arnia belongs to a time when Romance had a capital, when knights rescuing damsels was beautiful, when death-or-glory charges meant something, although it wasn't very much. When it came to surviving the World Wars, Tolkein wrote the Lord of the Rings, but C. S. Lewis wrote... Narnia.

Narnia is not about escapism, although one would think this to be the case. Narnia is about finding the strength to face the real world, the world of pain, by immersing yourself in beauty. It's difficult, learning the lessons of life, but the nice thing about allegories is that, like Realist Novels, they have happy endings.

Christian allegories really started with the Pilgrim's Progress, a storybook John Bunyan wrote while in prison. (It wasn't a sermon compilation or a book about church liturgy, which is why it survived as long as it did, but even the simple language it was written in is just too archaic for the modern reader. I have however managed to get my hands on a modern language version, annotated and with sources, so I must read it and review it at some stage.) The point about allegories, however, is that they must be easy to read. C.S. Lewis managed this admirably; he said he set out to write a good book, even though it was meant for children. He had this mental picture of a faun walking though a snowy wood, with an umbrella above his head and parcels under his arm, and one day set out to do something about it. What wows me is what he did; not creating some wild and woolly work of fantasy, but measured allusions, stories with depth that have more than stood the test of time.

In Narnia, water symbolism is everywhere. There are rivers, seas, lakes, waterfalls, oases... All representing life's riches in a dry and weary land.

Water is a powerful Biblical symbol, and never more so than when the aridity of the Middle East is taken into account. However, it is not merely a symbol of life, but of eternal life. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well about living water, that whoever comes to Him will never be thirsty ... and at the end of Revelations, it says: whoever asks, I will give to him of the river of the water of life, and it will become in him a spring, welling up to eternal life.

Jesus frequently drew parallels between dry areas and areas where there are springs; in the desert, rain falls only very seldom, but there are places where dykes of volcanic rock create underground reservoirs (why it's possible to dig a well in the desert) and any tree planted by these hidden "streams of water" will indeed survive the desert. Springs, however, like the Gihon and the spring of En Gedi in Israel, are permanent and do not run dry. A bubbling spring is the best thing to have in any desert environment, and the promise of an eternal life that bubbles up unceasingly in spite of who we might be and what we might have done in the past, is something to treasure and hold onto will all ten fingers...

Rain represents blessings, and in fact the words for "blessings" and for "pools" (of water) were interchangeable in Hebrew, as I understand it. To an agrarian society, rain at the proper time was essential, as early and latter rain ensured that all the various crops were watered at the proper time. When God speaks of harvests, of course, he refers to people, as each one of us is precious to him, and his harvest involves gathering as many of us as possible into his heavenly storehouse; our function is of course to be workers in his fields, calling humanity to Him. A beautiful thought...

I have found that Psalm 84 says it best:

How blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are the highways to Zion!   Passing through the Valley of Baca, he makes it a place of springs;  the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
(American Standard Version - I think.)

How blessed is the man whose strength is in you, who has set his heart on pilgrimage.  Passing through the Valley of Baca he makes it a spring;  the later rains also cover it with blessings.
(NIV)

Baca means "weeping".

In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, my absolute favourite Narnian tale, the great sea gradually becomes fresh, not salt, which may be a reference to Ezekiel 47, where the river of life flows from the temple into the Dead Sea, making it possible for creatures to live in it. (Highly symbolic.) As the voyagers drink of this water, they become stronger, more real, more able to see in the powerful light of the sun. They find that they need no other sustenance; it is like "drinking light". Seas in scripture usually symbolise divisions, which is why in Revelation there is a verse which describes heaven as not having any sea. The Father of Aslan is referred to as the "Emperor over the Sea". (There are other water references involving the Island of Deathwater, which is a strong commentary along the lines of showing up the corrupting influence of greed, mostly.)

In the Silver Chair, Jill finds herself in Aslan's country - another aspect of it, presumably, as this part is a mountain so high that it overlooks the earth (the Narnian earth, that is; it is flat.) When she finds herself feeling incredibly thirsty, she stumbles across a spring of water that looks so pure it is like crystal; the only problem is that a Lion is sitting in front of it, who says to her: "If you are thirsty, come and drink," mirroring the words of Jesus: "Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." Jill manages to overcome her fear of being eaten sufficiently to do so. (This book contains one of the most beautiful descriptions of heaven ever written.)

In the Magician's Nephew, the 'magic' apple tree is planted beside the river; it is from this tree that Aslan gives the "Apple of Life" to Digory. This presumably refers to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden; there is also a reference to Ezekiel's River of Life, alongside of which are trees that bear fruit once a month, whose leaves are "used for healing". Those who trust in God are also compared to trees "planted by streams of water, who bear their fruit in season".

