What sort of names would the folk of Galma have? Being as I have headcanoned the isle with Scottish roots, they would sound very Gaelic, like these.
| Male
Brailoc Breccan Caelan Dularic Fynian Gaerloch Keirdan Lochlain Maerchor Malric Torloc |
Female
Aerianna Becca Eileina Eillira Faelinn Fighora Lyraena Mairen Saorthen Sorchra Tirena |
AI art by lurkingsince95
It will be the wedding of the century! Sauron proposes to his ladylove Jadis of Charn, also known as the White Witch, to unite the lands of Narnia and Middle-Earth. I can’t think of a more perfect match. Can you?
Let’s take a look at Narnia humor and memes.
Frankly it’s a lot harder to find them for Narnia than it is for LOTR. Tolkien’s work has the upper hand here I’m afraid. Perhaps it’s due to its length (book and movies) and higher level of popularity in the geek world. There is, too, its tone, which is downbeat and serious, though in all media it also has light or whimsical moments. Keep in mind nothing delights a true fan more than affectionately puncturing that sense of loftiness.
Narnia, in contrast, skews that formula; it is whimsy punctuated by seriousness, and Lewis as a writer skews that seriousness (and reader expectations) often. So there’s not a need for such mockery in the first place. But let’s see what we have,
Oh this one burns. It’s very juvenile. That’s why I like it.
This obscure meme highlights adult King Peter’s resemblance to a certain fast food mascot.
This meme is quite recent, going by Jadis’s costume which is from the forthcoming Greta Gerwig movie.
Joking around with the LWW title. I did a similar thing with this post.
You have to read this one twice to really get it.
This one’s apt and a clever pun.
This one crossed both the Peter Jackson LOTR movie and Narnia.
Narnia gets political.
Though the blurb for this is … mistranslated … the cover is pretty good! Caspian is the correct age, he holds Susan’s Horn, and Trufflehunter and Trumpkin are there by his side, though there’s no Reepicheep. Caspian’s wearing decent fantasy-medieval clothing as well, plus it’s white, showing he’s a good guy! He looks appropriately tense, baffled, and lost, as he should be. A++ to the artist!
The Narnia movie logo at the top right indicates the general era of the book.
Zhejiang Children’s Publishing House is located in mainland China (not Taiwan) and specializes in children’s books and magazines. It’s state-owned and a major player in China’s book industry.
A Grand Tourney
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” [ … ] We had a fair wind from Cair Paravel and stood a little north for Galma, which we made on the next day. We were in port for a week, for the Duke of Galma made a great tournament for His Majesty and there he unhorsed many knights—”
“And got a few nasty falls myself, Drinian. Some of the bruises are there still,” put in Caspian. “—And unhorsed many knights,” repeated Drinian with a grin. “We thought the Duke would have been pleased if the King’s Majesty would have married his daughter, but nothing came of that—” “Squints, and has freckles,” said Caspian. — The Voyage of the Dawn Treader |
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Unlike The Seven Isles, the nation of Galma receives a fair bit of description in the Chronicles. The reader never gets to visit it, but there’s the quote above and a few others which can let us sketch it in. The first time it’s mentioned in the Chronicles is in Prince Caspian in this throwaway line from Lucy: “Do you remember our voyage to Terebinthia—and Galma—and Seven Isles—and the Lone Islands?” which already lets the reader know it’s an island nation.
The next place we hear it is in Capian’s and Drinian’s conversation above from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a more maritime-oriented book. It lets us know Galma lies very close to Narnia and is on good terms with it. It’s a nice bit of world extension.
Except… and this is a problem with Narnia as a whole mind you … this island world as written seems pretty substantial and populous, but given how Narnia itself is rather small, the island depicted on Bayne’s classic map must be small too. After all, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the Pevensies ride up to Lantern Waste in one day, and in The Silver Chair Rilian and his mother ride north as well to go a-maying, and it’s a day trip for them, too. The average speed of a horse and rider is 25 – 30 mph, probably less so for large parties with wagons and pack animals and such. Take a look back at the map and note Galma’s size in relation to the distance between Lantern Waste and Cair Paravel, and it’s tiny. Yet it has forests to support a shipbuilding industry ** and a noble class to support a tourney, which was quite a large Medieval undertaking in terms of food served, structures built, and manpower for setup and takedown.
