Thursday, March 22, 2007


The Dwarf tells of Prince Caspian...

"When the night came, and his various strange subjects came stealing into the Lawn by ones and twos and threes or by sixes and sevens - the moon then shining almost at her full - his heart swelled as he saw their numbers and heard their greetings. All who he had met were there: Bulgy Bears and Red Dwarfs and Black Dwarfs, Moles and Badgers, Hares and Hedgehogs, and others whom he had not yet seen - five satyrs as red as foxes, the whole contingent of Talking Mice, armed to the teeth and following a shrill trumpet, some Owls, the Old Raven of Ravenscaur. Last of all (and this took Caspian's breath away), with the centaurs came a small but genuine Giant, Wimbleweather of Deadman's hill, carrying on his back a basketful of rather seasick Dwarfs who had accepted his offer of a lift and were now wishing they had walked instead.

The Bulgy Bears were very anxious to have the feast first and leave the council till afterwards; perhaps tomorrow. Reepicheep and his Mice said that councils and feasts could both wait, and proposed storming Miraz in his own castle that very night. Pattertwig and the other squirrels said they could talk and eat at the same time, so why not have the council and feast all at once? The Moles proposed throwing up entrenchments round the Lawn before they did anything else. The Fauns thought it would be better to begin with a solemn dance. The Old Raven, while agreeing with the Bears that it would take too long to have a full council before supper, begged to be allowed to give a brief address to the whole company. But Caspian and the Centaurs and the Dwarfs over-ruled all these suggestions and insisted on holding a real Council of War at once."

from Prince Caspian by C. S. LEWIS

(Narnia map image by way of Into the Wardrobe)

6 comments:

this single spark said...

Mmmm. Lovely. We just read this and are now on Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And I have a major question... do you know how/why Reepacheep went from being mouse-sized in Caspian to two feet tall in Dawntreader? Did I mess something?

Anactoria said...

Who is 'we'? :)

I started rereading them to destress myself while I work on my paper. I skipped TLTWATW and went straight to Prince Caspian. I finished it last night and started TVOTDT.

I'll have to check my books when I get home. Its weird because for some reason I remembered Reepacheep as a *rat* but then realized he's actually a mouse.

Obviously I'm the wrong person to ask about this. :P

But yeah, I thought he was around 2 feet tall. I thought Talking Animals were all larger then regular ones. I was pretty sure he was described as this size in PC but I'm going to look! :)

this single spark said...

"We" is My partner Omar, and I. One of the major perks of being in a relationship with an actor, is you get read to!

I wondered if I missed something. We went back to PC to see if we could find out how big he was, but short of re-reading the whole book, we didn't have any luck. If you find anything out, let me know!

Anactoria said...

Lucky you! I knew his name (because of Elliot) but I didn't know he was an actor. I bet he's good at doing the voices, too! :)

Well, here's what I've found regarding Reepicheep...

"He was of course bigger than a common mouse, well over a foot high when he stood on his hind legs, and with ears nearly as long as (though broader than) a rabbit's."
pg. 75, Prince Caspian

"You might call it - and indeed it was - a Mouse. But then it was a Mouse on its hind legs and stood about two feet high."
pg. 10, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"The Mouse was not much heavier than a very large cat."
pg. 27, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

So you were right! He does seem to suddenly grow from a little over 1 foot to just short of 2 feet. Hmm. An author's error? (J.K. Rowling has made quite a few - but nothing major - so I'm sure Lewis made at least a couple over the course of the series.) But its not *that* huge a difference, I guess. I imagine him being as large as a housecat. If my cat stood on his hind legs he actually would be about 2 feet tall...

Elliot said...

Tolkien and other people used to bug Lewis about his inconsistencies in Narnia. He wasn't particularly careful.

this single spark said...

Thanks! Now I know. And I also know to not get too hung up on the details while reading Lewis.