Some of the words in “The Chronicles of Narnia” (1950-56) by C.S. Lewis, then an Oxford professor and friend of Tolkien:
Aslan – The talking lion who created the world of Narnia. Aslan is Turkish for “lion”.
beastly – If something is unpleasant, call it “beastly”. Even in Narnia, a land of Talking Beasts!
blighter – “a person regarded with contempt, irritation or pity” (Concise Oxford, 2011).
Bottom – a character in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” who gets a donkey’s head.
buskins – high boots reaching the calf or knee.
Cair Paravel – the castle of the Kingdom of Narnia (in the world of Narnia). Cair is from caer, the Welsh word for castle.
Calormen – the evil empire of the Calormenes. It practises slavery, a stereotyped Near Eastern culture (like something out of Aladdin), and worships many cruel gods. They are darker skinned than the humans of the kingdom of Narnia, but it seems to be their religion and government that makes them evil. Lewis is not being racist or Islamophobic, strictly speaking, but clearly Orientalist.
crescent – a gold Calormene coin worth 40 minims (see below) or about $130.
fathom – 6 feet or 2 metres.
ginger beer – they have ginger beer in Narnia! I think of ginger beer as Jamaican, but if it is in Narnia, then it presumably comes from Britain. In fact, something Jamaica, Narnia, and the US all have in common is a heavy British influence.
heather – a plant with purple flowers (Calluna vulgaris) that I have never seen, but it is common in the open country of England. And Narnia.
hooters – means car horns, not big breasts:
“the children soon took no more notice of it than you would of hooters outside the window”
hot boiled ham – as with the early James Bond novels, there is an element of food porn in the “Chronicles”: food was rationed in Britain from 1940 to 1954.
jerkin – a small, close-fitting leather jacket, often without sleeves.
league – 3 miles or 5 kilometres.
magic – is real in Narnia and can be used for good or evil.
minim – a small Calormene coin with about 0.9 grams of silver, worth about $3.22 (adjusting for inflation from Lewis’s time).
Nay – if you want to say “No” like Aslan, say “Nay”.
orrery – a clockwork model of the sun and the planets.
pavender – a beautiful rainbow-coloured fish from the Eastern Sea served at royal banquets at Cair Paravel.
presently – now or soon.
slave trade – seen as an evil by some, an “economic necessity” by others.
star – seen as “a huge ball of flaming gas” by Western science, but in Narnia as “glittering people with long hair like burning silver” with “cold, tingling, silvery voices”. A retired star in Narnia said of the Western view:
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”
supper – the main meal of the day, not necessarily in the evening.
tea – not just a drink but the drinking of it in the late afternoon as part of a light meal with with cake, sandwiches, etc.
– Abagond, 2019.
Source: mainly Google Images; “The Chronicles of Narnia” (1950-56) by C.S. Lewis; “Concise Oxford Dictionary” (2011); “The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide” (2005) by Peter J. Shakel; “Pocket Companion to Narnia” (2005) by Paul Ford.
See also:
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Inklings
- C.S. Lewis
- Tolkien
- English units
- style guide: Briticisms
- prejudice
- Agrabah – where Aladdin is from in the Disney Version
- Western science
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I love The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe film. I would like to read the other Chronicles of Narnia series. Abagond being the Anglophile that he is was probably inspired to write this post.
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