and the trees told us their stories
I’ve always found it interesting that the Pevensies forgot about the lamppost and that the forest grew up around there. It’s clear that Mr. Tumnus still lives there, and he doesn’t live that far away from the lamppost and therefore not too far away from where the Pevensies come into Narnia. So, that plus my general interest in the trees of Narnia and tendency towards dryad conspiracy theories and also my (quickly interrupted) reread of Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, specifically the first couple paragraphs of the first chapter produced this. It is a lot of worldbuilding but hopefully interesting to more than just me.
Title is taken from a lyric from Secret Worlds by TAD
The stump sits in a sweet smelling clearing at the center of a dense thicket of fir trees. It’s low to the ground, maybe stretching up as high as a foot at its peak, and wide enough across that, were the center not decayed nearly to the ground, it would have made a quite comfortable stool. But its center has so decayed away, and so much of the outer trunk that only dark chunks of wood blanketed in green moss remain, and these so unlike wood that, had Lucy stumbled across them alone, she would have mistaken for stones.
Strangely shaped stones to be sure, curved and thin with strange ridges and bumps, and oddly arranged forming a small circle. But stones none the less; and strange though she may have thought them, she would have ignored them, found more interest in the sudden absence of trees at the center of such a densely packed thicket of firs, or she would have stood struck dumb by the sudden sunlight, blinding after the pitch black of the forest; she might have missed them entirely, as hidden as they were by the towering flowers and grasses that clustered closely around the dark shapes. She might have wondered at the faint sweet smell floating around the clearing, the faintest hint of the apples barely recognized before its hidden again by the sharp scent of the firs.
But now, Lucy stands beside Susan, who stands beside Peter, who stands beside Edmund at the edge of the strange clearing, shuddering every so often when the tips of the firs’ branches graze their backs and arms and necks as they rearrange themselves to once again hide the path to the clearing. Their gazes fixed on the back of the dryad before them.
She has come to a stop a few scant steps before the stump, has drawn the children’s attention to it without speaking a word, and now she reverently bows her head, swaying towards it as a tree blows in the wind, and begins to whisper what can only be a pray in the rustling language of the dryads.
They had followed her here all the way from the Cair, with no one but the five of them. Taxa had walked into the council room in the middle of a heated discussion and brought a sudden hush along with her. She had insisted that all four of Narnia’s young monarchs come on a pilgrimage with her to some undisclosed location along the Western border of Narnia; she had insisted that the four come alone, without any friends or advisors or membering of the fledgling royal guard. All of the councilors and guards had respectfully, unanimously agreed with her, as if they had not spent the last weeks butting heads of policy and procedure and ensuring the safety of Narnia’s Kings and Queens. Now she has brought the deep into the Wilds of the Western Wastes, entrapped them in a clearing from which there will be no escape without her leave.
At the end of her prayer, she turns to face them and begins to speak in a solemn voice.
“Many thousands of years ago, when the Lord of the Wood first sang this World into being and pulled creatures and trees along from the earth, a Son of Adam brought Evil into Narnia. As penance and as a way to right the wrong he had done, the Lord of the Wood sent this Son of Adam to the ends of the World to retrieve the Fruit of the Tree and to plant it here, as a Tree of Protection, to ward off the Evil he had brought. The Tree of Protection grew here for many millennia, and by the time it was felled most of Narnia had forgotten about the Tree.”
Taxa pauses and looks hard at each of the children in turn and continues in a hard voice, “We made sure Narnia forgot the Tree, passing down this tale and any knowledge of the Tree from hub to chosen sapling in only the longest living of our lines. We built up the Wilds of the West and herded the firs here, to hide it and protect it from any who might wish to fell it. Yet for all our care, one of the Witch’s followers crept through our defences with a sharp axe, and cut down the Tree as its branches whipped wildly around in an invisible storm, as it was wont to do.” The four children’s eyes widen, and Edmund shivers, rubbing unconsciously at the scar on his stomach. Taxa softens slightly and continues, “Yes. The Evil that Boy brought into Narnia was the same Witch the Four of you have just cast down.
“It is for this reason that the Old Growth has decided to let you Four in on the secret.” She waves an arm at the stump beside her, “This is all that remains of the Tree of Protection. The Old Growth has kept what remains of it alive and hidden for the past centuries. The Protection the Tree once offered no longer the Protection it once did, on the night It fell, it sent out a plus of pure magic, a summoning sort of magic, that has lingered here ever since. It called out for someone like the Boy who planted it, someone who it knew could either continue to keep the Witch out of Narnia or banish her should she settle here. And so you came.”
