Making the wardrobe

Making the wardrobe turns the aftermath of Digory’s adventure into a material link between England and Narnia. The apple tree he planted in his back garden grew from the seed of an apple brought from Narnia; after a storm felled it when Digory was middle-aged, he had part of its timber made into a wardrobe. Though he never discovered the wardrobe’s magic, someone else did, beginning later comings and goings between the worlds.

From Narnian apple to English tree

The tree’s history begins with an apple carried out of Narnia and planted in Digory’s garden. Growing in English soil, away from Aslan’s voice and Narnia’s young air, it could not produce fruit capable of reviving a dying woman as the Narnian apple had revived Digory’s mother. Its apples were nevertheless unusually beautiful and very good for people, though not fully magical.

The tree remained connected, in its sap, to the Narnian tree to which it belonged. At times it moved when no wind stirred in England. The narrator suggests that such trembling might correspond to high winds rocking the Narnian tree, as if the two trees shared a distant, bodily memory across worlds.

The storm and the wardrobe

When Digory was middle-aged, a great storm swept southern England and blew the tree down. By then he was a famous learned man, a professor, and a great traveller; the old Ketterley house belonged to him. Rather than let the fallen tree be chopped up for firewood, he chose to preserve part of it by having the timber made into a wardrobe for his large country house.

The wardrobe’s material therefore carries a history its maker does not fully know. The English tree’s fruit had lost the Narnian apple’s healing power, but its wood still held magic. Digory did not discover that property himself; another person did, turning what might have been ordinary household furniture into a passage between worlds.

Consequence and significance

The wardrobe completes a chain of transformations: an apple from Narnia is planted in England, becomes a tree, survives in its wood after the storm, and is fashioned into an object whose magic enables later travel. Its importance lies partly in the contrast between Digory’s deliberate preservation of the tree and his ignorance of what the timber could do. He saves it from the firewood pile without knowing that he is preserving a connection between worlds.

The wardrobe’s discovery marks the beginning of further journeys between Narnia and the human world, linking Digory’s earlier adventure to events told in other books. The passage from living tree to crafted furniture does not erase the tree’s origin: the wood remains an active remnant of Narnia, carrying its magic into an English house.