Myth as Sacred Story
Myths, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on the topic, are traditional, symbolic narratives that tell stories of gods or great heroes within a particular religious framework which gives them an authority, not necessarily of fact, but of truth. [1] Magical and wondrous things happen in myths, but we need not believe their particulars to gain wisdom from them.
Still, it’s not easy to define myth or mythology. Different Western scholars emphasize different aspects of myth, and distinguishing a myth from fairy tale, fable, or folklore is even harder. That’s probably why, later in the above article, the authors admit “it is difficult to generalize about the nature of myths.” [2] That’s especially the case if we look at the understanding of myth and story in cultures.
I suspect this disagreement arises because even in the Western world, we argue about the sacred. Who or what is God? What is the nature of human beings? Why are we here? What is our role? Who are we responsible to or responsible for?
Myths teach us these things, and if we don’t agree on the basics of faith and reality, how can we agree on the basics of the stories we tell to explain them?
The Myths of Narnia
For that reason, not everyone agrees we can have modern myths. For most Christians, for instance, God no longer reveals himself nor directly speaks his message. The interaction between creator and created is complete, so how can we write a story now that enhances our understanding of the holy?
If revelation is over and done, which not everyone agrees it is, then it would be wrong for me to call C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series an example of myth. Or maybe it would be ironic since one of the many mythological frameworks from which he draws is Christianity itself. Still, given that he liberally draws on multiple mythologies to write his stories, ones that include fauns and dwarves, witches and goblins, as well as a lion king who represents Jesus, I suggest that calling his works a myth is not outrageous.
Therefore, I want to examine the theological underpinnings of the first book [3] of the Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, [4] especially as they relate to divine love and the power of sacrifice.
The Jesus figure in the Narnia books is Aslan, a lion who is the divine King of Narnia. Like Jesus, he sacrifices himself out of love. Yet his is not a simple nor sentimental love. Like that of a powerful deity, his love can be demanding, even dangerous. Nor is his sacrifice like a human’s, for his death is not like our deaths. But to understand what this means, we must first know the story.
The Beginning
Set during World War II in England, the novel opens with the four Pevensie children—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—being shipped off to the Professor’s house in the country where they will be safe from the bombing in London. With no other children around, it’s a rather boring place until they discover a strange world behind the door of a wardrobe, a wondrous and magical land called Narnia.
Narnia is ruled by an evil, white witch who has installed herself as queen. Using magic, she keeps the land frozen so it is always winter, but never Christmas. She turns anyone who defies her to stone. Thus, the people of Narnia live in fear and misery. Someone needs to save them.
Fortunately, there’s a prophecy that promises them salvation, and we all know that in stories, prophecies are fulfilled. This one states that at Cair Paravel, four thrones await the two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve. When they sit on these thrones, they will rule the land. The evil queen’s reign will end, and she will die. [5]
Trouble Begins
Who are these children of Adam and Eve? Humans, of course. While there are many kinds of creatures in Narnia, there are no people. Not even the white witch, who looks human, is one. So it seems that the Pevensie children are the ones the Narnians have been waiting for.
The white witch has also been waiting, but not for any good reason.
When the gentle and innocent Lucy stumbles upon that magical world, the witch doesn’t discover her. Her minion, Mr. Tumnus, who does chance upon her, cannot bring himself to betray this friendly child once he meets her. So it is not until Edmund secretly follows Lucy as she walks through the wardrobe a second time and disappears into this magical realm that the evil queen meets a son of Adam. Edmund, apparently unable to follow his sister’s tracks in the snow, nor the purposeful fluttering of a bird, loses sight of her and becomes lost. Though he cries out for help, she does not answer.
Edmund seethes. He assumes his sister is ignoring him on purpose. After all, he’d been mean to her, which his overbearing and insufferable brother Peter had been quick to point out to him, so it doesn’t surprise Edmund at all that Lucy is taking this opportunity to get back at him, for he would do it to her if he had a chance.
That Lucy is far too compassionate to do such a thing to him is beyond Edmund’s understanding. Something happened to him at school, embittering him, but that doesn’t fully explain the boy’s wayward and spiteful nature. Is this original sin?
Choosing Turkish Delight
If so, the other children seem not to share his malady. They are imperfect. Peter can be overbearing, Susan timid, and Lucy gullible. But none of them rehearse their grievances or blame the world for their hurts the way Edmund does. That’s why he is so vulnerable to the evil queen’s wiles.