Her face hardens, “We will not let what remains of this Tree die; the Protection it still offers to Narnia, meager though it may be, is too important to Narnia. But as long as it remains, as long as its magic lingers, so too will the door to the Land of Men, through which you Four came to Narnia. It is not a stable door, and no one but a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve can pass through it. But it would be a grave accident should any one of you pass through it. So heed my warning and avoid this place. Do not venture further into this valley than the Lamppost; take only the most well traveled roads to Narnia’s Western neighbors.”
The children, Kings and Queens of Narnia, nod their heads gravely as one, each swearing on the Lion’s Mane that not a word of this shall others learn by their lips. Each silently vowing in their own hearts that they would never pass this way again, lest they lose their friends and their home, already so dear, already obscuring those memories of English life, of schools and parents and an old man with wild hair and a wardrobe in a lonely room. And then they gravely follow Taxa back through the firs, first to Lamppost and then to Mr. Tumnus’ cave, which had been freshly repaired and restored to its proper neatness, where he waits with tea
There they sit in silence for a while, sipping that wonderful tea he had served to Lucy on her first visit to Narnia and contemplating what they had learned. Tumnus fussed about them at first, chatting brightly about all the things that had happened during the week of their retreat with Taxa and serving them such a feast as he had served her then: eggs and sardines and toast with honey. But it all sits cooling, untouched by the ravenous monarchs as they sit staring into their tea as if mesmerized by the rising steam, and he sits too, worried but out of words, waiting until one of his young friends breaks the silence.
“We cannot tell you what we have learned, Mr. Tumnus,” says Lucy first, the solemnness in her face at odds with the brightness of her youth, “The Old Growth of the Dryads have trusted us with their most sacred of their secrets, and we have sworn on the Lion’s mane to keep it.”
“I did not expect so, dear Lucy,” he replies softly, “When Taxa first appeared, I knew not what would happen, but that you four would be taken into Confidence I did not doubt. But,” he pauses, softens even more somehow, “I worry for you. You are, all of you, so young for such burdens as the Oldest of the Old Growth may have given you.”
“It is not a secret that is hard to bear,” says Edmund, “But it is a secret we must do our best to avoid, lest we risk harming Narnia. And that seems to be a harder task.”
“With so much that we have to do, I do not think avoiding it will be difficult. We may even come to forget it with time,” says Susan, and then continues thoughtfully, “Though that too would be courting danger.”
“Yes, to avoid, but not so much as we forget why we must avoid it or even that there is something to be avoided,” Edmund muses.
“We can help each other remember,” Lucy chimes in, brightening at the idea and reaching for a piece of toast, “Like a game.”
“It seems wrong, somehow, to turn remembering something so solemn into a game,” Susan says, but she leans back into her chair.
“I don’t think the dryads will care, so long as we remember and heed their warning,” Edmund says, helping himself to some sardines.
Peter had sat silent as his siblings discussed the issue, but now he speaks, “We should avoid the Western Wilds as much as we can, sticking to the main roads as much as possible and going nowhere off them without a retinue of Narnians.”
The other three nod, and they continue to sit in tense silence until Mr. Tumnus says with forced cheer, “Well I hope such a resolution will not stop you from visiting or from joining in should Bacchus and his Maenads lead us in revelry.”
The tension dissolves as the four children hurried to reassure Mr. Tumnus that of course they’ll continue to visit, of course… and for the rest of their visit they are children once again, stumbling over their words in their excitement to get them out, words and opinions flowing freely without restraint or thought in a way that had become rare in the past weeks and would grow rarer in the weeks and months and years to come.
They do not forget it. The living stump of Tree of Protection hovers in the back of their minds for most of their reign, forcing its way forward whenever one of them travels West; they remind each other with a look and a tilt of the head and a single word, “remember.” And if ever it fades, the spark of panic, the hint of guilt, a confession to a sibling, all breathes new life into the secret and keeps it fresh for a while longer. But, the Pevensies have never been left to act on their own; their will is not the only one that works upon their memories, and though the magic cannot work upon their memories of the stump and their knowledge of the secret, for they keep too close a watch on these details for them to be stolen away, it can work to corrode other details, like that of a pillar of iron with a caged flame sat on top and the warning, the reminder it was meant to be.
Though it faded so much in those last months of their time in Narnia, it is the strongest impression that remains when the Pevensies return to England; the idea of a sacred stump and warnings hidden in lampposts. Weeks after their memories have vanished they feel the panic of some forgotten task; Months later, when even that panic has dulled and they are children fully once again, at a London train station, after Lucy runs into her mother’s arms, the start of a joyous and tearful reunion, Peter forcefully and reflexively flinches as he leads the way out onto the pavement and sees the lampposts just outside, and then Susan, then Edmund, then Lucy all flinch as well. Though they cannot tell their worried mother why a simple lamppost, of the sort they’ve been seeing all their lives, would cause such a violent reaction; there were no such lampposts in the country.
