Volume 7 Number 4 Article 3

12-15-1981

The Host of Heaven: Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of C.S. Lewis (Part 2)

Nancy-Lou Patterson

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Recommended Citation Patterson, Nancy-Lou (1981) "The Host of Heaven: Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of C.S. Lewis (Part 2)," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 7 : No. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/3

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

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Abstract Study of the astrological symbolism present in Lewis’s fantasies. Part 2 covers the Chronicles of and Till We Have Faces.

Additional Keywords Astrology in C.S. Lewis; Divinity in C.S. Lewis; Lewis, C.S. Chronicles of Narnia—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Chronicles of Narnia—Symbolism of divinity; Lewis, C.S. Space Trilogy—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Space Trilogy—Symbolism of divinity; Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces—Symbolism of divinity; Nancy-Lou Patterson; Edith Crowe

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/3 THE HOST OF HEAVEN ASTROLOGICAL AND OTHER IMAGES OF DIVINITY IN THE FANTASIES OF C.S. LEWIS PART II NANCY-LOU PATTERSON

II. The Mountains of for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva the Lord of Victory salutes Alambil the Lady of Peace.”7 The world of the interplanetary trilogy The tutor has called this lesson "astronomy;" is, granting the elements of science fiction in tw entieth-century B ritain and North America, and of the m atter of B ritain conflated within it is called "astrology." it, our world. As such it is not by any means a "secondary creation." Narnia too is some­ Not surprisingly, in a land where animals thing of a contingent universe, but in a dif­ can talk and even the trees are ambulatory and ferent sense. In That Hideous Strength. Dr.- inhabited by lissome intelligences, the stars Dimble tells Camilla that "something we may themselves are alive. We meet the first of them call B ritain is always haunted by something in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: he is the we may call Logres."1 There is for every magician . Lucy (the seeress of Narnia) people, Ransom adds, "its own haunter."2 The "saw coming towards them an old man, barefoot, archetypes are always present, just "the other dressed in a red robe. His white hair was side of the invisible w all."3 Something of crowned with a chaplet of oak leaves, his beard that dependency exists for Narnia as well: she fell to his girdle, and he supported himself with is created in the presence of human onlookers; a curiously carved staff."8 This being, we learn humans also witness her end. Her corrupter is later, is a star who "might have shone for thou­ a witch from the dead world of but she sands of years more in the southern winter sky," has been brought to Narnia by human agency. but was condemned for some "fault a star can And it is for the sake of a human traitor commit," to inhabit a small island and rule that Aslan intervenes, is killed, and is res­ over the foolish Duffers. He does so by what urrected. What is more, Narnia, like B ritain, he calls ruefully, "this rough magic"9 --a term is but a "shadow or a copy of the real Narnia," from The Tempest, whose magical ruler Prospero as Digory explains to Peter in The Last Bat­ is thus invoked. Lewis remarks of Coriakin, tle . There is an achetypal Narnia just as "the Magician him self drank only wine and ate there is an archetypal Britain. "It’s all in only bread"10 --as did Princess Irene's father Plato, all in Plato," Digory exclaims. And in in George M acdonald's The Princess and Curdle, the very last chapter of the Narnian Chron­ another invocation by Lewis of a w hite-haired icles, "Farewell to Shadow-Lands," we learn patriarch. Aslan himself says, "Many stars that all lands, physical or fictional, pri­ w ill grow, old and come to take their rest in mary or secondary, are part of A slan's country. islan d s."11 Mr. Tumnus explains: But the stars in Narnia, or at least their That country and this country, all the progeny, are not always old. Toward the end of real countries—are only spurs jutting his journey in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. out from the great mountains of A slan.4 meets his future bride, the daughter of the star : Most of what I propose to discuss in this section of my paper is thus dependent upon the Now they could see that it was a tall girl, elements of Narnian life which reveal these dressedin a single long garment of clear affinities. I w ill begin, however, with cer­ blue which left her arms bare. She was tain differences. Lewis has taken care to pro- bare-headed and her yellow hair hung down v id e Narnia with its own astrology. In Prince her back. And when they looked at her Caspian. Dr. Cornelius, Prince Caspian's new they thought they had never before known tutor, tells him: "To-night I am going to give what beauty meant.12 you a lesson in astronomy. At dead of night two noble planets, Tarva and Alambil, w ill She carried "a tall candle set in a silver can- pass within one degree of each other. Such a dle-stick," the flame of which burned "straight conjunction has not occurred for two hundred and still." Presently we meet Ramandu himself: years."5 The boy and his teacher observe this splendid sight from a tower, watching as the . . . there came a figure as tall and planets "hung rather low in the southern sky, straight as the g irl's but not so slender. almost as bright as two little moons and very It carried no light but light seemed to close together."6 Dr. Cornelius explains this come from it. As it came nearer, Lucy saw event to Caspian: "The great lords of the upper that it was like an old man. His silver sky know the steps of their dance . . . Their beard_came down to his bare feet in front meeting is fortunate and means some great good and his silver hair hung down to his heels 13 Narnian stars, upon Tellurian models. Some are even frankly visitors from our world, but in line with my treatm ent of these images as parts of a continuum, I w ill speak of the less earthly first. There is in Narnia an Anti-Aslan, the god .

In the shadow of the trees on the far side of the clearing something was moving . . . it was grey and you could see things through it. But the deathly smell [""Is there a dead bird somewhere about?"] was not the smell of smoke . . . It was roughly the shape of a man but it had the head of a bird; some bird of prey with a cruel, curved beak. It had four arms . . . and its fing­ ers—all twenty of them--were curved like its beak and had long, pointed, bird-like claws instead of nails. It floated on the grass instead of walking, and the grass seemed to w ither beneath it.17 '

