Narnia
Narnia is the fantasy world created by the English author C. S. Lewis as a location for his Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels for children. In it, animals talk, mythical beasts abound and magic is rampant.Warning: Spoilers follow
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2 Cosmology 3 History 4 External References |
The name "Narnia" refers to not only the Narnian world, but especially to the land of Narnia, which its creator, Aslan the great lion, filled with talking animals and mythical creatures. Narnia is a land of rolling hills rising into low mountains to the south, and is predominently forested except for marshlands in the north. The country is bordered on the east by the Eastern Ocean, on the west by a great mountain range, on the north by the River Shribble, and on the south by a continental divide.
The economic heart of the country is the Great River of Narnia, which enters the country from the northwest on an east-southeasterly course to the Eastern Ocean. The seat of government is Cair Paravel, at the mouth of the Great River. Other communities along the river include (from east to west) Beruna, Beaversdam, and Chippingford.
Archenland is a mountainous country to the south of Narnia. It is bordered on the north by a continental divide and on the south by the Winding Arrow River. The seat of government is the castle at Anvard, in the heart of the country.
Calormen is an empire in the south of the world of Narnia. Most of the country has a semi-arid climate, and its most noteable geographic features are a volcano known as the Flaming Mountain of Lagour, and the Great Desert. The Great Desert is in the northern part of the country, and the difficulty of crossing this desert prevented aggressive Calormen governments from invading Archenland and Narnia for centuries.
The cultural center of Calormen is the River of Calormen, which flows from west to east along the south side of the Great Desert. The capitol city is Tashbaan, located on an island in the river's delta, and the river is bordered for much of its length by farmland and resort communities.
The city of Azim Balda, located at a crossroads in the heart of the country, is a major hub for travel and communications.
Numerous islands and archipelagoes dot the Eastern Ocean. Most noteable among these are Galma, the Seven Isles, and the Lone Islands, all subjects of the Narnian crown, and Terebinthia, an independent island.
To the north of Narnia lies Ettinsmoor and the Wild Lands of the North, both inhabited by giants. Far to the north, the house of Harfang houses a community of giants that are apparently the remnant of a great city abandoned in ancient times.
The land west of Narnia is an uninhabited region of rugged mountains known as the Western Wild. The land of Telmar lies somewhere beyond this region, but its exact location was never documented.
The land of Bism is located in great caverns deep beneath the ground of Narnia.
The world of Narnia is a flat world in a geocentric universe. Its sky is a dome that mortal creatures cannot penetrate.
Narnia's stars are flaming humanoid beings. Its constellations are the result of a mystical dance upon the sky, performed by the stars to announce the works of Aslan, Narnia's creator.
Its sun is a flaming disc that revolves around the world once daily. The sun has its own ecosystem, and is known to be inhabited by great white birds. The vegetation on the sun contains healing properties. For example, the extract of a certain fireflower found in the mountains can heal any wound or sickness, and a fire-berry that grows in its valleys, when eaten by a star, works to reverse the effects of age.
The Narnian ground is a living organism. The surface is dead soil in much the same way that an animal's outer layers of skin consist of dead cells, but at deeper levels the rocks themselves are alive, and in many cases edible.
The Narnian world is part of a multiverse of countless worlds including our own world and the world of Charn. These are connected by a meta-world known as the Wood Between the Worlds. Not much is known about this wood, but it appears to be an empty space occurring as a side effect of the multiverse's underlying structure. This space takes the form of a dense forest with pools of water. With an appropriate magical device, each pool becomes a portal to a different world.
British visitors to Narnia observe that the passage of time while they are away is unpredictable. The tendency is for more time to pass in Narnia than in England, but this is not universally true.
To plot the intersections of the worlds' timelines requires curved lines in at least two dimensions. The distance between any two intersections will be different on each timeline, and there is no predictable relationship between them.
In some cases the intersections occur in different orders on each timeline. For example, an intersection occurs at the creation of Narnia and the year 1900, but on an earlier unknown date preindustrial pirates from the South Sea had already stumbled into Narnia's fifth century.
There are seven documented events of contact between the world of men and the world of Narnia. Dates are taken from a timeline provided in the book Past Watchful Dragons by Walter Hooper.
Peter, from the animated television show Family Guy, briefly visited Narnia when he plunged into the clothes dryer in pursuit of a lost sock. Upon landing, he was greeted by a small creature who said, "Welcome to Narnia!" and ran quickly away with his sock.Geography
Narnia
Archenland
Calormen
The Eastern Ocean
Other Lands
Cosmology
General Characteristics
Multiverse
Time
History
To Be Written
Human Contact
External References