Sacrificial Stone Table

The Sacrificial Stone Table is a great grim slab of grey stone supported on four upright stones, standing on a green open hilltop in Narnia. It is cut all over with strange lines and figures that might be the letters of an unknown language, giving a curious feeling to those who look at them. The table is the designated meeting place where Mr. Beaver is to lead the children to Aslan, and it is also the site where the White Witch claims the Deep Magic must be fulfilled: every traitor belongs to her as lawful prey, and for every treachery she has a right to a kill.

Location and Appearance

The Stone Table stands on a hilltop from which one can look down on the forest spreading in every direction, with the sea visible far to the east. It is a great grim slab of grey stone supported on four upright stones, looking very old and covered with strange lines and figures that might be the letters of an unknown language. The table is the place where Aslan tells the children they are to meet him, and it is also the site where the Witch later claims the Deep Magic must be enacted.

The Sacrifice of Aslan

At the Stone Table, the White Witch and her followers bind Aslan, shave his mane, muzzle him, and drag him onto the table. The Witch bares her arms and whets her stone knife, then kills him as a substitute for Edmund, declaring that the Deep Magic is appeased. The children, Susan and Lucy, witness the scene from hiding, and after the crowd departs, they approach the table, kiss Aslan's cold face, and try to untie him. The cords are too tight, but dozens of field mice come and gnaw through the ropes, freeing his body.

The Resurrection and the Broken Table

At dawn, as the sun rises, the Stone Table is broken into two pieces by a great crack that runs down it from end to end, and Aslan is no longer there. He appears behind the girls, alive and larger than before, explaining that the Witch knew only the Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, but there is a Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time: when a willing victim who had committed no treachery is killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards. The broken table thus becomes the physical proof of the Deeper Magic's victory over the Witch's claim.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

The Stone Table functions as the central object of the story's climax, embodying the conflict between the Deep Magic (the law of retribution) and the Deeper Magic (the power of voluntary sacrifice). Its cracking marks the turning point of the narrative, leading directly to Aslan's resurrection, the liberation of the statues, and the final defeat of the White Witch. The table is also the place where the Witch's claim to Edmund's life is formally renounced and where the prophecy of Aslan's return is fulfilled, making it the symbolic heart of the story's moral and theological structure.