Aslan, the divine Lion, is opposed by another form of animal being; as the lion is in origin a Mesopotamian image, so Tash seems modelled upon the metamorphic en tities of Mesopotamia, often depicted as attendant genii of the Tree of Life in their art. One of the most moving moments in the Narnian Chronicles occurs in The Last B attle when Emeth, the pious young Calormere (his name is the Hebrew word for "truth") meets Aslan; Emeth tells the story him self, describing how all his life he has served Tash, but upon seeing the Lion, he knows immediately to whom his true service is due. Aslan, he reports, said to him, behind and his robe appeared to be made "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I from the fleece of silver sheep. He looked account as service to me.” Emeth continues: so mild and grave that once more all the travellers rose to their feet and stood in But I said also (for truth constrained me), s i l e n c e . 1 3 Yet I have been seeking Tash a ll my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy This "Old Man" tells them, "I was a long way desire had been for me thou wouldst not have above the air . . . the days when I was a star sought so long and so.truly. For all find had ceased long before any of you know this what they truly seek.18 world, and all the constellations have changed." 14He is, as Edmund, says, "a retired star," a This element in Lewis's understanding of the rela­ star at rest." It is he who gently chides Eu­ tionship of C hrist—for Aslan is He—to all other stace that a ball of flaming gas is "not what a religion seems to me one of his most important star is but what it is made of." One day, he contributions to the faith he served all his days. says, "when I have become as young as the child And it is his exquisite courtesy in this matter that was born yesterday, then I shall take my which inspired me to write the present essay, one rising again (for we are at earth's eastern I would dedicate to Gracia Fay Ellwood, who first rim) and once more tread the great dance." suggested to me that a Christian might learn from astrology as well as from other religions some I have wondered if perhaps there is a third truths about God. Perhaps it is only in the com­ descended star in Narnia—the Hermit of the pany of Aslan, however, that these aspects of the Southern March, Lewis describes him in The creation may be confronted in safety; hence my Horse and His Bov: "In the middle of the gate­ e p i g r a p h . way stood a ta ll man dressed, down to his bare feet, in a robe coloured like autumn leaves, I have referred above to Phyllis Ackerman's leaning on a straight staff. His beard fell interesting essay, "Stars and Stories." Her most almost to his knees." At any rate, there is intriguing association is that of Dionysus with one more scene in the Narnian Chronicles in a star motif. Plutrarch, she says, called him which the Narnian stars appear; in The Last Bat­ "the Night Sun;" Pindar, "the pure star;” and tle , when Father Time, at A slan's bidding, winds Sophocles (in Antigone), "the leader of the fire- his horn, and "immediately the sky became full breathing stars ."19 The. phrase "the leader" was a of shooting stars.”15 This "rain of stars" con­ Babylonian usage for Sirius, the brightest star in tinues until the sky is empty, for "all the the northern heavens and especially noticeable stars were falling: Aslan had called them (on the horizon) at the vintage season. And, h o m e ." 16 Ackerman says, "'the stars aflame with fire' of Lewis explains; which gjonysus as Sirius was Leader were the P lei­ ades."20 She describes a second-century gnostic . . . the stars in that world were not the version of the fam ilar Matthew 1:2 Epiphany nar­ great flaming globes they are in ours. They rative in which "there appeared to them an angel are people . . . So now they found showers in the form of that star." The star in this case of glittering people, all with long hair like was, she says, Sirius, and "the Mazdean angel of burning silver and spears like white-hot met­ that star, Tishtriya, was himself in direct charge al, rushing down on them out of the black of leading the Magi to see and shower with gifts air, sw ifter than falling stones. the infant —a befitting mission for Tish­ triya, a beneficent deity."21 The Epiphany is These stars, like the animals and trees of Narnia, the oldest feast of the birth of Christ, and cele­ are indigenes. But there are other beings present, brates the coming of the Magi (a title used for both benign and malign, including divinities. the astrologers of ancient Persia) by the leading Some of these are patterned more closely than the of a star. This star, Ackerman is saying, was 14 associated with Dionysus (Bacchus), acting as a latter phrase appears as a m otif in Dracula. herald for the coming of C hrist. uttered by the madman (not Dracula) who tries to increase his life by consuming other lives, be­ In Prince Caspian, Aslan returns to the ginning with flies and spiders. Dodds says of Narnia he has created and redeemed, a second the god, "He may appear in many forms, vegetable, time. As the children who have summoned his aid bestial, human, and he is eaten in many forms." stand watching, "Low down in the East, A ravir, the He makes the final suggestion that there once morning star of Narnia, gleamed like a little existed "a more potent . . . form of this sacra­ moon. Aslan, who seemed larger than before lif­ ment . . . the rending, and . the eating, ted his dead, shook his mane, and roared."22 In of God in the shape of man."29 As Edmund says, response, all Narnia wakens, and in their m idst, "There's a chap who might do anything--absolutely Lucy sees that anything." The God who gives, not another's body and blood to be eaten, but His own, is He who One was a youth, dressed only in a fawn- greets the Pevensie children in the last chapter skin, with vine-leaves wreathed in his curly of The Last B attle, when "He no longer looked to hair. His face would have been almost too them like a lion." pretty for a boy's, if it had not looked so extremely wild. You felt, as Edmund said The calling of N arnia's peoples by Aslan when he saw him a few days later, "There's a arouses more than Bacchus/Dionysus and his mae­ chap who might do anything--absolutely any­ nads: there are "certain other people" as well. thing." He seemed to have a great many In The Discarded Image. Lewis quotes M artianus names—Bromios, Bassareus, and the Ram were C apella's "dancing companies of Longaevi who three of them. There were a lot of girls haunt woods, glades and groves, and lakes and with him, as wild as he . . . And everybody springs and brooks; whose names-are Pans, Fauns, was laughing; and everybody-was shouting out, . . . Satyrs, Silvans, Nymphs."30 The first "Euan, euan, eu-oi-oi-oi."23 Narnian we meet in all the Chronicles is, of course, Tumnus: anybody who does not remember "Bromios" means "The Thunderer."24 Many of the de­ Lewis's enchanting description of him, which tails of Lewis's description of Bacchus probably culminates in the laconic assertain, "He was a come from the Bacchae of Euripides: Faun," has not yet read The Lion, the W itch. Joyful on the mountains— and the Wardrobe. and is advised to do so at once, When from the rushing dancing throng for the passage is unforgettable. sinks he to the ground, With his holy fawnskin round him, are filled with Lon­ Pursuing blood, slaughter of goats, gaevi, and it is not part of my study to examine Joy of raw flesh devoured, them in detail, except to say that they come from Pressing on to the mountains of Phrygia, Lydia, the same world that gave us Dionysus/Bacchus. A And the leader is Bromios! famous frieze, "The Retinue of Dionysus" (or "The E u o i ! Triumph of Bacchus"), on a sarcophagus in the And the ground is flowing with milk, flowing N ational Museum, Naples, shows us exactly the w i t h w i n e , scene described in Prince Caspian, including With the nectar of bees;25 Silenus transported on a donkey: satyrs, fauns, centaurs, maenads, erotes, and the Lord Dionysus On the conclusion of Lewis's sequence, after a mad him self, depicted as a beautiful youth lounging romp with the Lion and his companions including in his Car. these, Susan confides in Lucy:

"The boy with the wild face is Bacchus and the old one on the donkey is Silenus . . ." "Yes, of course. But I say, Lu—" " W h a t? " "I wouldn't have felt very safe with Bacchus and' all his wild g irls if we'd met them w ithout Aslan." "I should think not."