By the time she discovers him, he is totally lost. He feels frightened, angry, hungry, cold, and miserable. He is in no shape to make good choices. So when she offers to satisfy his hunger by magicking up any food he desires, he thinks immediately of the sweetest delicacy he can: Turkish delight.
Turkish delight is not just any candy. In her article about this scene in Lewis’s book, Cara Strickland explains that the English had not managed to make a satisfactory Turkish delight no matter how much they tried, so the confection had to be imported. With the war, trade was scarce, and there was rationing, so the Pevenies probably hadn’t had any Turkish delight for a long time. [6] It seems Edmund craved it, so imagine his glee when the White Witch offers him whatever he wants, and when he demands Turkish delight, she gives him the best Turkish delight he’d ever had.
Edmund is bewitched. When he finishes the box, he begs for more, for though it tastes wonderful, it doesn’t satisfy. It leaves him empty. Like an addict, he tries to fill that emptiness with pleasure, but it doesn’t work. His emptiness can only be filled with love, and sweets and flashy things are no substitute for the true love that, for Lewis, comes from the divine.
The Divine Lion
In Narnia, the divine takes the shape of a lion, Aslan. But Edmund’s mind has been clouded by his fears and resentments. He probably wouldn’t recognize the sacred in a mere lion, and he doesn’t understand the danger of the witch. All he knows is that she is giving him what he craves. Yet when he begs for more candy, she tells him he can have as much as he wants and be able to rule beside her as soon as he brings his brother and sisters to her palace.
He gazes into the distance at the icy structure that is her home, and he agrees to betray his siblings.
Edmund is young and easily fooled by glittering promises. He doesn’t understand that addictions have consequences and power is a sacred responsibility. Such wisdom can take years to accumulate. After all, how can something as delicious as Turkish delight be bad for you?
Of course, it’s not the confection itself that is bad; it’s the magic it’s made of. The confection the witch gave Edmund came, not from love, but from greed and fear. Edmund, who longs to be loved, but doesn’t know what it means, and who fears, down deep, that he is unlovable, craved the facade of fulfillment the evil queen offered. He couldn’t tell truth from falsehood.
Learning Compassion
Fortunately, when he manages to entice the rest of his siblings to enter the magical realm, he cannot fool them. Lucy knows the truth, and Peter and Susan know she doesn’t lie, so they believe her when she tells them the witch is evil, and when they discover she has imprisoned the kindly faun, none of Edmund’s lies or exaggerations convince them. They will not go to the witch’s castle. They, at least, know the difference between good and bad.
So if Edmund is ever to get more of that delicious candy, he will have to go to the queen by himself. He escapes to her castle, only to find she is not so nice with a boy who does not follow her instructions. She doesn’t want him by himself. He is no good to her without the other children. It’s not long before Edmund realizes delights are empty promises, and her kindness a sham. When she has him in her power, she snarls and hits, gives him stale bread instead of sweets, and does nothing to ease his fearful shivering.
Then, when he witnesses her turning innocent animals to stone, he learns to care for someone other than himself. He begins to grow up. It might not be love he feels, but it is the beginning of compassion. So when the centaurs and unicorns rescue him, he is grateful. He apologizes to his siblings, bows before Aslan, and prepares to fight on the side of good.
A Life at Risk
Before they can fight, though, the white witch meets with Aslan, citing a deep magic that existed before the dawn of time. One law of that magic is that a traitor belongs to her. She declares Edmund to be a traitor. Not only did he betray his siblings, but he failed her.
This is serious. The deep magic is like the laws of nature or the fundamentals of physics. Without it, everything would disintegrate. You can’t break this magic; you can only appease it. However, Aslan cannot let Edmund die. Not only would it be terribly sad, but it would break the prophecy. Cair Paravel demands four children. Without Edmund, the side of good cannot prevail.
At the same time, Aslan cannot argue with her logic. According to the magic she cites, he has a right to Edmund’s blood. Thus, Aslan takes her aside and makes a deal with her. Instead of Edmund’s life, she can have his.
Amazed at this king who would bargain with her, the white witch agrees to his foolish sacrifice. In fact, she looks forward to it.
Love and Sacrifice
Aslan’s sacrifice might seem foolish, but it is born from love. We often make sacrifices because we love others. Fathers work at jobs that destroy their bodies and their health so they can take care of their families, sometimes out of a sense of duty or a desire to look strong, but also because they love them. Mothers sacrifice careers and personal satisfaction to raise their children. Again, they might simply be yielding to societal pressure, but most mothers do so out of love. Children, too, can dedicate years of their own lives to caring for their elderly parents because they were once loved and now love in return.