This discrepancy has always bothered me about the Chronicles. Anyway, let’s say for now that Galma is larger than it seems, like the magic garden Lucy stares at in The Last Battle.
Now on to the name. Galma sounds Biblical (Galilee, Gilead) which makes sense as in Lucy’s quote is comes right after Terebinthia, which also has Bible roots. But it reminds me more of Galloway, Glasgow, and other Scottish place names. Since Caspian and the ship’s crew attend a tourney there, so you can also say it’s a gala — add in one consonant, m, and you have the name Galma.
So, my headcanon says the island is a more culturally sophisticated, less rugged, and even-climed version of Scotland. Since the Duke’s daughter has freckles, that must mean she has fair hair or red hair, also appropriate for Scotland. I can picture one part of Galma with rugged hills and highland forests, while the other part consists of verdant lowlands with villages and towns and a large city or two which serves as a port. There are many harbors and inlets and spectacular cliffside castles, and herds of sheep and long-horned cattle as well.
Narnia fandom often claims that Galma has the best ships and sailors and is the most experienced nation in the ways of the sea, but the text doesn’t support this. The narrative says only that the seven lords had to commission a Galmian ship in Voyage of the Dawn Treader because the Telmarines had let Narnia’s own shipbuilding industry decay. Which makes sense when you consider how close Galma is to Narnia: Caspian’s Dawn Treader reaches it within a day. I can imagine it, even, being observable from Narnia’ s shores, like how Molokai can be seen from Honolulu is the weather is right.
Fandom also occasionally claims that Galma is part of Narnia the same way the Lone Islands are. This is not supported by the text either. Number one, it’s never mentioned when the king’s or queen’s titles are spouted off. Number two, when Lucy is tempted to say the beautifying spell from Coriakin’s magic book, she has a vision of ” [ … ] all Narnia and Archenland, Telmar and Calormen, Galma and Terebinthia, were laid waste with the fury of the kings and dukes and great lords who fought for her favour.” It’s nation pitted against nation. I don’t know why Galma is ruled by a duke instead of a king, but maybe he’s a steward or something, as Denethor II was in Minas Tirith.
So let’s get on to some place names for such a country.
| Caelan Town
Domenthal Dunfern Dunvara Faegren Ferelith Firth of Tyree Gairlochlen Gorflaith |
Lochlarney
Lomonday Hills Loren Glan Maurachie River Gorm Skrabber Hitch Straithe Mór Torl Innis Village of Skay |
** “When his uncle, Miraz the usurper, had sent the seven lords to sea, they had had to buy a Galmian ship and man it with hired Galmian sailors.” From Voyage of The Dawn Treader.
Majestic Solace by Thanawat Techawongwilash
This painting by Thanawat Techawongwilash was not labeled as being about Narnia in any way… yet it so obviously is, with a humanoid lion, a lampost, and woman in the clothing and hairstyle of the 1950s. The woman is Susan, of course, some years after she lost her family in a train accident and finds her way back to Aslan in her own land, in her own way.
I’ve never seen an artwork dealing with this subject matter, so kudos to the artist for showing the moment to us.
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Two more practical people arrived in the little wood. One was a Red Dwarf whose name appeared to be Duffle. The other was a stag, a beautiful lordly creature with wide liquid eyes, dappled flanks and legs so thin and graceful that they looked as if you could break them with two fingers.
“Lion alive!” roared the Dwarf as soon as he had heard the news. “And if that’s so, why are we all standing still, chattering? Enemies at Anvard! News must be sent to Cair Paravel at once. The army must be called out. Narnia must go to the aid of King Lune. [ …] Anyone here got more speed than me?” “I’ve got speed,” said the Stag. “What’s my message? How many Calormenes?” “Two hundred: under Prince Rabadash. And—” But the Stag was already away—all four legs off the ground at once, and in a moment its white stern had disappeared among the remoter trees. |
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This is one of the more vivid pieces of description in The Horse and His Boy, occurring after Shasta (Prince Cor) runs over the mountain pass and tells the Narnians of the Calormene invasion. I can see it in my mind’s eye just so: This graceful stag, hearing the gist of the message, rearing and pivoting as he turns to leap and turning to bound off into the woods. It’s so apt, too, the bit about the powerful body and long delicate-looking legs (though they surely aren’t) which is exactly what a child would notice about such a creature. Perhaps it’s watching the Walt Disney version of Bambi, or scenes from Bambi, so many times that I fused the two in my mind.