E.R. Dodds in his The Greeks and the Irration- al makes Dionysus (whom the Romans called Bacchus) thus patron of telestic or ritual madness. By the wild dancing and repairing to mountain fastnesses, his followers found a ritu al outlet for the "infec­ tious irrational im pulses."26 He gave them the freedom to stop being them selves: "There must have been a time when the maenads or thyriads or [Bacchae] really became . . . wild women whose per­ sonality has been tem porarily replaced by another,." still, one cannot know if these acts took place in Euripides' time, Dodds says, w riting in 1951, before the resurgence of interest in altered states of con- sciousness made us more likely to expect ecstatic behaviour.27

Dodds compares the maenadic behavioural traits with those known to anthropology from many cultures and finds them characteristic of ecstatic behaviour: drumming, head-tossing, baby­ stealing, immunity to pain, snake-handling, and the tearing to pieces and eating raw of a wild animal. As Dodds says, "if you want to be like god you must eat god . . . And you must eat him quick and raw . . . for 'the blood is the life'."28 The 15 Satyrs are "the peculiar attendants of Dionysus,” Guthrie says;38 they come from a past already deep in C lassical times. They may derive aetio- logically from w arrior dance rites of extreme antiquity. There are whirling male dancers painted on the walls of the earliest N eolithic Anatolian villages, wearing spotted leopardskins (and Dionysus often rides a leopard in art). Pan, the god of the flocks, is also a part-man, part-goat being, a phallic divinity of the shep­ herd's world.39 The same physical appearance is shared by the fauns, who were associated in Roman thought with Faunus, a god of field and pasture (conflated with the Greek Pan). Fauns are half- man, half goat too: their upper bodies are human (except for goatish horns), but their lower bodies are those of goats, shaggy limbs, cleft hooves and all. In Roman tradition, Faunus had taught humankind to plant crops and breed stock.40 The faun Tumnus, described by Lewis, figures as the psychopomp or escort into the world of Narnia for Lucy in The Lion. The W itch, and The W ardrobe. He may derive his name in part from the shape- changing Roman god Vertumnus (the Latin word vertere means "to change"), who was an associate of Silvanus, a forest god often confused with (and hence associated with) Faunus (Roman) and Pan (Greek). Centaurs, part-man and part-horse, were given their "definitive appearance) in the time of Phidias (they were carved in this form on the frieze of the Parthenon) and. this is the shape that Lewis gives to them. 41 Nymphs, in ancient Greece, were feminine beings associated with natural objects.42 Oreads were mountain nymphs, M eliae and Dryads were tree nymphs, Clearly the tree spirits, river deities, Naiads were fresh water nymphs, and Nereids were nymphs, and fauns, are nature spirits, and Aslan sea nymphs. They were indeed long-livers: there has created them along with Narnia. In The is a fragment of Hesiod suggesting their length M agician's Nephew we read his creative word of days: it adds up to one hundred thousand years. "Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. The< life of a dryad was "bound up with her tree," Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. and trees are indeed the longest-living things.43 Be d i v i n e w a t e r s . "31And w ithin moments of this primal event, "Out of the trees wild people Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology made stepped forth, gods and goddesses of the wood; the interesting comment that "Jan's body holds a with them came Fauns and Satyrs and Dwarfs. Out medium between those of a giant and the elf."44 of the river?rose the river god and his Naiad The dwarf is even sm aller than the elf, and is daughters. " 32 On Trajan's column in Rome, a always old, beings "a greybeard in the seventh" river god lifts up his bearded head to see a year of his life.45 The dwarf is a figure of group of Roman soldiers sack a city: how much Indo-European mythology, appearing in Sanskrit the more, then, should a river god rise up to see texts as well as those of the North: the same is the triumph of Aslan! true of the giant, for the Titans of Greek thought were giants. But the particular form of dwarf In addition to these beings from the cultures and giant used by Lewis is that of Norse myth. of Greece and Rome, the dwarfs and giants of Nar­ Of giants, Grimm says, "By so much of bodily size nia are modelled upon Norse mythology. H.R. E llis and strength as man surpasses the . . . dwarf, he in her Gods and Myths of Northern Europe gives falls short of the giant: on the other hand, the the tales concerning these beings which were pre­ race of . . . dwarfs has a livelier intellect and served by the Christian w riter Snorri in the Prose subtle sense than that of men, and these points Edda, of the primal earth giant, the frost-giants, the giant falls far below mankind."46 These traits the dwarfs "who bred in the earth like maggots"33 Lewis uses for his giants (notoriously stupid, but and the various affairs of "The Giants and the divided between good-hearted and evil-hearted) and Dwarfs,"34 to which she devotes a whole section. his dwarfs, which in The Last B attle are too I am glossing over these catalogues of beings lively-m inded for their own good, sticking to as if my readers w ill recognize fauns, centaurs, their own opinions to the point of refusing to giants, and dwarfs by the mere mention of them. go into A slan's country when N arnia's end is come. This recognition is part of my own life because as a child I both studied C lassical and Norse In contrast with beings from the essentially mythology, and read the myths for my own pleasure. benign catalogue of Martianus C apella--the longae- If children no longer do this, they can still vi—Lewis has also w ritten of beings like those in know these beings personally, because they have a passage he quotes, in The Discarded Image, from their life in the Narnian Chronicles. Lewis said M ilton's Comus: "Blue meagre Hag . . . unlaid of himself that he was the last of the Old Western ghost--/G oblin or swart Faery"47 from Beowulf, Men, and that is nowhere more true than in this! "vlfe ["-o gres and elves and evil shade—/ also giants"],48 and from Reginald Scott, "spirits, Silenus, a part of the retinue of Dionysus witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, in Greek thought, just as Lewis shows him, is pans, faunes, sylens, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, a "cheerful drunkard" who has been the tutor of giants, nymphs, Incubus, Robin Good fellow ." One t h e g o d . 35 His name comes from the Sileni, rural thinks of the "dull grey voice,"49 which belonged divinities from Phrygia, who personified rivers to a "Wer-wolf"50 who with a Hag has been sum­ and springs.36 Satyrs are forest sp irits who com­ moned by the dwarf Nikabrik in Prince Saspian: all bine in their appearance the monkey and the goat: three--dw arf included—are dispatched by the end Hesiod remarked on their sensuality and cheer.37 of the chapter "Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance." 16 Lewis gives for the Longaevi (which include, One last figure from our world makes a brief beyond the beings already mentioned, the "High appearance in Narnia, and an examination of his Fairies," four medieval explanations: 1) "that role there (and of his origins here), suggests they are a third^rational species distinct from the rightness of what some readers reportedly angels and men,"51 2) "that they are angels, but regard as an intrusion. "He was a huge man in a a special class of angels who have been . . . 'de­ bright red robe (bright as holly-berries) with moted' [rather like Coriakin];3) "52 "That they a hood that had fur inside it and a great white are dead;"53 and 4) in an answer extracted under beard that fell like a foamy w aterfall over his torture, "That th e y are fallen angels: in other c h e s t .This "59 figure, based upon the B ritish words, devils."54 The result of the last was that Father Christmas rather than upon the North "A churchyard or brimstone smell came to hang American Santa Claus, "was so big and so glad, about . . . them" and the High Fairies were "ex­ and so real, that they all became quite still. pelled by a darkening pf superstition."55 Lewis They felt very glad, but also solemn." He gives for his part has illum inated again 'these, lovely presents to the Pevensie children and their peoples, and has given to Arbol’s fields, eldila guides: a repaired dam to the Beavers, a shield (angels), hrossa, sorns, p fifltrig g i, Perelandrians and sword to Peter, a bow and quiver and an (Tor and T in id ril), and humankind, while making ivory horn to Susan, a bottle of cordial "of the Narnia home to animals, Longaevi, and stars. juice of one of the fire-flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun,"6 0 anda new dagger to Lucy. A world in which animals speak, trees walk, "Then he cried out 'A Merry Christmas! Long live and everything is inhabited by or is a m anifesta­ the true King!' and cracked his whip and he and tion of spirit, is a shamanistic world. I have the reindeer and the sledge and all were out of lready quoted E. C. Dodds on elements of the s i g h t . " 6 1 irrational in Greek religion. E.A.S. Butterworth, in his Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World in The reindeer as an element in the description Greek Literature and Myth has pointed out strik ­ give a significant clue to the role of Father ing elements of shamanic cosmology underlying the Christmas in The Lion, The W itch, and The Ward­ later rationalizations of Olympism religion. It robe . Lewis tells us that his reindeer "were far is not part of my intention to delve deeply into bigger than the W itch's reindeer, and they were the question of what Greek religion "really" or not white but brown." The Lion, it seems is not "originally" was"-readers w ill have seen that I the direct opponent of the Witch: rather, Father have relied upon the most public, developed, Christmas, like her an invader from another received versions of Greek mythology, for these world, is her antagonist and opposite. His sire the versions handed down through medieval and weapons w ill figure in all that humans (or Narn- Renaissance periods to the era of Lewis and our­ ians) can do to oppose her. Her ultim ate defeat selves. Nevertheless, Lewis has seized upon pre­ is at the hands of One who does not do battle at cisely the aspects of Greek (and Norse) world a l l . view that are oldest, most prim itive, m ost--in the literal sense of the word--pagan (it means Readers may now compare Lew is's Father "country person"--paganus). As Lucy said, "when Christmas with that of J.R.R. Tolkien, in The trees dance, it must be a very, very country Father Christmas Letters ( 1976), for more light dance indeed."56 Lewis wrote in an essay quoted on the conventional figure of B ritish "popular in They Asked for a Paper, that "Christians and culture," c. 1920-30. A famous work of folk-lore Pagans had much more in common with each other originally published in 1912 describes this fig­ than either has with a post-Christian. The gap ure as "a sort of incarnation of Christmas between those who worship different gods is not [rather] than a saint with a day of his own."62 so wide as that between those who worship and Most pregnantly for the appearance of Father those who do not." The kind of pagan Lewis had Christmas in Narnia, Clement M iles suggests, "In in mind he embodied in Emeth, the follower of England there are signs that supernatural v isit- Truth. Something of this thought may be seen in Patm ore's aphorism in Knowledge and Science:

The Pagan who simply believed in the myth of Jupiter, Alcmena, and Hercules, much more, he who had been initiated into the unspeakable names of Bacchus and Persephone, knew more of living Christian doctrine than any "Christ- an" who refuses to call Mary the "Mother of G o d ." 5 7

Lewis's expression of this idea is characteristi­ cally more eirenic.

The universe of the Narnian Chronicles Lewis has summarized in his introduction to D. E. Hard­ ing's Heirarchv of Heaven and Earth:

At the outset, the universe appears packed with w ill, intelligence, life and positive qualities: every tree is a nymph and every planet a god. Man himself is akin to the gods. The advance of knowledge grad­ ually empties this rich and genial universe: first of its gods, then of its colours, smells, sounds and tastes, finally of solid­ ity itselfoas solidity was originally im agined.58

Lewis has made it his task to restore these traits to their original position, having con­ cluded perhaps, that he must make his readers good Pagans before he could make them good C hristians. 17 ors were form erly looked for during the Twelve as well. "The reindeer were about the size of Days [between Christm as and Epiphany—December 25 Shetland ponies and their hair was so white that and January 6].”63 This sacral period which sur­ even the snow hardly looked white compared with rounds the supremely transitional moment when the them; their branching horns were gilded and shone suns' power ceases to wane and begins to wax, is like something on fire when the sunshine caught fraught with peculiars dangers (as that the dead them. Their harnass-was of scarlet leather and may return or devils break in)--Christm astim e is covered with b ells.”70 The lady these marvellous the popular season for telling ghost stories in beasts accompany and transport, owes a great deal England. Benign happenings, too, are associated to a story with a number of elements of northern with Christmas Eve, the beginning of this season: shamanism in it, including a Lappish sorceress. especially appropriate to Narnia is the tradition The of Narnia closely resem bles the "that on Christmas Eve animals have the power of Snow Queen of Hans C hristian Anderson's m aster­ speech."64 Saturn, patron of the Saturnalia— piece. Lewis says of the White W itch's coming the ancient Roman festival of the W inter Solstice "there swept into sight a sledge drawn by two which gave many of its customs to Christm as-- reindeer,"71 and Edmund sees that "in the middle is, as we have seen, Time, and Father Christmas of the sledge sat . . . a great lady . . . She comes to Narnia to prepare the Sons of Adam and was covered in white fur up to her throat."72 Daughters of Eve —-that is, human beings from Lewis's description of her is striking: Earth—for the advent of Aslan. The White Witch is an alien (from Charn), as we learn in The Her face was white—not merely pale, but M agician's Nephew. Aslan, however, returns to white like snow or paper or icing sugar, his own Creation. Father Christmas is thus the except for her very red mouth. It was a appropriate E lijah/St. John Baptist to this beautiful face in other respects, but apocalyptic event, for he appears to human (Eng­ proud and cold and stem . lish) children. He is no more alien than the White Witch and forms a foil to her; he is the In another place, Lucy explains the White W itch's anti-w itch, not Aslan. The Witch is thus no role: "she has made a magic so it is always winter Anti-Aslan but a visitant brought to Narnia by in N am i a--always w inter, but it never gets to human agency. Lewis's audacious capacity to bap­ Christm as."74 With the arrival of Father Christmas, tize the gods is as active in the Father Christmas the light (Aslan) is heralded, and after him, the sequence as anywhere. Spring arrives, in a sequence of heartbreaking b e a u t y . For there is more, it appears, to the charac­ ter of Father Christmas than the saintly or seas­ The parallels between Lewis's description of onal: W illiam Sansom calls him,-"half St. Nicholas the White W itch and Anderson's of the Snow Queen and half an ancient Yule god." 65 He asks, "who are striking. In Kay's first vision of her, she else even went in and out by the chimney? Early appears to him in a snowflake: "She was pretty and hearth-gods and gods of the yule-log."66 distinguished-looking, but a figure of ice . . . Pursuing this theme, he muses, "There has always Yet she was alive; her eyes stared like two been a varying male yule-figure . . . often a bright„stars, but there was no peace of quiet in Silenus, sometimes a hoary old man, his head them ."75 A fter the magic bits of glass enter his often wreathed in m istletoe and holly, his gown eye and heart, he cares only for snowflakes seen varying in colour, white, red, green, or fustian through a magnifying glass, rather like Eustace. brown."67 He concludes—by a dazzling syncretic Presently, "a large sledge drew up, all painted leap—that "this old man of Christmas is a later dead white. In it sat a figure, muffled in a impersonator of Saturn--who ate his own children white fur coat and wearing a white fur cap."76 . . . allied to the Carthaginian Baal-Hammon, a As Kay looks, "the driver stood up. Coat and cap ram-homed male god to whom children were sacri­ were pure snow; it was a woman, ta ll and straight, ficed . . . The devil of course was also Beelze­ white and g litterin g ."77 When Kay is rescued at bub, Baal (Lord of the F lies)."68 The European last from the Snow Queen's grip by the pure Santa Claus figures are accompanied by beings maiden Gerda, as they leave her Palace of ice to­ (often hairy and horned) who transport his puni­ gether, Spring begins. Readers who know this tive switches and (shades of human sacrifice) story in its entirety, rather than from abbrevia­ ashes. In fact, we are here at a point rather ted or animated versions, w ill be aware of the earlier than Babylon: horns and hair take us Christian elements in it, and w ill not be sur­ back to the shamanic universe. Joan Vastokas, prised at the apposite nature of Lewis's use of an eminent authority on Canadian Native art, it as a source. w r i t e s :

