2016 (5)
  • May 2016 (4)
  • April 2016 (4)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (5)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (4)
  • July 2015 (5)
  • June 2015 (5)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (4)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • January 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (6)
  • September 2014 (1)

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • doubtfulsea
    • Join 68 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • doubtfulsea
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...