Today's Reading
“Bree,” said Aravis, who was not very interested in
the cut of his tail, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a long
time. Why do you keep on swearing By the Lion and By the Lion’s Mane? I thought you hated lions.”
“So I do,” answered Bree. “But when I speak of the Lion, of course I mean Aslan, the great deliverer of Narnia who drove away the Witch and the Winter. All Narnians swear by him.”
“But is he a lion?”
“No, no, of course not,” said Bree in a rather shocked voice.
“All the stories about him in Tashbaan say he is,” replied Aravis. “And if he isn’t a lion why do you call him a lion?”
“Well,
you’d hardly understand that at your age,” said Bree. “And I was only a
little foal when I left so I don’t quite fully understand it myself.”
(Bree
was standing with his back to the green wall while he said this, and
the other two were facing him. He was talking in rather a superior tone
with his eyes half shut; that was why he didn’t see the changed
expression in the faces of Hwin and Aravis. They had good reason to have
open mouths and staring eyes, because while Bree spoke they saw an
enormous lion leap up from outside and balance itself on the top of the
green wall; only it was a brighter yellow and it was bigger and more
beautiful and more alarming than any lion they had ever seen. And at
once it jumped down inside the wall and began approaching Bree from
behind. It made no noise at all. And Hwin and Aravis couldn’t make any
noise themselves, no more than if they were frozen.)
“No doubt,”
continued Bree, “when they speak of him as a Lion, they only mean he’s
as strong as a lion or (to our enemies, of course) as fierce as a lion.
Or something of that kind. Even a little girl like you, Aravis, must see
that it would be quite absurd to suppose he is a real lion.
Indeed it would be disrespectful. If he was a lion he’d have to be a
Beast just like the rest of us. Why!” (and here Bree began to laugh) “If
he was a lion he’d have four paws, and a tail, and Whiskers! . . . Aie, ooh, hoo-hoo! Help!”
For just as he said the word Whiskers
one of Aslan’s had actually tickled his ear. Bree shot away like an
arrow to the other side of the enclosure and there turned; the wall was
too high for him to jump and he could fly no further. Aravis and Hwin
both started back. There was about a second of intense silence. Then
Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh, and trotted
across to the Lion.
“Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”
“Dearest
daughter,” said Aslan, planting a lion’s kiss on her twitching, velvet
nose, “I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be
yours.”
Then he lifted his head and spoke in a louder voice:
“Now,
Bree,” he said, “you poor, proud frightened Horse, draw near. Nearer
still, my son. Do not dare not to dare. Touch me. Smell me. Here are my
paws, here is my tail, these are my whiskers. I am a true Beast.”
From The Horse and His Boy
Compiled in A Year with Aslan
The Horse and His Boy.
Copyright © 1954 by C. S. Lewis Pte., Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1982 by
C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of
HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia.
Copyright © 2010 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Extracts taken from The
Chronicles of Narnia. Copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1950-1956. All
rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.