The pic above reminds me of UrsulaK. LeGuin’s Catwings series, the only children’s books she wrote. (Earthsea was intended for teens, though these days it’s shelved under Adult.) In this series a mama cat gives birth to four winged kittens who have names like Harriet and James, and the quartet uses the wings to escape …
A while back I speculated on what Narnian female names might have been like, drawing from names that were given to Victorian-era English girls. Since there’s a paucity of names for human Narnian commoners I came up with another list, shown below. (This is a sore point with me. I don’t like to be reading …
“It’s like old times,” said Lucy. “Do you remember our voyage to Terebinthia—and Galma—and Seven Isles—and the Lone Islands?” “Yes,” said Susan, “and our great ship the Splendour Hyaline, with the swan’s head at her prow and the carved swan’s wings coming back almost to her waist?” “And the silken sails, and the great stern …
Cavaransies have existed for thousands of years along trading routes in India, the Middle East, and North Africa. They provided travelers a place to eat, rest, and restock their supplies. Usually they were set at intervals along the road, the spacing calculated by the time spent in a typical day’s travel. Many of them were …
Like the Seven Isles, not much is known about Archenland. In the books it serves as Narnia’s steadfast ally, a typical Medieval European country ruled by humans that lacks the magic ** and the Talking Beasts of Narnia. It figures most prominently in The Horse and His Boy. Lewis gives it a few quirky details, …
After all this time I’ve realized I’ve never described the Narniaworld water park. The water amusement area was intended to be an integral adjunct to the greater park and was built at the same time. It is themed around the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There is a separate admission fee or …
Here’s some more mythical sea perils that Lewis left out of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Or, as a reader suggested to me, might have inspired him. Part 1 is here. I also forgot a trope that relates to giant whirlpools. Which is — a trip to Atlantis! More than one pulpy story, comic …
The Voyage of The Dawn Treader has an episodic structure consisting of the many adventures Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace have while seeking the lost lords across the Eastern Sea. Many of them derive from myths, fables and earlier fairy tales, like the encounter with the sea serpent, the isle of the dragon, and the …
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