The Cabby and Strawberry (Fledge)

The Cabby and Strawberry (Fledge) are joined by a past that returns only after Aslan awakens the animals of Narnia. Their reunion is neither simple recognition nor a clean break with hardship: the Cabby recalls feeding and tending the horse, while Strawberry remembers the whip, the rattling cab, and the labor of pulling it. Aslan’s gift of wings transforms the former working partnership into a new one, making Fledge both the father of flying horses and the mount who carries Digory toward the mountain-valley.

Identity and Background

The Cabby is the countryman who had made his living driving a cab in London; Strawberry is the horse who pulled it. Their shared history emerges in fragments because Strawberry, newly awakened, first has only a hazy sense that he once lived somewhere else or was something else. He says that the past feels like a dream, and that he remembers the three humans as figures from it. The Cabby, by contrast, recognizes his old companion and tries to catch his eye, addressing him as a familiar friend.

Their former life belonged to a hard city and to the work both needed to survive. The Cabby remembers that the horse had a stable, hay, mash, and occasional oats because the cab earned money; Strawberry remembers the black vehicle behind him, the man sitting above him, and the work of pulling. Their recollections establish real mutual dependence, but not an equal division of effort. The Cabby emphasizes what he provided, while Strawberry insists that he did the running and the pulling.

Recognition and Recollection

The first reunion is unsettled: when other animals ask what the Cabby means by calling to the horse, Strawberry cannot confidently identify him. The Cabby answers with concrete acts of care. He had brought Strawberry hot mash when he was out of sorts, rubbed him down, and put a cloth over him when he stood in the cold. These details make the Cabby’s claim of familiarity specific; their connection rests on repeated care as well as shared work.

That care does not erase the horse’s memory of being made to work. Strawberry recalls a horrid black thing tied behind him and the blows that made him run, while it rattled after him however far he went. The Cabby responds that there would have been no stable, hay, mash, or oats without work and a whip. Strawberry acknowledges remembering the oats, but answers that the Cabby sat behind while he ran in front and did all the labor. Their exchange gives each animal and human a distinct account of the same arrangement: provision and companionship on one side, physical burden on the other.

The seasons sharpen the disagreement. The Cabby grants that summer meant hot work for Strawberry and a cool seat for himself, but recalls winter’s cold from his own position on the cab: feet like ice, a wind-pinched nose, and hands so numb he could scarcely hold the reins. Strawberry remembers a country without grass, only hard stones. The Cabby agrees that London’s paving-stones were hard on a horse, and adds that he too was a countryman, once singing in a choir at home before leaving because there was no living to be made there. Their shared dislike of the city does not make their former circumstances identical; it makes hardship the ground on which their memories meet.

Transformation and New Partnership

The Cabby’s recognition is followed by Strawberry’s transformation. When Aslan commands, “Be winged. Be the father of all flying horses,” and gives the horse the name Fledge, the old hansom horse first shies and then rears. Wings burst from his shoulders, growing larger than eagles’, swans’, or the angels’ wings in church windows; their chestnut and copper feathers shine as he sweeps into the air. He circles above Aslan and Digory, then lands on all four hooves, awkward and surprised but plainly pleased. Asked whether it is good, Fledge answers that it is.

The change in name marks a change in what the horse can do, but it does not sever him from his earlier life. When Aslan asks him to carry Digory to the mountain-valley, Fledge responds with immediate excitement. He remembers having beings like the boy on his back long ago, when there were green fields and sugar. The old memory of carrying passengers thus returns in a new setting, no longer attached to London’s stones or the rattling black cab. Formerly a horse whose movement served another’s livelihood, Fledge now accepts a journey under Aslan’s direction and carries Digory toward a purpose beyond the city life both he and the Cabby left behind.

Relationship and Significance

The relationship is built from a double recollection rather than a single sentimental account. The Cabby’s tenderness is visible in his attention to Strawberry’s food, grooming, and warmth; Strawberry’s resistance preserves the cost of pulling the cab and being struck to run. Neither account cancels the other. The Cabby explains the necessities of earning a living, and Strawberry remembers that he bore the work. Their conversation lets affection coexist with grievance and mutual recognition without pretending their former arrangement was effortless or equal.

As Narnia gives both characters a new life, it also changes the terms of their connection. Strawberry becomes Fledge, a winged horse and the father of flying horses; the Cabby, now among Narnia’s awakened inhabitants, can meet him again as a recognized companion rather than only the driver who once sat behind him. Fledge’s readiness to carry Digory links their personal reunion to the new world’s unfolding events. Their shared past survives, but its hardship no longer defines the only form their partnership can take.