In the Witch’s
House
A
ND now of course you want to know what had happened to
Edmund. He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn’t
really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about
Turkish Delight — and there’s nothing that spoils the taste
of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.
And he had heard the conversation, and hadn’t enjoyed it much either,
because he kept on thinking that the others were taking no notice of
him and trying to give him the cold shoulder. They weren’t, but he
imagined it. And then he had listened until Mr Beaver told them about
Aslan and until he had heard the whole arrangement for meeting
Aslan at the Stone Table. It was then that he began very quietly to
edge himself under the curtain which hung over the door. For the
mention of Aslan gave him a mysterious and horrible feeling just as it
gave the others a mysterious and lovely feeling.
Just as Mr Beaver had been repeating the rhyme about
Adam’s flesh
and Adam’s bone
Edmund had been very quietly turning the door
handle; and just before Mr Beaver had begun telling them that the
White Witch wasn’t really human at all but half a Jinn and half a
giantess, Edmund had got outside into the snow and cautiously closed
the door behind him.
You mustn’t think that even now Edmund was quite so bad that he
actually wanted his brother and sisters to be turned into stone. He did
Clive Staples Lewis48
want Turkish Delight and to be a Prince (and later a King) and to pay
Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with
the others, he didn’t want her to be particularly nice to them —
certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he
managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn’t do
anything very bad to them, “Because,” he said to himself, “all these
people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably
half of it isn’t true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than
they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she’ll be
better than that awful Aslan!” At least, that was the excuse he made
in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn’t a very good excuse,
however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White
Witch was bad and cruel.
The first thing he realised when he got outside and found the snow
falling all round him, was that he had left his coat behind in the
Beavers’ house. And of course there was no chance of going back to
get it now. The next thing he realised was that the daylight was almost
gone, for it had been nearly three o’clock when they sat down to
dinner and the winter days were short. He hadn’t reckoned on this; but
he had to make the best of it. So he turned up his collar and shuffled
across the top of the dam (luckily it wasn’t so slippery since the snow
had fallen) to the far side of the river.
It was pretty bad when he reached the far side. It was growing darker
every minute and what with that and the snowflakes swirling all round
him he could hardly see three feet ahead. And then too there was no
road. He kept slipping into deep drifts of snow, and skidding on frozen
puddles, and tripping over fallen tree-trunks, and sliding down steep
banks, and barking his shins against rocks, till he was wet and cold
and bruised all over. The silence and the loneliness were dreadful. In
fact I really think he might have given up the whole plan and gone
back and owned up and made friends with the others, if he hadn’t
happened to say to himself, “When I’m King of Narnia the first thing I
shall do will be to make some decent roads.” And of course that set
him off thinking about being a King and all the other things he would
do and this cheered him up a good deal. He had just settled in his
mind what sort of palace he would have and how many cars and all
about his private cinema and where the principal railways would run
and what laws he would make against beavers and dams and was
49The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
putting the finishing touches to some schemes for keeping Peter in his
place, when the weather changed. First the snow stopped. Then a
wind sprang up and it became freezing cold. Finally, the clouds rolled
away and the moon came out. It was a full moon and, shining on all
that snow, it made everything almost as bright as day — only the
shadows were rather confusing.
He would never have found his way if the moon hadn’t come out by
the time he got to the other river you remember he had seen (when
they first arrived at the Beavers’) a smaller river flowing into the great
one lower down. He now reached this and turned to follow it up. But
the little valley down which it came was much steeper and rockier
than the one he had just left and much overgrown with bushes, so that
he could not have managed it at all in the dark. Even as it was, he got
wet through for he had to stoop under branches and great loads of
snow came sliding off on to his back. And every time this happened
he thought more and more how he hated Peter — just as if all this had
been Peter’s fault.
But at last he came to a part where it was more level and the valley
opened out. And there, on the other side of the river, quite close to
him, in the middle of a little plain between two hills, he saw what must
be the White Witch’s House. And the moon was shining brighter than
ever. The House was really a small castle. It seemed to be all towers;
little towers with long pointed spires on them, sharp as needles. They
looked like huge dunce’s caps or sorcerer’s caps. And they shone in
the moonlight and their long shadows looked strange on the snow.
Edmund began to be afraid of the House.
But it was too late to think of turning back now.
He crossed the river on the ice and walked up to the House. There
was nothing stirring; not the slightest sound anywhere. Even his own
feet made no noise on the deep newly fallen snow. He walked on and
on, past corner after corner of the House, and past turret after turret
to find the door. He had to go right round to the far side before he
found it. It was a huge arch but the great iron gates stood wide open.
Edmund crept up to the arch and looked inside into the courtyard,
and there he saw a sight that nearly made his heart stop beating. Just
inside the gate, with the moonlight shining on it, stood an enormous
lion crouched as if it was ready to spring. And Edmund stood in the
shadow of the arch, afraid to go on and afraid to go back, with his
Clive Staples Lewis50
knees knocking together. He stood there so long that his teeth would
have been chattering with cold even if they had not been chattering
with fear. How long this really lasted I don’t know, but it seemed to
Edmund to last for hours.
Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so still
— for it hadn’t moved one inch since he first set eyes on it. Edmund
now ventured a little nearer, still keeping in the shadow of the arch as
much as he could. He now saw from the way the lion was standing
that it couldn’t have been looking at him at all. (“But supposing it
turns its head?” thought Edmund.) In fact it was staring at something
else namely a little: dwarf who stood with his back to it about four feet
away. “Aha!” thought Edmund. “When it springs at the dwarf then will
be my chance to escape.” But still the lion never moved, nor did the
dwarf. And now at last Edmund remembered what the others had said
about the White Witch turning people into stone. Perhaps this was only
a stone lion. And as soon as he had thought of that he noticed that the
lion’s back and the top of its head were covered with snow. Of course
it must be only a statue! No living animal would have let itself get
covered with snow. Then very slowly and with his heart beating as if
it would burst, Edmund ventured to go up to the lion. Even now he
hardly dared to touch it, but at last he put out his hand, very quickly,
and did. It was cold stone. He had been frightened of a mere statue!
The relief which Edmund felt was so great that in spite of the cold
he suddenly got warm all over right down to his toes, and at the
same time there came into his head what seemed a perfectly lovely
idea. “Probably,” he thought, “this is the great Lion Aslan that they
were all talking about. She’s caught him already and turned him into
stone. So that’s the end of all their fine ideas about him! Pooh! Who’s
afraid of Aslan?”
And he stood there gloating over the stone lion, and presently he did
something very silly and childish. He took a stump of lead pencil out
of his pocket and scribbled a moustache on the lion’s upper lip and
then a pair of spectacles on its eyes. Then he said, “Yah! Silly old
Aslan! How do you like being a stone? You thought yourself mighty
fine, didn’t you?” But in spite of the scribbles on it the face of the great
stone beast still looked so terrible, and sad, and noble, staring up in
the moonlight, that Edmund didn’t really get any fun out of jeering at
it. He turned away and began to cross the courtyard.
51The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
As he got into the middle of it he saw that there were dozens of
statues all about — standing here and there rather as the pieces stand
on a chess-board when it is half-way through the game. There were
stone satyrs, and stone wolves, and bears and foxes and cat-amoun-
tains of stone. There were lovely stone shapes that looked like women
but who were really the spirits of trees. There was the great shape of
a centaur and a winged horse and a long lithe creature that Edmund
took to be a dragon. They all looked so strange standing there
perfectly life-like and also perfectly still, in the bright cold moonlight,
that it was eerie work crossing the courtyard. Right in the very middle
stood a huge shape like a man, but as tall as a tree, with a fierce face
and a shaggy beard and a great club in its right hand. Even though he
knew that it was only a stone giant and not a live one, Edmund did not
like going past it.
He now saw that there was a dim light showing from a doorway on
the far side of the courtyard. He went to it; there was a flight of stone
steps going up to an open door. Edmund went up them. Across the
threshold lay a great wolf.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” he kept saying to himself; “it’s only a
stone wolf. It can’t hurt me”, and he raised his leg to step over it.
Instantly the huge creature rose, with all the hair bristling along its
back, opened a great, red mouth and said in a growling voice:
“Who’s there? Who’s there? Stand still, stranger, and tell me who
you are.”
“If you please, sir,” said Edmund, trembling so that he could hardly
speak, “my name is Edmund, and I’m the Son of Adam that Her
Majesty met in the wood the other day and I’ve come to bring her the
news that my brother and sisters are now in Narnia — quite close, in
the Beavers’ house. She — she wanted to see them.”
“I will tell Her Majesty,” said the Wolf. “Meanwhile, stand still on the
threshold, as you value your life.” Then it vanished into the house.
Edmund stood and waited, his fingers aching with cold and his heart
pounding in his chest, and presently the grey wolf, Maugrim, the Chief
of the Witch’s Secret Police, came bounding back and said, “Come in!
Come in! Fortunate favourite of the Queen — or else not so fortunate.”
And Edmund went in, taking great care not to tread on the Wolf’s
paws.
He found himself in a long gloomy hall with many pillars, full, as the
Clive Staples Lewis52
courtyard had been, of statues. The one nearest the door was a little
faun with a very sad expression on its face, and Edmund couldn’t help
wondering if this might be Lucy’s friend. The only light came from a
single lamp and close beside this sat the White Witch.
“I’m come, your Majesty,” said Edmund, rushing eagerly forward.
“How dare you come alone?” said the Witch in a terrible voice. “Did
I not tell you to bring the others with you?”
“Please, your Majesty,” said Edmund, “I’ve done the best I can. I’ve
brought them quite close. They’re in the little house on top of the dam
just up the river with Mr and Mrs Beaver.”
A slow cruel smile came over the Witch’s face.
“Is this all your news?” she asked.
“No, your Majesty,” said Edmund, and proceeded to tell her all he
had heard before leaving the Beavers’ house.
“What! Aslan?” cried the Queen, “Aslan! Is this true? If I find you
have lied to me —”
“Please, I’m only repeating what they said,” stammered Edmund.
But the Queen, who was no longer attending to him, clapped her
hands. Instantly the same dwarf whom Edmund had seen with her
before appeared.
“Make ready our sledge,” ordered the Witch, “and use the harness
without bells.”