Obviously, this is the most important theme of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Most people immediately think of Edmund, but I must also focus on Tumnus the faun, who betrays Lucy, albeit not successfully. He does repent of his nasty ways, and is turned into stone because of it, although Aslan eventually changes him back during the Scouring of the Witch's House, as I like to call it. Edmund's betrayal is far worse; he betrays his brothers and sisters for a piece of Turkish Delight, an interesting spin on the thirty pieces of silver routine. (I believe it's Jeremiah who quoted God as saying... "thirty pieces of silver, that high price they paid for me...". Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave.) I don't think Edmund thought she'd be quite so keen to kill them, though.

But it is ostensibly for Edmund that Aslan dies, although the bit, later on, where Aslan speaks of the Stone Table itself being split in two could be a reference to Jesus' comment that He did not come to break the Law, but to fulfil it. (The fact that the Witch claims to be "the Emperor's hangman", as the Beaver calls her, parallels her directly with satan: the Bible speaks of "the accuser of the brethren" being cast down, meaning ol' slewfoot no longer had the right to accuse people before the Throne of God after the events at Calvary and after.) As the "right" of the Witch to execute traitors is written on the Stone Table in letters "as deep as a spear is long", the fact that it split in two shows that the power of death itself is broken (viz "where, O death, is now your sting?" and another interesting verse: "But the Law of the Spirit of Life has set me free from the law of sin and death", this being a figurative "law", by the way. I think it refers to another oft-quoted verse: "The wages of sin is death, but God's gift to us is eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ.") Here is the chorus of a song that I rather enjoy:

"The enemy was mighty, he came in like a flood;
But in the end he was defeated... by one drop of blood."

This ties in nicely with the scene at the end of The Silver Chair, when Caspian, who has grown old and died, much to Eustace's sorrow, is lying submerged in the River of The Water of Life. To restore Caspian back to life and health, Aslan instructs Eustace to jam a large thorn into the pad of his paw, whereupon a large drop of blood, "red as a ruby", falls onto Caspian, resurrecting him as the young, strong, joyful boy king that we first met in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (in Prince Caspian he was serious and grave ... and still a prince, mostly.) Note the parallel to Christ's "crown of thorns", and the wounds in His hands and feet.

The use of blood (usually of animals) in the Old Testament is solely a means of atonement, for the "covering" of sins. In the New Testament, the blood of Christ has the same function, except the Lamb of God was to "take away" the sin of the world. In other words, Jesus' death and resurrection was simply to get sin out of the way, so that God could have personal relationships with human beings. (A simple principle, which as we all know has been badly messed around with by every other belief system - apparently you're not a major world religion unless you've formulated an alternative theory about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ...) And notice that Aslan says, "When you're alive in my world, you're alive in every world", another reference to resurrection.

Much has been made of the idea that Harry Potter is "just like Narnia", but I really feel that this isn't the case. For one thing, there are no wizards in the Narnia tales. There is just a half-dwarf doctor and astronomer who dabbles in magic (and I don't think this is a good thing, anyway) and a fallen star who has a magical Book, and the folly of actually using it is hammered home in several ways (see Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader respectively.) What leaps out at me is the difference in the world-views of these two series.

The Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, are nothing special outwardly; they aren't big, strong or particularly clever. But they are willing to follow Aslan and obey Him, and generally try their best to live up to His example. The end never justifies the means, in the Narnian tales; even trying, and failing because you refuse to cheat, counts as a win. (eg, the fight between Peter and Miraz in Prince Caspian.) In fact, being a winner is not as important as "how you play the game". This may be an old chestnut, but in my view, still a good one.

In the Potter novels, however, Harry cheats and sneaks and defies authority with impunity because he wants to do the "right thing" - the end justifying the means again. He shakes his fists in the face of everyone whom he should honour - his family, even though they are over-the-top awful, the magical rulers, any muggles he comes into contact with, etc. He seems to have no respect for anyone but himself, any ideals but his own.

Peter and Edmund, on the other hand, would never dream of defying anyone; they are even honourable towards the Tisroc, who must be the quintessential model of the corrupt and grasping empire-ruler. Sneaky acts of warfare are truly abhorrent to them - attacking without defiance sent, for example. They seem to act by a knightly code of conduct, and if anyone could be said to be knightly it is definitely Reepicheep the Mouse. Honour in Narnia is held more dear than life, truth more dear than riches, and human society began to go wrong (if it was ever right) when these ideals fell away. Rebellion is seen as a grave sin; Aslan growls when someone suggests in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe that he work against the Emperor's "magic" (ie, power and authority, I suppose.)

Certainly it is a Narnian theme that love is stronger than death; that love never fails. Aslan's love for Narnia is His over-arching motivation; Aslan's love for each individual, even more so. Lewis paints a detailed and beautiful picture of a God of Love, down to the tears of Aslan when he says to Digory: "Son of Adam, I know. Grief is great." We do not have a high priest who does not sympathise with our failings. God became Man, so that He could understand our human condition, what Vergil called "the tears of things". The depth of Aslan's love is shown so powerfully in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but also in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where He is the albatross of light that leads the Narnians out of darkness, a Darkness that then ceases to exist. The way He always calls Lucy "dear heart" really emphasises this for me.

Faithfulness is a theme that runs through all of the Narnian books;