The Magician's Nephew (10 page)

Can you imagine a stretch of grassy land bubbling like water in a pot? For that is really the best description of what was happening. In all directions it was swelling into humps. They were of very different sizes, some no bigger than mole-hills, some as big as wheelbarrows, two the size of cottages. And 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. The moles came out just as you might see a mole come out in England. The dogs came out, barking the moment their heads were free, and struggling as you’ve seen them do when they are getting through a narrow hole in a hedge. The stags were the queerest to watch, for of course the antlers came up a long time before the rest of them, so at first Digory
thought they were trees. The frogs, who all came up near the river, went straight into it with a plop-plop and a loud croaking. The panthers, leopards and things of that sort, sat down at once to wash the loose earth off their hind quarters and then stood up against the trees to sharpen their front claws. Showers of birds came out of the trees. Butterflies fluttered. Bees got to work on the flowers as if they hadn’t a second to lose. But the greatest moment of all was when the biggest hump broke like a small earthquake and out came the sloping back, the large, wise head, and the four baggy-trousered legs of an elephant. And now you could hardly hear the song of the Lion; there was so much cawing, cooing, crowing, braying, neighing, baying, barking, lowing, bleating, and trumpeting.

But though Digory could no longer hear the Lion, he could see it. It was so big and so bright that he could not take his eyes off it. The other animals did not appear to be afraid of it. Indeed, at that very moment, Digory heard the sound of hoofs from behind; a second later the old cab-horse trotted past him and joined the other beasts. (The air had apparently suited him as well as it had suited Uncle Andrew. He no longer looked like the poor, old slave he had been in London; he was picking up his feet and holding his head erect.) And now, for the first time, the Lion was quite silent. He was going to and fro among the animals. And every now and then he would go up to two of them (always two at a time) and touch their noses with his. He would touch two beavers among all the beavers, two leopards among all the leopards, one stag and one deer among all the deer, and leave the rest. Some sorts of animal he passed over altogether. But the pairs which he had touched instantly left their own kinds and followed him. At last he stood still and all the creatures whom he had touched came and stood in a wide circle around him. The others whom he had not touched began to wander away. Their noises faded gradually into the distance. The chosen beasts who remained were now utterly silent, all with their eyes fixed intently upon the Lion. The cat-like ones gave an occasional twitch of the tail but otherwise all were still. For
the first time that day there was complete silence, except for the noise of running water. Digory’s heart beat wildly; he knew something very solemn was going to be done. He had not forgotten about his Mother; but he knew jolly well that, even for her, he couldn’t interrupt a thing like this.

The Lion, whose eyes never blinked, stared at the animals as hard as if he was going to burn them up with his mere stare. And gradually a change came over them. The smaller ones—the rabbits, moles, and such-like—grew a good deal larger. The very big ones—you noticed it most with the elephants—grew a little smaller. Many animals sat up on their hind legs. Most put their heads on one side as if they were trying very hard to understand. The Lion opened his mouth, but no sound came from it; he was breathing out, a long, warm breath; it seemed to sway all the beasts as
the wind sways a line of trees. Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children’s bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying:

“Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”

IT WAS OF COURSE THE LION’S VOICE.
The children had long felt sure that he could speak: yet it was a lovely and terrible shock when he did.

Out of the trees wild people stepped forth, gods and goddesses of the wood; with them came Fauns and Satyrs and Dwarfs. Out of the river rose the river god with his Naiad daughters. And all these and all the beasts and birds in their different voices, low or high or thick or clear, replied:

“Hail, Aslan. We hear and obey. We are awake. We love. We think. We speak. We know.”

“But please, we don’t know very much yet,” said a nosey and snorty kind of voice. And that really did make the children jump, for it was the cab-horse who had spoken.

“Good old Strawberry,” said Polly. “I
am
glad he was one of the ones picked out to be a Talking Beast.” And the Cabby, who was now standing be
side the children, said, “Strike me pink. I always did say as that ’oss ’ad a lot of sense, though.”

“Creatures, I give you yourselves,” said the strong, happy voice of Aslan. “I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so.”