Another component of contemporary Christmas folklore, probably having shaman- I I I . T h e G od o f L o v e istic roots, is Santa Claus himself. Like a shaman, he descends to earth from the sky Lewis's m asterpiece, T ill We Have Faces, has through the smoke-hole (chimney) after a been analysed by a number of distinguished w ri­ magical flight through the air, assisted by ters, and I have already mentioned some of its his guardian and helping spirits, the rein­ elements, especially his Ungit/Venus. My paper deer. Reindeer, moreover, are animals of the has been devoted to Lewis's use of m ythological sub-Arctic tundra, where Eurasian shamanism beings, especially the planetary deities and their and the sacred birch trees once flourished associates. I shall discuss only one figure from and where reindeer were im portant sham anistic this novel, the character of Cupid, who is Eros, guardians. These northern origins are, in the son of Aphrodite/Venus. This divinity is fact, retained in curre nt folklore, for described in Lewis's source, the story within a Santa's abode is in the north where, within story in The Golden Ass of Apuleius, as "her sham anistic ideology, shamans are b o rn .69 winged son Eros, alias Cupid, that very wicked boy, with neither manneis nor respect for the The relationship of this complex of ideas, not decencies."1 When Psyche's father offers her up only to Tolkien's ,ieu d' esprit for his children, for her "dreadful wedding"2 she "was left alone with his letters from the North Pole, but to weeping and trem bling at the very top of the h ill, Lewis's Narnia with its theme of Northernness, until a friendly west wind suddenly sprang up."3 is left to the reader to ponder. I The wind bears her to a beautiful valley where in wandering she comes upon a palace, the description I have given above Lewis's description of the of which causes the reader to agree that it is reindeer of Father Christmas; as might be expected, "too wonderfully made to be the work of anyone but the reindeer of the White Witch, are vividly evoked a god." Ensconced within, she eventually hears 18 "the whisper of her unknown husband," who makes storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet." her his wife.5 Her happiness is to be spoiled (Nahum 1:3) Lewis’s Psyche says, "And he took by her jealous sisters, and she begs her husband me . . . in his beautiful arms which seemed to to let her have sight of him: she only knows him bum me (though the burning didn't hurt)” just by her tactile sense: "these fragrant curls as Apuleius's Cupid presses Psyche to his breast dangling all around your head: these cheeks as of "extraordinary heat." tender and smooth as my own; this breast which gives out such extraordinary heat."6 Finally Jung reminds us that "In Thebes the chief her sisters' goadings drive her to the fateful god Khnum, in his cosmogonic aspect, represented act: by the light of a forbidden lamp she sees the wind-breath, from which the 'sp irit' fpneumal her husband with her own eyes: "there lay the of God goving over the w aters' was later devel­ gentlest and sweetest of all wild creatures, Cupid oped,"12 and describes Indra (a Hindu divinity) him self, the beautiful Love-God."7 as the "psychopomp who delivers souls to the wind, to the generating pneuma, the individual Our anticipation (by this time as keen as and universal prana (life-breath), to save them Psyche's) is rewarded: from 'repeated death'."13 In Psyche's case the West-wind is indeed a psychopomp, for it is . . . she stared at Cupid's divine beauty: Psyche (soul) herself who is borne up in his arms. his golden hair, washed with nectar and still The magical heat and the magical flight are alike scented with it, thick curls straying over elements of shamanic experience, as is the white neck and flushed cheeks and falling experience of Orual who descends to the P illar prettily entangled on either side of his Room "of living rock" where she is stripped, head—hair so bright that the flame of the like Ishtar, of her veil, and understands her lamp winked in the radiant light reflected identification with the goddess (called Ungit from it. At his shoulders grew soft wings in Lewis's novel). of the purest white, and though they were at rest, the tender down fringing the feathers A propos of the heat, the burning of the quivered naughtily all the time. The rest of "beautiful arms" of West-wind, and the "extraordi­ his body was so smooth and beautiful that nary heat" of Cupid's breast, Mircea Eliade tells Venus could never have been ashamed to us, "many prim itives think of the m agico-reli- acknowledge him as her son. At the foot of gious power as 'burning,' and express it by the bed lay this great god's bow, quiver and terms meaning heat, burn, very hot."14 He adds, a r r o w s . 8 "In modern India, the Mohammedans believe that a man in.communication with God becomes 'burning Considering the sensual riches of these passages, hot'."15 As Elijah says in I Kings 18:24, "the Lewis has wisely refrained from direct description God that answereth by fire, let him be God." As of the god. His novel is a book for grown-ups: I to magic flight and descent, Eliade states, "on suspect he may have thought--or at least hoped— the plane of prim itive religions ecstasy signifies that his readers might have been fam iliar with the soul's flight to Heaven . . . o r , finally, its Apuleius. At any rate, he begins his evocation descent to the subterranean world, among the of the "god of the Grey Mountain" to whom Psyche dead."16 He continues, in describing shamanic is to be sacrificed, with the approach of the initiation in particular, "in many regions the "West-wind"—as I read the novel, the God of the candidate is believed to v isit the sky," while Grey Mountain and West-wind are in fact the same "other initiations involve a descent to the personage. Like Apuleius's "wicked boy," realm of the dead; for example, the future Lewis's "West-wind is a merry, rough god."9 His medicine man . . . is transported underground." appearance is described by Psyche to her sister Psyche, in T ill We Have Faces, functions as a O r u a l : healer, the characteristic shamanic role.

