By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Most fans of The Chronicles of Narnia are familiar with the same starting point. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the original book in the series and the first movie adapted in the 2000s Disney run. It is traditionally where author C.S. Lewis kicks off his fantastical world and its menagerie of mythical characters.
Now Netflix is taking a crack at bringing C.S. Lewis’ magical world out of the wardrobe and onto the streaming screen. And, there’s a good chance we’re going to see the story start at a much earlier point. While nothing is official as of this writing, multiple rumors have hinted at the idea that Greta Gerwig could be going all the way back to The Magician’s Nephew for the initial chapter of the new chronicle.
So, what is it about The Magician’s Nephew that makes it so special? Lewis uses the story as a clever standalone starting point for the entire Narnia experience. The book features things like a backstory on the White Witch, the origin of the Wardrobe, and why there’s an eternally lit lamppost in the middle of the forest when Lucy first stumbles into Narnia later on. Most importantly, The Magician’s Nephew centers on the mythical origin story for Narnia itself. It describes, in detail, not just why but how Aslan’s world came into being — in real time.
Editor’s Note: We’re about to dig into some spoilery source material here. If you want the origins of Lewis’ world to remain a mystery, proceed with caution.
The Magician’s Nephew: The General Plot and How It Sets Up Narnia
The Magician’s Nephew takes a step back in time from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. While the latter takes place during the early years of the Second World War, the prequel jumps back four decades to the year 1900. Its main characters are named Polly Plummer and Digory Kirke. If that second name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because this is the same Professor Kirke whom we meet later on as the elderly owner of the home that houses the Wardrobe.
The book follows these two young protagonists as they set out on a world-hopping, turn-of-the-century adventure. The “too long, didn’t read” version of the first half of the story goes like this: Digory and Polly meet. They obtain magic rings from Digory’s conniving Uncle Andrew that take them out of our world into an in-between place called the Wood Between the Worlds. From there, they can enter into different worlds through magical pools.
When they try this, they end up in a very old, red-lit landscape called Charn. There, they bump into a tall, terrifying woman named Jadis, who informs them that she wiped out life in that world. She explains her actions, saying it was an act of self-preservation.
The trio end up back in England, where the magical Jadis causes trouble. They end up back in the Wood Between the Worlds with Uncle Andrew, a London cabby named Frank, and his horse, Strawberry, in tow. The entire crew heads into yet another pool, this time pulling them into a world that ends up being Narnia, except that, well, it isn’t yet.
Narnia’s Origin (Genesis) Story in The Magician’s Nephew: The Song of Aslan
When Digory, Polly, Jadis, and their crew reach Narnia, they find that it’s not just dark. It’s empty. They’ve stumbled into a world with nothing in it yet. They stand around uncertain for a bit. Then the book The Magician’s Nephew says, “In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing.”
This is none other than the voice of Aslan himself, and the Great Lion’s deep song resonates through the empty world. It is more than a nice tune, too. It has creative power. The book goes on to say, “Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard.”
Aslan’s singing first awakens the stars, which join into his world-building chorus. The sun rises in the midst of the Voice’s singing, too. Trees grow in minutes and animals burst from mounds in the ground that look like bubbles in a boiling pot.
Creative Music Is a Part of the Narnia Mythology
It’s worth noting that Lewis directly connects Aslan’s singing to the creative process itself. At one point as Narnia is actively emerging, the book explains, “Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening.” It later says, “Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) ‘out of the Lion’s head.’ When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them.”
The music is so potent that when Jadis throws an iron bar from a lamp post (which she brought with her from England) at Aslan, it bounces off his head and lands harmlessly on the ground. So strong is his creative magic, though, that it, too, starts growing into a lamp post of its own. Yes, that lamp post.
The Lengthy Origin Story of Narnia Continues
C.S. Lewis’ Narnia creation myth isn’t a one-time description. It’s an ongoing part of The Magician’s Nephew that starts halfway through the book and continues right on to the end of it. While we won’t break all of the details down here, suffice it to say that the story goes on from the initial creation of the world itself and incorporates elements that echo Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and Original Sin — all major staples of Lewis’ Christian beliefs.
While the echoes of Christianity are clearly there, it isn’t a carbon copy of the original. For instance, the first Man of Aslan’s new world (i.e., Adam) is the London cabby, who becomes King Frank I of Narnia. His wife doesn’t come from his rib, either. She’s transported from England to his side and becomes Queen Helen I. And Frank’s horse, Strawberry? He becomes a Pegasus and is renamed Fledge, the Father of all Flying Horses.
In a darker story thread, Jadis takes on the role of a Satan figure (along with a bit of a Lilith parallel, for those of you up to date on your Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology). She subverts Narnia’s authority structures, eats fruit from a forbidden tree, and entices Digory to abuse Aslan’s power for his own selfish ends.
Everywhere you look, Lewis deftly weaves the actual Christian Genesis and related texts into his own fantastic myth making. He doesn’t forget his own multi-book story elements, either. Digory, for instance, grows a tree from Narnia once he’s back in England and eventually turns it into planks to build—you guessed it!—a wardrobe. The attention to detail with this story is impressive and engaging. And the end result is one of the most fantastic and fun chapters in the entire Narnia canon.
C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Musical Mythmaking
C.S. Lewis was a fan of a good myth. The author saw myths as an integral element of understanding truth. In his essay “Myth Became Fact,” Lewis said, “In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction.” He saw myth as a way to interpret abstraction into reality through story, and it’s clear that this principle is at work in Narnia’s creation myth. Each story is dripping with deeper meaning and a deeper allegorical connection.
Lewis’ use of music as a creative force also finds similar expression in the works of his contemporary and close friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien’s creation myth for Middle-earth is very different from Lewis’. There is no Lion figure and the subject matter is more serious. However, in what he titled the “Ainulindalë,” Tolkien’s angelic beings called the Ainur join with the God-figure Ilúvatar to literally sing the history of the world into existence. This is referred to as the Great Music, and it is very much so a creative force that generates light and life, in the same way as Aslan’s song.
The third sentence of “The Silmarillion” (which starts with this creation myth) reads, “And [Ilúvatar] spoke to [the Ainur], propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.” Later, after they create the Great Music together, the book says, “Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Behold your Music!’ And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them […] And when the Ainur had gazed for a while and were silent, Ilúvatar said again: ‘Behold your Music! This is your minstrelsy; and each of you shall find contained herein, amid the design that I set before you, all those things which it may seem that he himself devised or added.”
The musical parallels between the two author’s worlds are a fun connection that imbues their myths with unspoken and emotive passion. They add rich dimensions that play a key role in maintaining both Narnia and Middle-earth’s enduring and mysterious qualities that keep fans coming back for more across generations, demographics, and artistic mediums. This will soon include a new iteration of Narnia on television, thanks to Netflix. Let’s see how the source material’s origin story for Narnia aligns with this new version.
The post The Creation Myth Inspiration and Musical Origin Story of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, Explained appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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