Warren Rochelle's Blog - Posts Tagged "c-s-lewis"
The Silver Apples of Narnia
The Silver Apples of Narnia
by
Warren Rochelle
This month's theme for The Great Fantasy Traveling Roundtable is food in fantasy literature. I chose to write about the silver apples of Narnia. The entire blog post, which includes pieces by:
Sylvia Kelso, Deborah J. Ross, and Andrea Host, can be found at:
http://www.sylviakelso.com
and
also on this blog
and at:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/warren-...
*****
Apples, apples and more apples, appear again and again in The Chronicles of Narnia. They are the first food eaten by the Pevensies when they return to Narnia in Prince Caspian—apples grown in an orchard they had planted centuries before, an orchard blessed by Pomona, the greatest of the wood goddesses. Perhaps the most potent, symbolically at least, are the silver apples. According to the WikiNarnia, “In all of existence, there are only “four known individual silver apple trees.”
The first one appears in The Magician’s Nephew. Digory and Polly are sent by Aslan to find the Garden of Youth and there take a silver apple from the Tree of Youth. There he meets the Witch, who was “just throwing the core of an apple . . . The juice was darker than you would expect and made a horrid stain around her mouth” (142-143). She has attained her heart’s desire, immortality, but already is experiencing what will many long years of despair of an evil life. She was warned: Come in by the gold gates or not all/Take of my fruit for others or forbear. /For those who steal or those who climb my wall/Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair (141).
Digory plants the second silver apple tree, the Tree of Protection, on the banks of the Great River of Narnia, with the apple he brings to Aslan. The tree grew quickly. “Its spreading branches seem to cast a light rather than a shade, and silver apples peeped out like stairs from under every leaf. But it was the smell which came from it, even more than the sight, that had everyone draw in their breath.” This breathtaking scent will keep Narnia safe from all enemies. As Aslan explains, the Witch “dare not come within a hundred miles of the Tree, for its smell, which is joy and life and health to you, is death and horror and despair to her” (155). For 898 years this Tree protects Narnia from all enemies. Presumably it dies and only then does evil come into Narnia: the Witch, having outlived the Tree thanks to the apple she ate, returns and the hundred years of winter begins.
It is an apple from this Tree that Aslan gives to Digory that cures his mother. And from this apple grows the third silver apple tree, in the garden behind a row house in London. The magic is lessened in our world, although it “did bear apples more beautiful than any other in England and they were extremely good for you, though not fully magical.” This otherworldly tree is magically connected to its parent in Narnia: “Sometime it would move mysteriously when there was no wind blowing . . . when this happened there were high winds in Narnia.” When a storm brings down the English silver apple tree (whether or not the apples are silvery here is not mentioned), Digory, by then an adult, has “part of the timber made into a wardrobe, which he put in his big house in the country” (166).
We all know what happens with this wardrobe.
The fourth silver apple tree is only hinted at in The Last Battle. The world of Narnia has ended; the Pevensies and their friends are in Aslan’s country and are being called to “Come further up and further in” (167) and to pass through the golden gates into a walled garden, “into the delicious smell that blew towards them” (169)—presumably the same delicious smell of the silver apple tree in Digory’s garden. At the centre of this garden is an orchard, “where the Phoenix sat in a tree and looked down upon them all and at the foot of that tree were two thrones, a King and Queen so great and beautiful that everyone bowed down before them” (170). These two are King Frank and Queen Helen, the first King and Queen, crowned hours after Aslan sang Narnia into existence. That they are compared to Adam and Eve suggests this tree is the Tree of Knowledge, a silver apple tree.
Clearly Lewis is drawing upon a variety of sources for these silver apples, and not just Genesis and the Garden of Eden—the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is never identified in the Bible as an apple, silver or otherwise. That fruit—and the silver apple tree Digory finds, are both forbidden and are both symbols of temptation, of the fall, of sin, of knowledge and immortality. For Digory this knowledge comes in a flash: the Witch is wrong; he must do the right thing, follow the rules, and do as Aslan has commanded. It takes Adam and Eve a little longer to figure things out.
According to the Myths Encyclopedia, “Apples are brimming with symbolic meanings and mythic associations. In China they represent peace, and apple blossoms are a symbol of women's beauty. In other traditions, they can signify wisdom, joy, fertility, and youthfulness.” In Norse mythology, the apples of the goddess Iðunn are necessary for the gods to keep their eternal youth—otherwise, they will grow old, grey, bent. One of the tasks of Heracles is to bring back the golden apples from the Tree of Life that grows in the Garden of the Hesperides. When Eris tosses out her golden apple, meant for the fairest, momentous and cataclysmic events are set in motion. Apples are sacred to Aphrodite: throwing an apple at someone was to symbolically declare one’s love (even though the fruit Eve picks is never identified).
Avalon is apple-island; Snow White is tempted by a poisoned one. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apples, apples, apples: food as myth, as metaphor, as icon, as a way to the truth—to greater knowledge of self, of what is real. Aslan’s Country is the truly real; we live in the shadowlands. God gave us bodies that must be sustained, must be fed—and he gave us souls that also must be sustained and fed. But why apples, what makes them so special? Originating in Western Asia, today apples are grown world-wide. Originally they were among the earliest trees to be cultivated, now, they are ubiquitous and we eat them raw, cooked, baked, fried, and stewed. They were (supposedly) with us in the beginning in Eden. Silver apples frame Narnian existence, from the beginning to the end. They are a fruit given by God, weighted with meaning.
I believe I will go get an apple . . . a Pink Lady, they taste so sweet …
* * * * *
Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, “The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. He is currently at work on a novel about a gay werewolf and a collection of gay-themed fantasy short stories. One of the collection's stories, "The Boy on McGee Street," was published in Queer Fish 2 (Pink Narcissus Press) in October 2012.