"The wind got wilder and wilder. It In Orual's case, of her identification with seemed to be liftin g me off the ground so Ungit, Lewis w rites, "Ungit in each must bear that, if it hadn't been for the iron round U ngit's son." ' At the end of her revelatory my w aist, I'd have been blown right away, ordeal, Orual perceives that "The most dreadful, up in the air. And then--at last--for a the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty moment—I saw him." there is was coming"18 for "The god is coming "Saw whom?" into his house." A t-this point, Orual finds that "The W est-wind." she also is Psyche.19 In the Eleusinian mysteries " Saw i t ? " at the highest moment, the heirophant announced, "Not it: him. The god of the wind: "She who is M agnificent has given birth to a West-wind him self." sacred child, Brimo." In this case, Earth has "Were you awake, Psyche?" borne Wheat, for the god was exhibited as a "ripe "Oh, it was no dream. One can't dream ear of grain,"20 in a manner sim ilar to the things like that. He was in human shape. lifting up in Christian rites, of the sacred Host. But you couldn't mistake him for a man. Oh, Indeed, in the Eleusinian m ysteries the physical Sister, yould understand if you'd seen. How mystery of earth and grain is an image of the can I make you understand?" spiritual mystery of divinity and humanity It is almost possible to say that in T ill We Have The B iblical word for spirit is ruach: S.G.F. Faces, God is known first in a female form, as Brandon says of it, "The Hebrews had the word Ungit: "Ungit in each must bear U ngit's son." ruach. usually translated 'sp irit,' to describe Jung says "certain early Christian sects gave a the outstanding mental and physical energy that maternal significance to the Holy Ghost," adding, characterized such men as E lijah."10 This is that "It is not without reason that the dove of Aphro­ wind that bloweth where it listeth (John 3:8). dite is the symbol of the Holy Ghost."21 Mary's apparitions at Lourdes were presaged by a wind: "Suddenly . . . Bernadette heard, as she put This beautiful idea is given vivid expression it, 'a sound of wind as though it were blowing up in an important essay which outlines the maternal for a storm'" and "The wild rose and the branches imagery of God in the Bible: "God reveals himself . . . 'were shaking to and fro, below the topmost to us in the Bible as not only like a father, and opening, but all around there was no movement . . like a husband, but also like a mother—even, by In the opening a moment later I saw a g irl in im plication, a virgin mother, for God is One and w hite.'"11 And of course, the "rushing, mighty the sole Source of all."22 God is seen as a wind" (Acts 2:2) of Pentecost heralds the coming maternal bird, as a rock, a tree, the sea, a womb, of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, "The a watering spring: all m otifs of the mother god­ LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the dess. When God is our mother, we are her sons: 19 Sons of God, whether male or female. U ngit's 50 Cumont, 1912: 64. divine son is in this sense "the god," who is 51 Dante A lighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradise, "the only dread and beauty there is." No wonder translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Rey­ Lewis refrains from describing him precisely, for nolds (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962) : 5 3 . "God is love," (I John 4:8) and this god of love 52 Lewis 1964: 111. 53 Lewis 1945: 343. i s G od; He o f whom M o s e s s a i d , " t h e LORD t h y G od 54 Ibid.: 337. 55 Lewis 1964: 108. is a consuming fire," (Deuteronomy 4:24) who, 56 C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (London: Geoffrey m anifesting Himself on the mountainside, bum s B les, 1955)* 39. but does not consume. 57 Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology (New York: Prometheus Press, i 960) : 5 6 . Compared to these audacities, the inclusion 58 John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology (London: of planetary divinities as parts of the universe H a m ly n , 1969): the quotation is from Malachi 4:2. seems almost commonplace, C hrist as a sun-lion, 59 Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chi­ almost a platitude. The gods are aspects of God's cago: U niversity of Chicago Press, 1963)* 44. Creation, but this God is God. The divine pair of 60 Larousse I960: 120. 61 Ibid.: 5 6 . Mars and Venus in the interplanetary trilogy are 6 2 I b i d . : 162 . 63 Ibid.: 223. 64 Lewis 1938: 140. here replaced by the divine Mother and her divine 65 C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (London: The Bodley Head! Son, who is the God "so masculine that we are all 1 9 4 3 ) : 126 . feminine" to Him, and thus, like Psyche, His 66 Lewis 1938: 168. 67 Lewis 1945: 355. brides. Indeed we are all, as members of His 68 Ibid.; 356. 69 Gray 1969: 53. 70 Ibid.: 17. one church—or by extension, one humanity of 71 Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chica­ whatever religion, one solar system, even one go: U niversity of Chicago Press, 1948):231. universe—one bride, to whom He comes like the 72 Ibid.: 237. 73 Larousse 1 960 : 5 0 . Bridegroom in the Song of Solomon (2:11-12), like 7 4 H e i d e l 1963 : 35, 48. 75 Lewis 1945: 404. Aslan into snow-bound Narnia: "For lo, the winter 76 Ibid.: 405. 77 Larousse 1 960 : 103 . is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers 78 I b i d . : 105 . 7 9 Ib i d . : 216 . appear on the earth; the time of the singing of 80 Lewis 1964: 105-1037 81 Lewis 1945: 403. birds is come, and the voice of the turtle[dove] 82 Lewis 1964: 105. 83 Larousse 1960: 5 8 . is heard in our land." 84 Ibid. : 89-96. 85 C.S. Lewis, (New York: Mac­ M othering Sunday m illan, 1953): 12 T. Lent IV, AD 1977 86 C.S. Lewis, The Last B attle (New York: Mac­ m illan, 1956): 148. 87 L e w is 1945 : 397 . 8 8 I b i d . : 3 7 8 . 89 I b i d . 90 Lewis 1964: 107. 91 Larousse i 960 : 63 . 92 Ibid.: 220. 93 Lewis 1945: 392. 94 Lewis 1964: 106. 95 Ibid.: 107 . 96 Larousse i 960 : 6 4 . 97 I b i d . : 2 1 4 . 98 Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root, and the FOOTNOTES Flower (New York: Books for L ibraries Press, 1968) : 67 . I. The Fields of Arbol 99 Lewis 1938: 134. 