How we view such self-abnegation depends on our family story, our societal culture, our traumas and pains and addictions. It depends on well we are able to take care of ourselves, and that depends, in large part, on the larger system in which we live. Who gets to take care of themselves, when, for how long, and who gets to decide? It’s easy in the United States for the wealthy to exercise, eat right, get enough sleep, and take vacations. Many of the poor find that impossible. If, then, they grow depressed, sick, and angry, is that any surprise?
As it is structured, our society, and probably societies around the world, would fall apart without that bedrock of individuals who love others more than themselves and will die to save a beloved’s life.
In a way, Aslan also does this. He gives up his life for Edmund, and he does so because he loves this boy, this flawed human being. With the wisdom of a deity, he sees, beneath the pain and craving in Edmund’s psyche, the perfect son of Adam.
The Deeper Magic
But the king of Narnia doesn’t choose to die just because of love. Nor is his willingness to die proof that he loves. Some of us sacrifice ourselves because we think that, by doing so, we will be honored or rescued or finally loved. Others of us deem ourselves so unworthy, we don’t realize that what we do is a sacrifice. We think our pain and hardship is what we deserve.
That is not Aslan. He knows he is a god, and he understands a deeper love than any of us possibly could. Yet his is not that soft love that wraps us in its arms no matter what we’ve done and promises to protect us from all consequences. His love knows who we are beneath the shell we think is our self, a love that believes in us and all our confusions and contradictions, and that demands we be the best person we can be. We cannot trick a love like this. It won’t sacrifice itself so we can eat more Turkish Delight. This kind of love makes sacrifices to save life itself.
Because that’s what Aslan is really worried about. He cares about Edmund, but he knows we’re all born to die, and the death of an individual is not so terrible. But cannot allow the death of all goodness, all beauty, all hope. Thus, he will sacrifice himself to save the world.
A Sacrifice Like Christ’s
Here we see parallels with the Jesus story. Like Jesus, Aslan chooses to die for his people, yet that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. He would have his cup taken from him, if possible, and on the appointed hour, Aslan walks toward the witch with a heavy heart. When Lucy and Susan notice him leaving, they follow, and he is grateful for their company, yet they can only walk beside him part way. At a certain point, he must go on alone. That was true for Jesus, as well. No one can carry our crosses for us. They might be able to support us, but we must face our deaths alone.
Not all of us will face the kind of death Aslan or Jesus did, however. Those two were spit upon, taunted, tormented. The demons shaved Aslan’s mane. The Romans laughed at Jesus, telling him that if he were the Messiah, he should rise up and strike them dead. Because he could not, or would not, they thought he was dying for nothing.
The witch thought Aslan was also dying for nothing, for she had no intention of keeping her side of the bargain, and he should have known it. No one can trust an evil witch. Once he was dead, she told him, she would take the boy’s life, anyway. Indeed, after she murders him, she and her evil beings dance off, triumphant.
Not Safe, But Good
At the stone table where Aslan died, Susan and Lucy mourn. Back at their military camp, Peter does his best to lead an attack against the witch’s minions, and the good side makes a decent showing in the fight. Edmund reveals a wit and courage no one knew he had, for he’s the only one who thinks to destroy the witch’s wand instead of trying to destroy her, leaving her vulnerable without her source of power. It takes bravery for him to face her, but he does, and he prevails.
Still, the good people of Narnia are still in danger. The evil ones press them, fighting ruthlessly.
All is not over, though. Something is happening at the stone table, just like something happened within the tomb where they laid Jesus. As Susan and Lucy turn to go, they hear a great cracking sound. Turning, they discover the table has split. The stone has rolled away. In the same way that Jesus rises to heaven, Aslan’s body disappears.
The girls cry out. What happened? Where is their king?
Then, there he is, standing in front of them, having come back to life. His wound is healed, his mane re-grown. For there is a deeper magic, one the witch was too young to know about, a magic more real than the laws of physics, for it adheres to the laws of love.
Love, of course, is complicated. Aslan is not a gentle creature. He is a lion. His roar can dispel all sorrow, and he can thaw winter by baring his teeth. If he shakes his mane, flowers will sprout. In Narnia, they say that Aslan is not safe, but he is good.
