A Curious Lack of Fairies in Narnia?
Posted: Jan 11, 2020 12:51 pm
A while back, two things occurred to me:
1. Narnia is a world where one can find almost any mainstream mythological creature — unicorns, minotaurs, merpeople, werewolves, sea serpents, centaurs, dragons, winged horses, fauns, nymphs, giants, gnomes, et cetera. Yet despite this menagerie of mythical creatures, fairies are strangely absent.
2. Even though I've been a fan of Narnia for many years now and a lover of fairy lore for longer still, I've never noticed this absence until now. Maybe I'm just really used to the stories (and of course they're perfect the way they are ), but it doesn't feel like an absence. If they depicted fairies in Narnia in the future Netflix adaptations, I think it would feel really weird.
Interestingly, the word "fairy" does appear in the books, but it's in reference to our world: Mrs. Lefay is described as having fairy blood in her.
Also, when hunting through the Narnian creatures wikipedia, there are a couple of listings that imply tiny people in Narnia, but no good tiny people: sprites and the "People of the Toadstools" are described as being part of White Witch's rabble. It's curious to me that the only apparent reference to them is so negative (and so is the association with Mrs. Lefay, for that matter).
Any guesses as to why fairies, or at least the good kind, didn't make the cut in Narnia when Lewis was writing the stories? Do they belong there in your imagination?
1. Narnia is a world where one can find almost any mainstream mythological creature — unicorns, minotaurs, merpeople, werewolves, sea serpents, centaurs, dragons, winged horses, fauns, nymphs, giants, gnomes, et cetera. Yet despite this menagerie of mythical creatures, fairies are strangely absent.
2. Even though I've been a fan of Narnia for many years now and a lover of fairy lore for longer still, I've never noticed this absence until now. Maybe I'm just really used to the stories (and of course they're perfect the way they are ), but it doesn't feel like an absence. If they depicted fairies in Narnia in the future Netflix adaptations, I think it would feel really weird.
Interestingly, the word "fairy" does appear in the books, but it's in reference to our world: Mrs. Lefay is described as having fairy blood in her.
Also, when hunting through the Narnian creatures wikipedia, there are a couple of listings that imply tiny people in Narnia, but no good tiny people: sprites and the "People of the Toadstools" are described as being part of White Witch's rabble. It's curious to me that the only apparent reference to them is so negative (and so is the association with Mrs. Lefay, for that matter).
Any guesses as to why fairies, or at least the good kind, didn't make the cut in Narnia when Lewis was writing the stories? Do they belong there in your imagination?