And there’s that name that is revealed later… Chervy.
When you compare this name to the other animals; names in the Chronicles, it stands out because of that -y ending. To English speaking ears, it sounds like a nickname, but for what?
It might be a nickname for the herb Chervil. I can see that. A deer would find it quite tasty to eat. But no other Talking Animal was named after their favorite food.
There’s also the comparison to what seems obvious in America: Chevy. Take out the r and there you have it. But as Lewis wrote this in 1948 and wasn’t into American car culture (did he ever learn to drive?) I doubt that as well. England had its own car manufacturers and cars weren’t being imported because of WWII anyway.
But look deeper, to the actual meaning of the French surname Chevrolet, and it combines the words cheval (horse) and vot (to go) thus symbolizing speed, movement, freedom.
Perhaps Lewis transposed the -v and the -r of Chevrolet, and added the y, for the name?
There’s also the possibility that he took the French word for deer, cerf — the f of which can sound, phonetically, close to a v — and added the y. Cervus is in fact the Latin word for deer, reflected in the word cervine, an adjective describing deer-like qualities. For years I felt sure this was case.
But let’s go back to Chevy. Americans of a certain age would be reminded of comedian Chevy Chase. That wasn’t his real name of course, his real name being the rather unfunny Cornelius Crane Chase which means his audience would laugh at him, not with him. Where did he get his nickname? His grandmother, who was of Scottish descent, granted him that.
Let’s look further. Chevy Chase is also the name of an old English ballad, the sort that were popular in the 14th and 15th centuries and served as a form of singable oral history. It refers to a spat between two nobles. Percy, the English Earl of Northumberland, goes hunting in the Cheviot Hills straddling the Anglo-Scottish border and Scottish Earl Douglas interprets it as an attack on his border. Battle ensues. Thus we get the name Chevy — referring to the Cheviot Hills — and Chase, an archaic English word that refers to a hunting ground, or often the hunt itself.
The ballad was very popular, though, as ballads are prone to doing, spawned many different versions over the years. References to it were rife in literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. From the ballad came the English word chivvy or chevy (now itself somewhat archaic) one meaning of which is to hassle or pester a person, in a playful way, to perform a needed task, which is exactly what Duffle is doing to Chervy in the text.
In America’s colonial period a tract of land outside the Washington D. C. was named Chevy Chase by the British, which eventually — you guessed — would became the town of Chevy Chase in Maryland, as well as its whole surrounding area, hoity-toity upscale places today, home to movers and shakers in the U.S. government. The historical website for the area posits also that the name Chevy Chase might also have come from the French word chevauchee, which means (horse) ride, which was the French way to refer to these Anglo-Scottish border clashes.
Though we cannot know what was in Lewis’ mind as he named this character, I am sure that any or all of this etymology was an influence… a fleet creature who raced against time to inform allies of an upcoming battle.
Artwork by elven-king
I thought I had exhausted all the maps of Narnia that are out there but I did find two new ones, to me that is, this year. The first, the one above, is a what-if. What if Calormen had been successful in its invasion of Narnia in The Horse and His Boy?
This map, overlaid on a previous one, tells the story of how that eventually shook out. The Calormenes managed to hold on to Archenland and the coastal part of Narnia; but the Narnian Kings and Queens did not take it lying down. King Edmund and his followers moved to the North, and Queen Susan, who divorced Rabadash eventually, established her kingdom in the West. Why they did not cooperate in co-ruling both areas as one is unsaid, but it would be an interesting story. If they did, the Calormene chokehold on the Cair Paraval area would be overcome.
The Archenlanders managed to keep their country going to the east and I’d bet that mountain pass is a contentious one, bordered by both it, the Satrapy, and the Kingdom of the Dwarves, who I’m going to guess adapted the “Dwarves are for the Dwarves” mentality from The Last Battle and reject any notion of joining forces with Edmund or Susan.
The map also makes it clear that with the Calormene thinning of forces Aravis was able to get her own rebellion started in Calormen’s West. With no mention of Cor, let’s assumed he died in the fighting, as did King Peter. Lucy might be out of the picture for being to young to rule.
If anyone knows the location of the story based on the map, please let me know.
The map, which was painted on a piece of suede with some embossing, doesn’t expand on what we already know. But… the Eastern Sea is now a lake! And a narrow one at that. What gives?
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