Chapter 17: The Hunting of the White Stag

Narnia Read-Along Vol. 1, Issue 18

With this being the final chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we will be taking a break in the Narnia read along.

Next week, I’ll do one roundup post that includes links to all of the chapter discussions so far, as well as links to all of the resources used during our study. That will be the last post for a few weeks until we start back with Prince Caspian.

Pauline Baynes illustration from “The Hunting of the White Stag”

Inspiration of “The Hunting of the White Stag”

The Call Home

In a dozen or so pages, C.S. Lewis ends the battle with the witch and her forces, installs the four Pevensies as kings and queens of Narnia, summarizes their 15-year reign, and then follows them back through the wardrobe into our world.

So much action takes place in such a short time, but one brief aside from the narrator demonstrates the true nature of the book. It’s about the desire for home, but it’s probably not where you think. While describing Cair Paravel’s beach setting, Lewis takes an aside and writes: “And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you heard it? Can you remember?”

These lines, as much as any other part of the story, show us that Narnia has returned to how it was meant to be. It recalls the idyllic portion of Lewis’ childhood, a brief three-year window after his family had moved to their new home on the outskirts of Belfast in 1905 and before his mother Flora passed away in 1908.

The house became known as “Little Lea” or “the New House,” as Lewis and his brother called it for years. “The New House is almost a major character in my story,” he wrote in Surprised by Joy. “I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlight rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes and the noise of wind under tiles. Also, of endless books.”

But not only did the two Lewis boys enjoy reading and creating imaginary worlds indoors, they also were able to experience the sights and sounds of a coastal city. “The sound of a steamer’s horn at night still conjures up my whole boyhood,” he wrote. They repeatedly took trips up the coast to Dunluce Castle and the Castlerock area, which potentially served as a direct inspiration for Cair Paravel. Yet change came quickly.

Warnie, his brother, was sent away to boarding school. Lewis occupied himself with books and his own stories. Then, before he even realized what was happening, Lewis’ mother was diagnosed with cancer and shortly died in August 1908. Lewis again turned to the sea, but this time not as a nostalgic reflection, rather to capture the calamity. “With my mother’s death, all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life,” he wrote in Surprised by Joy. “It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.”

In many ways, The Chronicles of Narnia read like a longing to get back home, but home at its best. In The Magicians’ Nephew, the story of Narnia’s creation, Digory does what Lewis could not, save his mother from a terrible illness. In The Last Battle, the story of the end of Narnia, Lewis explains why he and most of us have this longing for home. Jewel the unicorn says. “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

“I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlight rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude …. Also, of endless books.” — C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is about going home—not the Pevensies returning to England after their time in Narnia, but about discovering the true meaning of home.

Chapter 17 opens with the opening character traits of Lucy and Edmund being momentarily inverted. Peter tells Aslan how Edmund’s bravery and self-sacrifice helped their army hold off the White Witch as long as they did, but he was severely wounded in the process. Aslan reminds Lucy of her cordial of healing liquid from Father Christmas. After she pours a few drops into Edmund’s mouth, she snaps at Aslan who reminds her that others are also wounded. He asks her if more people need to die for Edmund, to which Lucy apologizes and dutifully goes to help others.

The four siblings are crowned at Cair Paravel, while Aslan disappears. “He’s wild, you know,” says Mr. Beaver. “Not like a tame lion.” The children grow into their royal roles and become Peter the Magnificent, “a tall and deep-chested man and a great warrior,” Susan the Gentle, “a tall and gracious woman with black hair that feel almost to her feet,” Edmund the Just, “a graver and quieter man than Peter, and great in council and judgment,” and Lucy the Valiant, “always gay and golden-haired.” They spent their time finishing off the remnants of the witch’s forces and “generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live.”

Close to 15 years into their reign, however, came word that the white stag was spotted. By using this creature, Lewis drew from familiar lore. In Celtic mythology, the white deer was considered a messenger from the “otherworld.” In Arthurian legend, the animal evaded capture and chasing it symbolized man’s spiritual quest. In Narnia, the journey after the white stag leads them back to England as children wearing the same clothes on the same hour they’d entered the wardrobe.

The four felt they should explain to the Professor why coats were missing from the wardrobe. He dismissed the coats and any attempts to return through the wardrobe, but he hinted that they would make it back to Narnia. Though Lewis said he did not intend to write more than one book, he certainly ends The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by teasing more Narnian stories. “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 adventures of Narnia.”

The children had returned home to England but changed from who they were when they entered the wardrobe. They would return to Narnia. But they, like us, were not home quite yet.