Lucy Enters Narnia

Lucy Pevensie, the youngest of the four children sent to the country during the war, becomes the first of them to discover the magical land of Narnia. Her initial entry through an ordinary-looking wardrobe in a spare room sets the entire story in motion, establishing the portal between worlds and introducing the central conflict of the White Witch's eternal winter.

Discovery of the Wardrobe

On a rainy morning when outdoor exploration was impossible, the children decided to explore the Professor's vast house. After passing through a long room full of pictures, a room hung with green containing a harp, and a series of book-lined rooms, they came to a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe with a looking-glass in the door and a dead blue-bottle on the window-sill. Peter declared "Nothing there!" and the others trooped out, but Lucy stayed behind, thinking it would be worth trying the door of the wardrobe even though she felt almost sure it would be locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two moth-balls dropped out. Looking inside, she saw several coats hanging up—mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats, rubbing her face against them, leaving the door open because she knew it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.

The Transition to Narnia

Soon she went further in and found a second row of coats behind the first one. It was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe. She took a step further in—then two or three steps—always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers, but she could not feel it. Thinking "This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" she went still further in, pushing the soft folds of the coats aside. Then she noticed something crunching under her feet. Stooping down to feel it with her hands, instead of the hard, smooth wood of the floor she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. "Why, it is just like branches of trees!" she exclaimed. Then she saw a light ahead of her, not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found herself standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.

First Encounters in Narnia

Lucy felt a little frightened but also very inquisitive and excited. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. It seemed to be still daylight there. "I can always get back if anything goes wrong," she thought. She began to walk forward, crunch-crunch, over the snow and through the wood towards the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood, she heard a pitter-patter of feet coming towards her. Soon a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post. He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upwards he was like a man, but his legs were shaped like a goat's with glossy black hair, and instead of feet he had goat's hoofs. He had a red woollen muffler round his neck, a strange but pleasant little face with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out of the hair there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead. He was a Faun. When he saw Lucy he gave such a start of surprise that he dropped all his parcels. This was Mr. Tumnus, who would become Lucy's first friend in Narnia and whose subsequent arrest would propel the children into their quest to rescue him and fulfill the prophecy of the four thrones.