The Hunting of
the White Stag
T
HE battle was all over a few minutes after their arrival. Most
of the enemy had been killed in the first charge of Aslan
and his -companions; and when those who were still living
saw that the Witch was dead they either gave themselves
up or took to flight. The next thing that Lucy knew was that Peter and
Aslan were shaking hands. It was strange to her to see Peter looking
as he looked now — his face was so pale and stern and he seemed
so much older.
“It was all Edmund’s doing, Aslan,” Peter was saying. “We’d have
been beaten if it hadn’t been for him. The Witch was turning our troops
into stone right and left. But nothing would stop him. He fought his
way through three ogres to where she was just turning one of your
leopards into a statue. And when he reached her he had sense to bring
his sword smashing down on her wand instead of trying to go for her
directly and simply getting made a statue himself for his pains. That
was the mistake all the rest were making. Once her wand was broken
we began to have some chance — if we hadn’t lost so many already.
He was terribly wounded. We must go and see him.”
They found Edmund in charge of Mrs Beaver a little way back from
the fighting line. He was covered with blood, his mouth was open, and
his face a nasty green colour.
“Quick, Lucy,” said Aslan.
Clive Staples Lewis96
And then, almost for the first time, Lucy remembered the precious
cordial that had been given her for a Christmas present. Her hands
trembled so much that she could hardly undo the stopper, but she
managed it in the end and poured a few drops into her brother’s
mouth.
“There are other people wounded,” said Aslan while she was still
looking eagerly into Edmund’s pale face and wondering if the cordial
would have any result.
“Yes, I know,” said Lucy crossly. “Wait a minute.”
“Daughter of Eve,” said Aslan in a graver voice, “others also are at
the point of death. Must
more people die for Edmund?”
“I’m sorry, Aslan,” said Lucy, getting up and going with him. And for
the next half-hour they were busy — she attending to the wounded
while he restored those who had been turned into stone. When at last
she was free to come back to Edmund she found him standing on his
feet and not only healed of his wounds but looking better than she had
seen him look — oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that
horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had
become his real old self again and could look you in the face. And
there on the field of battle Aslan made him a knight.
“Does he know,” whispered Lucy to Susan, “what Aslan did for him?
Does he know what the arrangement with the Witch really was?”
“Hush! No. Of course not,” said Susan.
“Oughtn’t he to be told?” said Lucy.
“Oh, surely not,” said Susan. “It would be too awful for him. Think
how you’d feel if you were he.”
“All the same I think he ought to know,” said Lucy. But at that
moment they were interrupted.
That night 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. Next
day they began marching eastward down the side of the great river.
And the next day after that, at about teatime, they actually reached
the mouth. The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above
them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt
water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-
green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry
of the sea-gulls! Have you heard it? Can you remember?
97The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to
the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the
sand between their toes. But next day was more solemn. For then,
in the Great Hall of Cair Paravel — that wonderful hall with the ivory
roof and the west wall hung with peacock’s feathers and the eastern
door which looks towards the sea, in the presence of all their friends
and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led
them to the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, “Long Live King
Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live
Queen Lucy!”
“Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen. Bear it
well, Sons of Adam! Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!” said Aslan.
And through the eastern door, which was wide open, came the
voices of the mermen and the mermaids swimming close to the shore
and singing in honour of their new Kings and Queens.
So the children sat on their thrones and sceptres were put into their
hands and they gave rewards and honours to all their friends, to
Tumnus the Faun, and to the Beavers, and Giant Rumblebuffin, to the
leopards, and the good centaurs, and the good dwarfs, and to the lion.
And that night there was a great feast in Cair Paravel, and revelry and
dancing, and gold flashed and wine flowed, and answering to the
music inside, but stranger, sweeter, and more piercing, came the
music of the sea people.
But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away.
And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn’t there they
said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, “He’ll be
coming and going,” he had said. “One day you’ll see him and another
you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down and of course he has other
countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you
mustn’t press him. He’s wild,’ you know. Not like a
tame lion.”
And now, as you see, this story is nearly (but not quite) at an end.
These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well, and long and
happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent in seeking
out the remnants of the White Witch’s army and destroying them, and
indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the
wilder parts of the forest — a haunting here and a killing there, a
glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumour of a hag the next. But
in the end all that foul brood was stamped out. And they made good
Clive Staples Lewis98
laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unneces-
sarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from
being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and inter-
ferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live.
