Narnian Storytellers

For two millennia Jews have looked towards the ‘maggid,’ the itinerant preacher, as a source of inspiration, morality, and ethics. Unlike the rabbi who expounded the law, the maggid used stories and parables, eloquence and passion, to relate values and time-honored traditions. The importance of stories, tales, and those who tell them is constantly emphasized in the Chronicles of Narnia. The first great storyteller in the Chronicles is the Faun Tumnus, who mesmerizes Lucy with stories of forest life. Other storytellers in Narnia (some good, some not as good) are Trumpkin the Dwarf, the Chief Duffer, and the poets in the castles of King Caspian and King Lune.

Lewis appears to greatly favor teaching the art of storytelling, noting, “For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.” In contrasting stories that (presumably) everyone wants to hear with essays that no one wants to read, Lewis is teaching us how to influence, attract, inspire, and teach.

Perhaps the second most influential storyteller in Narnia was Caspian’s nurse. We don’t really know much about Caspian’s nurse. She is the one adult who the child Caspian loved best. She told stories of Old Narnia and Caspian, the boy with no parents and no family who loved him, enjoyed and was inspired by those stories. Of course, the nurse was punished for relating those same stories and was sent away. But Caspian, now alone, holds on to the stories, it is all he has left that connects him to the one person he loved.

Let us take a moment to contemplate the influence unknowingly wielded by the nurse. The future king is in her care. He has servants, men-at-arms, toys galore, but it is the nurse’s stories that he loves most. Stories of heroes and villains, stories of good versus evil, stories where Aslan makes right that which is wrong. Did she mean to educate with her stories? We later learn that she looked like there was dwarf’s blood in her. Was she subtly attempting to connect Caspian with Old Narnia? Or were stories just a good way to get a rambunctious boy to get ready for bed? We’ll never know the motivation, but we are very much aware of the consequences. Stories, dreams, hopes for a better world are what animates the heart of the young Caspian, and they set him on the path of truth.

Of course, the greatest storyteller in Narnia is Aslan himself. For it is he who tells the story of “for the refreshment of the spirit.” And it is he who at some future point in history tell the Great Story “which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

The concept of imitatio Dei, imitating God, is a central one is Jewish thought and outlook. The Talmud invokes the concept in two different contexts, the first with respect to moral character, and the second with respect to specific actions. In Shabbat 133b Abba Shaul says, “Be similar to Him: Just as He is compassionate and merciful, so too should you be compassionate and merciful,” and in Sotah 14a R’ Chama says, “one should follow the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Just as He clothes the naked... so too you should clothe the naked. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, visits the sick, so too you should visit the sick. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, consoles mourners, so too you should console mourners.”  

Just as God tells stories, so too you should tell stories.