100 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York: 1 C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (New York: Oxford U niversity Press, 1923) : 1 9 1 . Macmillan. 1964): 93. 101 Ibid.: 192. 102 Lewis 1945: 391. 2 C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 103 Lewis 1945: 391. 104 Ibid.: 401. 105 Ibid. (New York: M acm illan,1953): 175. 106 Lewis 1943: 227. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid.: 228. 3 Lewis 1964: 96. 4 Ibid.: 98. 5 Ibid. 109 David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus (New 6 Ibid.: 104. ? Ibid.: 105. 8 Ibid.: 103. York: B allentine, 1968): 64. 9 I b i d . 10 Ibid.: 104. 11 I b i d . : 105 . 110 Lewis 1943: 228. Ill Ibid.: 229. 12 Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the 112 Ibid. : 230 . 113 Lewis 19^5* 392. Greeks and Romans (New York: Dover |_1912j): 37. 114 C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the C ollective 13 I b i d . : 3 0 . 14 Ibid.: 31 . 1 5 I b i d . : 32 . Unconscious (Princeton, N .J.: Bollingen, 1959): 82. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.: 6 . 18 Ibid.: 7. 115 Lewis 1945: 375-376. 116 Ibid.: 376. 1 9 I b i d . : 8 . 2 0 I b i d . : 10 . 117 Ibid. : 377. 21 See Alexander Marshak, The Roots of C iviliza­ 118 C.S. Lewis, T ill We Have Faces (New York: tion (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972). Harcourt Brace and Company, 1956): 4. 22 See G. S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded (New 119 Ibid. : 42. 120 Ibid.: 121 Lewis 1945: 341. York: Dell Publishing, 1966). 122 Ibid.: 392. 123 Ibid.: 398. 23 Phyllis Ackerman, "Stars and Stories," Myth and 124 Ibid.; 398-399. 125 Ibid.: 399. 126 Ibid. Mythmaking, Henry A. Murray, Editor (Boston: Bea­ 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid.: 400. 129 Patmore 19S8T" 103. con Press, i 960) : 93 . 130 Ibid.: 51. 131 Lewis 1945: 72. 24 Cumont 1912: 22. 25 Ibid.: 23. 26 Ibid.: 25. 132 Nancy-Lou Patterson, "Anti-Babels: Images of 27 Ibid.: 26. 28 Ibid.:~5S7 the Divine Centre in That Hideous Strength," 29 Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods Mythcon II Proceedings (Los Angeles: The Mytho- (Princeton, N .J.: Bollingen, 1972): v. poeic Society, 1972): 6-11. • 30 Ibid.: 37. 31 Ibid.: 41. 32 Ibid.: 42. 33 I b i d . : 43. 34 Ibid. : 5 2 . 35 I b i d . : 5 3 . II. The Mountains of Aslan 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.: 59. 38 I b i d . : 62 . 39 J.A. West and J.G. Toonder, The Case for Astro­ 1 Lewis 1945: 459. 2 Ibid. : 461. 3 Ibid.: 459. logy (New York: Coward-McCann, 1970): 170-192. 4 Lewis 1956: 172. 40 See C.G. Jung, Synchronicitv (Princeton, N .J.: 5 C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (New York: Macmillan, Bollingen, 19527, passim. 1951): 38-39. 41 Jeff Mayo, Astrology (London: St. Paul’s House, 6 Ibid.: 40. 7 I b i d . 8 Lewis, 1952: 134. 9 Ibid. 1 9 6 4 ) : 17. 10 I b i d . : 136 . 11 I b i d . : 135 . 12 I b i d . : I 67 . 42 Ibid.: 43 Ibid.: 19. 44 Ibid.: 21. 13 Ibid.: 171. 14 Ibid.: 175- 15 Lewis 1956: 143. 45 Jeff Mayo, The Planets and Human Behaviour 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.: 77- 18 Ibid.: 157. (London: L.N. Fowler, 1972): 2 5 . 19 Ackerman I960: 96 . 20 Ibid.: 97. 46 Lewis 1964: 106. 21 Ibid.: 100. 22 Lewis 1952: 129. 23 Ibid.: 131. 47 C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (London: 24 W.K.C. G uthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods The Bodley Head, 1938): 32 . (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950): 150. 4 8 I b i d . : 33 . 25 Ibid. : 152. 49 C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (London: The 26 E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Ber­ Bodley Head, 1945): 351 . keley: University of C alifornia Press, 1951): 76. 20 2 7 I b i d . : 271. 28 Ibid.: 277. 29 Ibid .: 2 7 8 . 70 Lewis 1950: 24. 71 Ibid.: 23 . 7 2 I b i d . : 2 4 . 30 Lewis 1964: 122. 31 Lewis 1955: 104. 32 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid.: 32-33- 33 H .R .Ellis, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe 75 Hans C hristian Anderson, The Snow Queen, trans­ (Harmorsfcworth: Penguin, 1964) : 28. lated by R. P. Keigiven (New York: Charles Scrib­ 34 Ibid.: 39-44. 35 Larousse `960: 182. ners Sons, 1972). 36 I b i d . : 183. 37 Ibid.: 182. 76 Ibid.: 24. 77 Ibid.: 26. 38 Guthrie 1950: 155- 39 Larousse, i 960: I 83. 40 Ibid.: 220. 41 Ibid.: 184. 42 John Pinsent, Greek Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1 9 6 9 ) i 4 3 . III. The God of Love 4 3 I b i d . 44 Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (G loucester, 1 The Golden Ass of A puleius. translated by Robert Mass.: Peter Smith, 1976 LI 883J): II, 449. Graves (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 195°)« 118. 45 Ibid.: 448. 46 Ibid.: 518. 47 Lewis 1964: 123. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.: 119. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.: 121. 48 Beowulf, translated by Michael Alexander (Har- 6 Ibid.: 128. 7 Ibid.: 133. 8 Ibid.: 133-134. mondsworth: Penguin, 1973)! 54. 9 Lewis 1956: 112. 49 Lewis 1951s 138. 50 Ibid.: 142. 10 S.G.F. Brandon, Religion in Ancient History 51 Lewis 1964: 134. 52 Ibid.: 135- 53 Ibid.; 136. (London: George Allen and Unwin): 79^ 54 Ibid.: 137. 55 Ibid.: 138. 56 Lewis 1952: 114. 11 Leonard Von Matt and Francis Trochu, St. Berna­ 57 Patmore 1968: 8 8 . dette (London: Longmans Green and C o., 1957)» 18. 58 C.S. Lewis, A Mind Awake. edited by Clyde S. 12 C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transform ation (Prince­ Kilby (London: Bles, 1968) : 2 1 9 . ton, N .J.: Bollingen, 1956): 240f. 59 Lewis 1950: 86. 60 Ibid.: 88. 61 Ibid. 13 Ibid. : 422. 62 Clement C. M iles, Christmas Customs and Tra­ 14 Mircea Eliade, R ites and Symbols of Initiation ditions (New York: Dover, 1976) : 220. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958): 85. 63 Ibid.: 240. 64 Ibid.: 233- 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.: 95- 17 Lewis 1956: 301. 65 W illiam Sansom, A Book of Christm as (Toronto: 1 8 I b i d . : 307. 19 Ibid.: 3O8 . McGraw-Hill, 1968): 100. 20 Eliade 1958: 111. 21 Jung 1958: I 38. 6 6 I b i d . : 103. 67 Ibid.: 104. 68 Ibid. 22 Gracia Fay Ellwood, "Both God's and M ary's 69 Joan M. Vastokas, "The Shamanistic Tree of Son," Queen of All H earts, January-February, 1976: Life," artscanada, December 1973/January 1974: 149.