“No, Aslan, we won’t, we won’t,” said everyone. But one perky jackdaw added in a loud voice, “No fear!” and everyone else had finished just before he said it so that his words came out quite clear in a
dead silence; and perhaps you have found out how awful that can be—say, at a party. The Jackdaw became so embarrassed that it hid its head under its wing as if it were going to sleep. And all the other animals began making various queer noises which are their ways of laughing and which, of course, no one has ever heard in our world. They tried at first to repress it, but Aslan said:

“Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.”

So they all let themselves go. And there was such merriment that the Jackdaw himself plucked up courage again and perched on the cab-horse’s head, between its ears, clapping its wings, and said:

“Aslan! Aslan! Have I made the first joke? Will everybody always be told how I made the first joke?”

“No, little friend,” said the Lion. “You have not
made
the first joke; you have only
been
the first joke.” Then everyone laughed more than ever; but the Jackdaw didn’t mind and laughed just as loud till the horse shook its head and the Jackdaw lost its balance and fell off, but remembered its wings (they were still new to it) before it reached the ground.

“And now,” said Aslan, “Narnia is established.
We must next take thought for keeping it safe. I will call some of you to my council. Come hither to me, you the chief Dwarf, and you the River-god, and you Oak and the He-Owl, and both the Ravens and the Bull-Elephant. We must talk together. For though the world is not five hours old an evil has already entered it.”

The creatures he had named came forward and he turned away eastward with them. The others all began talking, saying things like “
What
did he say had entered the world?—A Neevil—What’s a Neevil?—No, he didn’t say a Neevil, he said a weevil—Well, what’s that?”

“Look here,” said Digory to Polly, “I’ve got to go after him—Aslan, I mean, the Lion. I must speak to him.”

“Do you think we can?” said Polly. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“I’ve got to,” said Digory. “It’s about Mother. If anyone could give me something that would do her good, it would be him.”

“I’ll come along with you,” said the Cabby. “I liked the looks of ’
im
. And I don’t reckon these other beasts will go for us. And I want a word with old Strawberry.”

So all three of them stepped out boldly—or as boldly as they could—toward the assembly of animals. The creatures were so busy talking to one another and making friends that they didn’t notice the three humans until they were very close; nor did they hear Uncle Andrew, who was standing trembling in his buttoned boots a good way off and shouting (but by no means at the top of his voice).

“Digory! Come back! Come back at once when you’re told. I forbid you to go a step further.”

When at last they were right in among the animals, the animals all stopped talking and stared at them.

“Well?” said the He-Beaver at last, “what, in the name of Aslan, are these?”

“Please,” began Digory in rather a breathless voice, when a Rabbit said, “They’re a kind of large
lettuce, that’s my belief.”

“No, we’re not, honestly we’re not,” said Polly hastily. “We’re not at all nice to eat.”

“There!” said the Mole. “They can talk. Who ever heard of a talking lettuce?”

“Perhaps they’re the Second Joke,” suggested the Jackdaw.

A Panther, which had been washing its face, stopped for a moment to say, “Well, if they are, they’re nothing like so good as the first one. At least,
I
don’t see anything very funny about them.” It yawned and went on with its wash.

“Oh, please,” said Digory. “I’m in such a hurry. I want to see the Lion.”

All this time the Cabby had been trying to catch Strawberry’s eye. Now he did. “Now, Strawberry, old boy,” he said. “You know me. You ain’t going to stand there and say as you don’t know me.”

“What’s the Thing talking about, Horse?” said several voices.

“Well,” said Strawberry very slowly, “I don’t exactly know, I think most of us don’t know much about anything yet. But I’ve a sort of idea I’ve seen a thing like this before. I’ve a feeling I lived somewhere else—or was something else—before Aslan woke us all up a few minutes ago. It’s all very muddled. Like a dream. But there were things like these three in the dream.”

“What?” said the Cabby. “Not know me? Me
what used to bring you a hot mash of an evening when you was out of sorts? Me what rubbed you down proper? Me what never forgot to put your cloth on you if you was standing in the cold? I wouldn’t ’ave thought it of you, Strawberry.”

“It
does
begin to come back,” said the Horse thoughtfully. “Yes. Let me think now, let me think. Yes, you used to tie a horrid black thing behind me and then hit me to make me run, and however far I ran this black thing would always be coming rattle-rattle behind me.”