Website: http://warrenrochelle.com
by
Warren Rochelle
This month's theme for The Great Fantasy Traveling Roundtable is food in fantasy literature. I chose to write about the silver apples of Narnia. The entire blog post, which includes pieces by:
Sylvia Kelso, Deborah J. Ross, and Andrea Host, can be found at:
http://www.sylviakelso.com
and
also on this blog
and at:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/warren-...
*****
Apples, apples and more apples, appear again and again in The Chronicles of Narnia. They are the first food eaten by the Pevensies when they return to Narnia in Prince Caspian—apples grown in an orchard they had planted centuries before, an orchard blessed by Pomona, the greatest of the wood goddesses. Perhaps the most potent, symbolically at least, are the silver apples. According to the WikiNarnia, “In all of existence, there are only “four known individual silver apple trees.”
The first one appears in The Magician’s Nephew. Digory and Polly are sent by Aslan to find the Garden of Youth and there take a silver apple from the Tree of Youth. There he meets the Witch, who was “just throwing the core of an apple . . . The juice was darker than you would expect and made a horrid stain around her mouth” (142-143). She has attained her heart’s desire, immortality, but already is experiencing what will many long years of despair of an evil life. She was warned: Come in by the gold gates or not all/Take of my fruit for others or forbear. /For those who steal or those who climb my wall/Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair (141).
Digory plants the second silver apple tree, the Tree of Protection, on the banks of the Great River of Narnia, with the apple he brings to Aslan. The tree grew quickly. “Its spreading branches seem to cast a light rather than a shade, and silver apples peeped out like stairs from under every leaf. But it was the smell which came from it, even more than the sight, that had everyone draw in their breath.” This breathtaking scent will keep Narnia safe from all enemies. As Aslan explains, the Witch “dare not come within a hundred miles of the Tree, for its smell, which is joy and life and health to you, is death and horror and despair to her” (155). For 898 years this Tree protects Narnia from all enemies. Presumably it dies and only then does evil come into Narnia: the Witch, having outlived the Tree thanks to the apple she ate, returns and the hundred years of winter begins.
It is an apple from this Tree that Aslan gives to Digory that cures his mother. And from this apple grows the third silver apple tree, in the garden behind a row house in London. The magic is lessened in our world, although it “did bear apples more beautiful than any other in England and they were extremely good for you, though not fully magical.” This otherworldly tree is magically connected to its parent in Narnia: “Sometime it would move mysteriously when there was no wind blowing . . . when this happened there were high winds in Narnia.” When a storm brings down the English silver apple tree (whether or not the apples are silvery here is not mentioned), Digory, by then an adult, has “part of the timber made into a wardrobe, which he put in his big house in the country” (166).
We all know what happens with this wardrobe.
The fourth silver apple tree is only hinted at in The Last Battle. The world of Narnia has ended; the Pevensies and their friends are in Aslan’s country and are being called to “Come further up and further in” (167) and to pass through the golden gates into a walled garden, “into the delicious smell that blew towards them” (169)—presumably the same delicious smell of the silver apple tree in Digory’s garden. At the centre of this garden is an orchard, “where the Phoenix sat in a tree and looked down upon them all and at the foot of that tree were two thrones, a King and Queen so great and beautiful that everyone bowed down before them” (170). These two are King Frank and Queen Helen, the first King and Queen, crowned hours after Aslan sang Narnia into existence. That they are compared to Adam and Eve suggests this tree is the Tree of Knowledge, a silver apple tree.
Clearly Lewis is drawing upon a variety of sources for these silver apples, and not just Genesis and the Garden of Eden—the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is never identified in the Bible as an apple, silver or otherwise. That fruit—and the silver apple tree Digory finds, are both forbidden and are both symbols of temptation, of the fall, of sin, of knowledge and immortality. For Digory this knowledge comes in a flash: the Witch is wrong; he must do the right thing, follow the rules, and do as Aslan has commanded. It takes Adam and Eve a little longer to figure things out.
According to the Myths Encyclopedia, “Apples are brimming with symbolic meanings and mythic associations. In China they represent peace, and apple blossoms are a symbol of women's beauty. In other traditions, they can signify wisdom, joy, fertility, and youthfulness.” In Norse mythology, the apples of the goddess Iðunn are necessary for the gods to keep their eternal youth—otherwise, they will grow old, grey, bent. One of the tasks of Heracles is to bring back the golden apples from the Tree of Life that grows in the Garden of the Hesperides. When Eris tosses out her golden apple, meant for the fairest, momentous and cataclysmic events are set in motion. Apples are sacred to Aphrodite: throwing an apple at someone was to symbolically declare one’s love (even though the fruit Eve picks is never identified).
Avalon is apple-island; Snow White is tempted by a poisoned one. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apples, apples, apples: food as myth, as metaphor, as icon, as a way to the truth—to greater knowledge of self, of what is real. Aslan’s Country is the truly real; we live in the shadowlands. God gave us bodies that must be sustained, must be fed—and he gave us souls that also must be sustained and fed. But why apples, what makes them so special? Originating in Western Asia, today apples are grown world-wide. Originally they were among the earliest trees to be cultivated, now, they are ubiquitous and we eat them raw, cooked, baked, fried, and stewed. They were (supposedly) with us in the beginning in Eden. Silver apples frame Narnian existence, from the beginning to the end. They are a fruit given by God, weighted with meaning.
I believe I will go get an apple . . . a Pink Lady, they taste so sweet …
* * * * *
Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, “The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. He is currently at work on a novel about a gay werewolf and a collection of gay-themed fantasy short stories. One of the collection's stories, "The Boy on McGee Street," was published in Queer Fish 2 (Pink Narcissus Press) in October 2012.
Website: http://warrenrochelle.com