And they drove back the fierce giants (quite a different sort from Giant
Rumblebuffin) on the north of Narnia when these ventured across the
frontier. And they entered into friendship and alliance with countries
beyond the sea and paid them visits of state and received visits of
state from them. And they themselves grew and changed as the years
passed over them. And Peter became a tall and deep-chested man
and a great warrior, and he was called King Peter the Magnificent. And
Susan grew into a tall and gracious woman with black hair that fell
almost to her feet and the kings of the countries beyond the sea began
to send ambassadors asking for her hand in marriage. And she was
called Susan the Gentle. Edmund was a graver and quieter man than
Peter, and great in council and judgement. He was called King
Edmund the Just. But as for Lucy, she was always gay and golden-
haired, and all princes in those parts desired her to be their Queen,
and her own people called her Queen Lucy the Valiant.
So they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in
this world it was only as one remembers a dream. And one year it fell
out that Tumnus (who was a middle-aged Faun by now and beginning
to be stout) came down river and brought them news that the White
Stag had once more appeared in his parts — the White Stag who
would give you wishes if you caught him. So these two Kings and two
Queens with the principal members of their court, rode a-hunting with
horns and hounds in the Western Woods to follow the White Stag. And
they had not hunted long before they had a sight of him. And he led
them a great pace over rough and smooth and through thick and thin,
till the horses of all the courtiers were tired out and these four were still
following. And they saw the stag enter into a thicket where their horses
could not follow. Then said King Peter (for they talked in quite a
different style now, having been Kings and Queens for so long), “Fair
Consorts, let us now alight from our horses and follow this beast into
the thicket; for in all my days I never hunted a nobler quarry.”
“Sir,” said the others, “even so let us do.”
So they alighted and tied their horses to trees and went on into
the thick wood on foot. And as soon as they had entered it Queen
99The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe
Susan said, “Fair friends, here is a great marvel, for I seem to see
a tree of iron.”
“Madam,” said,King Edmund, “if you look well upon it you shall see
it is a pillar of iron with a lantern set on the top thereof.”
“By the Lion’s Mane, a strange device,” said King Peter, “to set a
lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high
above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!”
“Sir,” said Queen Lucy. “By likelihood when this post and this lamp
were set here there were smaller trees in the place, or fewer, or none.
For this is a young wood and the iron post is old.” And they stood
looking upon it. Then said King Edmund,
“I know not how it is, but this lamp on the post worketh upon me
strangely. It runs in my mind that I have seen the like before; as it were
in a dream, or in the dream of a dream.”
“Sir,” answered they all, “it is even so with us also.”
“And more,” said Queen Lucy, “for it will not go out of my mind that
if we pass this post and lantern either we shall find strange adventures
or else some great change of our fortunes.”
“Madam,” said King Edmund, “the like foreboding stirreth in my
heart also.”
“And in mine, fair brother,” said King Peter.
“And in mine too,” said Queen Susan. “Wherefore by my counsel we
shall lightly return to our horses and follow this White Stag no further.”
“Madam,” said King Peter, “therein I pray thee to have me excused.
For never since we four were Kings and Queens in Narnia have we set
our hands to any high matter, as battles, quests, feats of arms, acts of
justice, and the like, and then given over; but always what we have
taken in hand, the same we have achieved.”
“Sister,” said Queen Lucy, “my royal brother speaks rightly. And it
seems to me we should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding
we turned back from following so noble a beast as now we have in
chase.”
“And so say I,” said King Edmund. “And I have such desire to find
the signification of this thing that I would not by my good will turn
back for the richest jewel in all Narnia and all the islands.”
“Then in the name of Aslan,” said Queen Susan, “if ye will all have
it so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”
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So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they
had gone a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they
had seen was called a lamppost, and before they had gone twenty
more they noticed that they were. making their way not through
branches but through coats. And next moment they all came
tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the empty room, and They
were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but just
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same
day and the same hour of the day on which they had all gone into
the wardrobe to hide. Mrs Macready and the visitors were still talking
in the passage; but luckily they never came into the empty room and
so the children weren’t caught.
And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn’t been
that they felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of the
coats out of his wardrobe were missing. And the Professor, who was a
very remarkable man, didn’t tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies,
but believed the whole story. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it will be any
good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats.
You won’t get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be
much use by now if you did! Eh? What’s that? Yes, of course you’ll get
back to Narnia again some day. Once a King in Narnia, always a King
in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice.
Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not
looking for it. And don’t talk too much about it even among your-
selves. And don’t mention it to anyone else unless you find that
they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that?
How will you know? Oh, you’ll
know all right. Odd things they say —
even their looks — will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless
me, what do they teach them at these schools?
And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe.
But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adven-
tures of Narnia.
The End.