M atters of G rave Im port completely unlike.) Han charges down a corridor continued from page 12 in the D eathstar after twenty storm troopers, v/ho flee on the assumption that he has a good reason serene young man gazing up into space as he steps for what he is doing. He courts a princess with toward the edge of a cliff. A flower in one hand, insufferable arrogance. He goes out into the arc­ a torn purse hanging from a stick in the other hand, tic night of Hoth on a doomed beast. He plunges he is clearly living in the immediate moment, which into an asteroid field. He speeds down an unknown is by ordinary expectations very likely to be his asteroid tunnel which turns out to be the belly last. A furry dog beside him is in the same dang­ of a monster. He attacks Darth Vader1s destroyer erous position. W illiams' Fool is deliberately with his gnat of a ship. And he wins out. It is kept a figure of mystery. "There are no w ritings ironic that when his actions seem to him completely which speak of the Fool." Somehow this figure is prudent—flying to Bespin—he is unknowingly going both in motion and at rest, in the center and every­ into the greatest danger of all, to the place where else. As represented by Sybil, we know that where he w ill finally fall. the Fool has gone through a fearsome ordeal and emerged totally balanced, sovereign. When we meet Han he believes his own bluster; he thinks of him self as mercenary and self-seeking, The chief characteristic W illiams' Fool has and only learns that he is really loyal and caring in common with other conceptions is. that her (Syb­ when he finds him self doing loyal and caring il's ) actions and perceptions can be incomprehen­ things. At the verge of the pit he reaches a new sible by ordinary prudential standards. But she stage in his life. Out of love for his friend he succeeds. The old bromide "It's so crazy it just weighs the odds, refuses reckless action, does the might work" applies to the Fool. prudent thing: he goes gentle into that good night. So when he is undergoing the ultim ate des­ In the first story Luke is sometimes a fool in cent of the Fool, motionless in the central posit­ the Parsifal-like sense of a naive, unripe youth, ion of the Fool, he is for the first time not act­ brought up in the midst of nowhere, ignorant of his ing like a fool at all. identity, who sets out to discover him self. As he begins to use the. Force he has to do foolish things such as practice with his lightsaber while blind­ folded, and later turn off his computer when zeroing in on the D eathstar. From the perspective of the magi Ben and Yoda, Luke is a fool when he interrupts his training to go off to rescue Han and Leia. "Reckless is he! Now things are worse." Yet in following his heart, Luke turns out to be wiser than they. Though he does not succeed in freeing Kan, had he not come Han might have been tortured to death; and the dis­ traction created by his presence enables Leia and the others to escape, so that they in turn can res­ cue him, still uncorrupted by the Dark Side. Han is even more obviously the Fool; he does not understand him self, acts recklessly on impulse, anlL often plunges into extreme danger from which he emerges unhurt because the very wildness of his actionX upsets others' calculations. (Me also has a furry companion; and their nersonalities are not 21