The Deeper Magic
In her book about darkness, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the God of Moses. He, too, is good, and he is divine and glorious, but he is not safe. He is not “the grandfatherly type.” Those who seek him “assume all risk and give up all claim to reward,” for being in the presence of this holy one “is reward enough.” [7]
Aslan is like that, a god who loves completely, but whose love penetrates so deeply into our hearts, we feel a trembling of trepidation. This god of Moses is too brilliant to see. Perhaps that was why Jesus had to take on human form.
To walk among the creatures of Narnia, Aslan, too, must become corporeal. He must enter time so we can gaze upon him without shattering, so we can talk to him and understand. Aslan is not a god so much as a Jesus figure, a deity made flesh who breathes and mourns and ultimately dies.
But that’s how we tap into that deeper magic, by willingly accepting the pain and suffering of being human. It is a magic so old, only those who were around from before time existed, like Jesus or God or Aslan, know about it. The witch was a created being, so she didn’t understand.
Shifting the Balance Toward the Good
Either do we, really, but what if this magic is the love that persuaded the initial singularity to hatch, the generosity of spirit that sent matter hurtling into the emptiness, a love that burned even in those first seconds when the laws of physics were chaotic and confounding, before rules and order demanded consequences like the death of a traitor. This magic, deeper than the deep magic, knows that love matters more than betrayal. This magic says, “when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” [8] That is the ultimate love.
Of course, you could say it’s not much of a sacrifice if Aslan knew he wouldn’t really die. Think of Jesus who gave his life to vanquish death. He knew he’d be reborn, for a god cannot be destroyed. Perhaps nothing can be destroyed, though I wonder about anti-matter and if it will one day extinguish everything. Is anti-matter the antithesis of creation, the enemy of love? Or is it love incarnate, willing to sacrifice its own existence to annihilate creation so the gods might start again?
Which is the witch? Is she like an anti-matter that cannot conceive of love or sacrifice? Or is she a necessary part of creation, without which the deep and deeper magics could not survive? Aslan may fight her, but without death, there can be no life. Perhaps if there is no evil, there can be no good.
Wonderful, But Agonizing
But we like goodness and love, much more than evil and hate. So we tell the stories of men like Jesus and kings like Aslan, beings who sacrifice themselves so wrong can become right and so bitterness dissolves in the face of grace. In this way, Aslan shifted the balance of power toward the good.
Of course, as long as there is life, evil will never disappear entirely, not even in Narnia. It hides in crevices, erupting now and then, but if we look beneath the surface of shiny things and tasty treats, we will see that love is everywhere, a love that satisfies completely and fills the empty places in our hearts. Perhaps that is why part of us needs to die so we can find Christ, or Aslan, or something greater, inside ourselves. In this way, we learn to love.
There are two magics, and the difference between them matters. The deep magic, for instance, tells us that ethics and justice matter. The traitor cannot act with impunity or the world will devolve into chaos.
On the other hand, the deeper magic, older and wiser even than the deep one, tells us that love will transform the traitor, that forgiveness is a virtue, and that willing sacrifice overturns evil and sets things right again. That we need to do this over and over is simply the inherent nature of matter and time. If we are embodied, we will know pain. If we have life, we will die. But the myths remind us that death is not the end. Even if anti-matter destroys everything we know, there will still be love.
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Smith, Jonathan Z., Kees W. Bolle, and Richard G. A. Buxton, “Myth,” Encyclopedia Britannica, November 11, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/myth, accessed 4 February 2023.
- Ibid https://www.britannica.com/topic/myth#ref23557.
- There is disagreement about which book is really first. Though The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published first, The Magician’s Nephew is first chronologically. See Dew, Ashley, “2 Ways to Read the Chronicles of Narnia Books in Order by C. S. Lewis,” T. L. Branson, October 19, 2021, https://www.tlbranson.com/chronicles-of-narnia-books-in-order/, accessed February 4, 2023.
- Lewis, C. S., The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Toronto, Ontario, Canad: HarperCollins, 2010, ebook.
- Ibid 110.
- Strickland, Cara, “Why Was Turkish Delight C. S. Lewis’s Guilty Pleasure?,” JSTOR Daily, August 3, 2016, https://daily.jstor.org/turkish-delight/, accessed January 31, 2023.
- Taylor, Barbara Brown, Learning to Walk in the Dark, New York: HarperCollins, 2014, 58.
- Lewis ebook 209.
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