“We ’ad our living to earn, see,” said the Cabby. “Yours the same as mine. And if there ’adn’t been no work and no whip there’d ’ave been no stable, no hay, no mash, and no oats. For you did get a taste of oats when I could afford ’em, which no one can deny.”

“Oats?” said the Horse, pricking up his ears. “Yes, I remember something about that. Yes. I remember more and more. You were always sitting up somewhere behind, and I was always running in front, pulling you and the black thing. I know I did all the work.”

“Summer, I grant you,” said the Cabby. “’Ot work for you and a cool seat for me. But what about winter, old boy, when you was keeping yourself warm and I was sitting up there with my feet like ice and my nose fair pinched off me with the wind, and my ’ands that numb I couldn’t ’ardly
’old the reins?”

“It was a hard, cruel country,” said Strawberry. “There was no grass. All hard stones.”

“Too true, mate, too true!” said the Cabby. “A ’ard world it was. I always did say those paving-stones weren’t fair on any ’oss. That’s Lunn’on, that is. I didn’t like it no more than what you did. You were a country ’oss, and I was a country man. Used to sing in the choir, I did, down at ’ome. But there wasn’t a living for me there.”

“Oh please, please,” said Digory. “Could we get on? The Lion’s getting further and further away. And I do want to speak to him so dreadfully badly.”

“Look ’ere, Strawberry,” said the Cabby. “This young gen’leman ’as something on his mind that he wants to talk to the Lion about; ’im you call Aslan. Suppose you was to let ’im ride on your back (which ’e’d take it very kindly) and trot ’im over to where the Lion is. And me and the little girl will be following along.”

“Ride?” said Strawberry. “Oh, I remember now. That means sitting on my back. I remember there used to be a little one of you two-leggers who used to do that long ago. He used to have little hard, square lumps of some white stuff that he gave me. They tasted—oh, wonderful, sweeter than grass.”

“Ah, that’d be sugar,” said the Cabby.

“Please, Strawberry,” begged Digory, “do, do
let me get up and take me to Aslan.”

“Well, I don’t mind,” said the Horse. “Not for once in a way. Up you get.”

“Good old Strawberry,” said the Cabby. “’Ere, young ’un, I’ll give you a lift.” Digory was soon on Strawberry’s back, and quite comfortable, for he had ridden bare-back before on his own pony.

“Now, do gee up, Strawberry,” he said.

“You don’t happen to have a bit of that white stuff about you, I suppose?” said the Horse.

“No. I’m afraid I haven’t,” said Digory.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Strawberry, and off they went.

At that moment a large Bulldog, who had been sniffing and staring very hard, said:

“Look. Isn’t there another of these queer creatures—over there, beside the river, under the trees?”

Then all the animals looked and saw Uncle Andrew, standing very still among the rhododendrons and hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.

“Come on!” said several voices. “Let’s go and find out.” So, while Strawberry was briskly trotting away with Digory in one direction (and Polly and the Cabby were following on foot) most of the creatures rushed toward Uncle Andrew with roars, barks, grunts, and various noises of cheerful interest.

We must now go back a bit and explain what
the whole scene had looked like from Uncle Andrew’s point of view. It had not made at all the same impression on him as on the Cabby and the children. For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.

Ever since the animals had first appeared, Uncle Andrew had been shrinking further and further back into the thicket. He watched them very hard of course; but he wasn’t really interested in seeing what they were doing, only in seeing whether they were going to make a rush at him. Like the Witch, he was dreadfully practical. He simply didn’t notice that Aslan was choosing one pair out of every kind of beasts. All he saw, or thought he saw, was a lot of dangerous wild animals walking vaguely about. And he kept on wondering why the other animals didn’t run away from the big Lion.

When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point; for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“
only
a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion
might in a zoo in our own world. “Of course it can’t really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautiful the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, “Narnia awake,” he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the Beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings. And when they laughed—well, you can imagine. That was worse for Uncle Andrew than anything that had happened yet. Such a horrid, bloodthirsty din of hungry and angry brutes he had never heard in his life. Then, to his utter rage and horror, he saw the other three humans actually walking out into the open to meet the animals.