Fauns

Fauns are goat-legged, humanlike beings of Narnia, and Tumnus gives the story its clearest portrait of them: a familiar figure from the earlier reign of Narnia’s kings and queens, now older and still active in the kingdom’s affairs. His sudden recognition, physical distress, and practical counsel show the Fauns not merely as wondrous inhabitants but as participants in Narnia’s political life.

Identity and Appearance

When Shasta first sees Tumnus, he is startled by a creature unlike anyone he has encountered. Tumnus is about Shasta’s height, with a manlike upper body and goatlike, hairy legs, cloven hooves, and a tail. His reddish skin, curly hair, short pointed beard, and two small horns complete the description. Shasta has never seen a picture of a Faun or even heard of one, so the encounter makes Narnia’s unfamiliar inhabitants suddenly concrete.

Tumnus and Narnia’s Earlier Reign

Tumnus is identified as the same Faun whom Lucy met on her first day in Narnia. By the time of Shasta’s arrival, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have been kings and queens for several years, and Tumnus has grown considerably older. The reference links the present crisis to an earlier period in Narnia’s history: he is not a newly encountered stranger to the kingdom’s rulers but a continuing presence across their reign.

Counsel During the Tashbaan Crisis

Tumnus’s role becomes consequential when Susan breaks down over the danger facing the royal party and blames herself for leaving Cair Paravel. Edmund tries to comfort her, but Tumnus is gripping both horns and writhing as if in inward pain. He asks the others not to speak while he thinks, then turns that intense concentration into a plan for getting the party to its ship that day.

His proposal is to invite the Prince to a great banquet aboard their galleon, the Splendor Hyaline, for the following night. The message should be gracious enough to give the Prince hope that Susan is weakening, but carefully worded so that the Queen does not pledge her honor. The invitation provides a pretext for going down to the ship and loading supplies while others assume preparations are being made for a feast.

Tumnus develops the deception with practical detail: the party can spend its remaining money at fruit sellers, sweetmeat sellers, and wine merchants, then order magicians, jugglers, dancing girls, and flute players to appear aboard the next night. The Raven calls the counsel good, and Edmund receives it with doubt. Tumnus’s contribution is both imaginative and operational: he turns the expectation of a royal celebration into cover for escape preparations.

Character and Narrative Role

Tumnus’s appearance makes him an embodiment of Narnia’s difference from Shasta’s previous experience, while his history with Lucy places him within a community already known to the returning rulers. In the crisis, his physical agitation precedes a lucid, carefully calibrated scheme. That contrast gives the Faun’s counsel its force: thought is shown not as detached cleverness but as effort under pressure, converted into a plan attentive to honor, appearances, money, and timing.