The Witch’s arrival in Narnia is the accidental crossing that brings Jadis into a world only just being created, turning Digory’s attempt to undo his earlier mistake into the source of a new danger. Her first response to the newborn land is violence: she hurls an iron bar at Aslan while he sings. The event links the dead city of Charn to Narnia’s beginnings, and makes Digory answer publicly for having brought evil into the new country.

From Charn to the new world

Jadis has already shown Digory the consequences of standing in her way by leading him out onto a terrace above Charn. Beneath a huge, low red sun, a star hangs over a city without any visible living thing. Temples, towers, palaces, pyramids, and bridges cast long shadows across the ruins; the river that once ran through the city has dwindled to a broad ditch of grey dust. Jadis presents this desolation as the former greatness of her realm, but the sight also establishes what Narnia is not: Charn is a world whose grandeur has survived the life that once sustained it.

The transition into Narnia happens by accident. When Digory and Polly emerge from a pool into warm sunshine, they discover that Jadis, Uncle Andrew, the Cabby, and the horse Strawberry have come with them. Jadis goes pale and bends over Strawberry’s mane, visibly sickened by the wood. The horse, by contrast, shakes his head, whinnies, and grows calmer; his flattened ears return to their proper position and the fire leaves his eyes. His changed condition makes the contrast between the Witch’s distress and the new country’s restorative atmosphere visible before the travellers understand where they are.

The group’s next movement is also unintended. Still thirsty, Strawberry walks toward a pool to drink, but Polly recognizes the green Rings and signals Digory. Because the travellers remain physically linked—Polly holding Digory, Digory holding Jadis by the heel, the Cabby holding Strawberry, and Uncle Andrew gripping the Cabby’s other hand—the attempted journey takes the whole party along. They sink into darkness before the horse can drink. The arrival is thus not a deliberate invasion planned by Jadis; it grows out of Digory’s effort to direct the journey and the chain of contact that carries everyone with him.

A country comes into being

The land into which they arrive is not yet a settled country. At sunrise, the travellers see a valley of earth, rock, and water, with a broad river flowing east, mountains to the south, and lower hills to the north. There is no tree, bush, or blade of grass. The sun, which Digory judges younger than the one above Charn, rises over this bare landscape as Aslan sings; the freshness of the new world stands against Charn’s exhausted light and vanished river.

Aslan’s song changes the terrain before the travellers’ eyes. Grass spreads outward from him and climbs the hillsides; heather darkens the higher slopes, and new plants grow rapidly from the earth. Trees spring up around Digory. The music is not merely a backdrop to Narnia’s formation: Polly begins to perceive a connection between particular phrases and particular growth, recognizing firs after deep notes and primroses after a lighter run. The scene presents the land as taking form through song, with the new life appearing in time with its maker’s music.

The creation continues from vegetation to animal life. The ground swells into humps of different sizes, breaks open, and releases animals from the earth: moles, dogs, stags, frogs, and larger beasts. Birds pour out of the trees, while bees begin working among the flowers. An elephant emerges from the largest mound, and the accumulated cries of the animals grow so loud that Digory can no longer hear the song. The sequence makes the arrival of Jadis part of a larger beginning: she enters a world whose landscapes, plants, and creatures are coming into existence around her.

Jadis attacks Aslan

As the land and its life take shape, Jadis steps out toward Aslan and throws the iron bar at his head. The distance is only twelve yards, close enough that she cannot miss. The bar strikes him between the eyes, glances away, and falls into the grass. Aslan does not alter his pace or stop singing; the attack fails to interrupt either the song or the creation unfolding around him.

Jadis shrieks and runs into the trees. Uncle Andrew tries to flee as well, but trips over a root and falls face-first into a brook. The children remain where they are as Aslan passes close enough for them to touch his mane. He does not turn the song into a snarl or pause to pursue the Witch: he continues his measured eastward walk. The immediate confrontation therefore establishes both her hostility and the limits of her power in this scene. She can enter the new land and strike at its creator, but she cannot make him stop creating.

Digory is held responsible

Later, Aslan identifies Digory before the assembled Beasts as the boy who brought the Witch into the new land. He asks Digory to explain how she came. Digory tells the truth: he brought her because he wanted to remove her from his own world and return her to hers. His purpose had been corrective, but the result has made Jadis a danger in a country where she did not belong.

Aslan describes the consequence in terms of the world’s youth: before the clean new land is seven hours old, evil has entered it, awakened and brought there by Digory. The Beasts, including Strawberry, turn their eyes on the boy. Digory feels exposed and fears that he has spoiled everything, including any hope of obtaining something for his mother. Aslan does not deny the harm, but he also refuses to treat it as the end of Narnia’s story. Evil will come from the evil already present, he says, and he will see that the worst of it falls upon himself; meanwhile, the new country can still be kept merry for many hundreds of years. Since Adam’s race has done the harm, Adam’s race must help to heal it.

The Witch’s threat and the Tree

Jadis’s attack and flight establish an enemy whom the new community must reckon with. Aslan tells the Narnians that she has fled far north, where she will continue to grow stronger in dark Magic. His warning turns her arrival into more than a brief interruption of the creation scene: the Witch has escaped, and the future safety of Narnia requires a response.

That response is attached to a living object. When the Tree grown from Digory’s planting appears, its silver apples show among branches that seem to give light rather than shade. Aslan orders the Narnians to make guarding it their first care, calling it their Shield. While the Tree flourishes, Jadis will not come down into Narnia; she dares not approach within a hundred miles, because its smell—which brings joy, life, and health to the Narnians—is to her death, horror, and despair. The protection answers the danger introduced with Jadis’s arrival, but it does not erase the original mistake: the Witch has already eaten an apple of the same kind from which the Tree grew. The episode therefore closes its causal circle in warning and remedy alike: Digory brought the danger, and the world’s defence depends on the life he helped plant.