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 …
In the Chronicles life in Tashbaan is presented as one of decadent, ostentatious luxury. That would include the foods on which the nobles dined. Lewis doesn’t mention which foods, with the exception of garlic and the cool sherbet Aravis and Shasta dream about when crossing the Great Desert. But we can infer from descriptions of …
I’ve been saving up artwork of desert landscapes, cities, and caravans, but they all tended to blend together. Typical of concept art. So, I really did blend them together.
This wasn’t labeled as Narnian art, but it so clearly is! Somehow Tash has made it into our world but taken a tumble, now he’s clogging up the commuter rail system. I hope he’s dead and not just stunned.
In contrast to Narnia’s monotheism and its “true” God, Aslan, the desert nation of Calormen was polytheistic. Three gods are mentioned: Tash, Zardeenah, and Azaroth, all referenced in the book The Horse and His Boy, which was written by Lewis after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but published later. HHB was Lewis’s ode to …
I’m going to start off this third Summer of Narnia with this Pauline Baynes illustration from The Horse and His Boy that I just found. I assume it wasn’t included in the American edition of the books, because I don’t remember it from my childhood. It shows the moment when the Narnian entourage, headed by …
The horses Bree (front, gray dapple) and Hwin (back, brown) are my favorite animal characters from the Chronicles. Not only are they featured throughout the whole of The Horse and His Boy, they play vital roles in the plot. Both were stolen as foals from Narnia and raised in Calormen, where normal non-talking horses …
Lewis never again got as exotic in the Chronicles as he did in with Calormen. The Valley of Ten Thousand Perfumes, Lake Mezreel, the crossroads city of Azim Balda, the Flaming Mountain of Lagour… these places don’t come into the plots, they are mentioned only in passing. But they do add to the richness. Writing …
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