The escape from Harfang

The escape from Harfang is the travellers’ sudden flight from the castle of the Gentle Giants after they discover that the giants plan to eat them. Puddleglum’s recognition of the venison, followed by Jill’s discovery in a cookery book that humans are served at the Autumn Feast, transforms suspicion into certainty; their quiet escape becomes a chase, ending, for the moment, with the three hiding in a cramped crevice as the hounds reach its entrance.

The meal that changes the meaning of Harfang

At lunchtime, Jill, Eustace Scrubb, and Puddleglum sit at a small table in the great hall, near the fireplace. A larger table stands about twenty yards away, where half a dozen old giants eat and talk noisily. Their voices have become background sound to the children, who are eating cold venison. Jill has never tasted it before and likes it. The ordinary pleasure of the meal makes the discovery that follows more unsettling: what seemed like hospitality is part of a danger the travellers have not yet understood.

Puddleglum suddenly turns pale beneath the natural muddiness of his complexion and tells the others not to eat another bite. When they whisper to ask what is wrong, he explains what he has overheard. The giants are discussing a tender haunch of venison and a stag that, they say, pleaded that it was too tough to eat. The exchange reveals that the animal had spoken, and that the giants killed it anyway. Puddleglum’s warning gives the travellers a reason to reconsider the meat before they know precisely what it means for their own safety.

The cookery book confirms the threat

Later, while the three are waiting in the kitchen for a giantess to fall properly asleep, Jill tries to distract herself from the strain of hiding. On a wide, clean table, she notices two enormous pie-dishes and an open book. She climbs onto the bench to read it, initially finding an entry for mallard and recognizing that the volume is a cookery book. The next alphabetical entry is for man. It calls the human a delicacy and says that humans are traditionally served at the Autumn Feast between the fish and the joint. Jill cannot bear to read the entry to its end.

She turns from the book and sees that the giantess has woken and is coughing. Jill nudges her companions and points out the page. Eustace is still reading the directions for cooking humans when Puddleglum directs their attention to the entry below it: marsh-wiggles are also discussed as possible food for giants, although some authorities reject them because of their stringy consistency and muddy flavour. The entry makes plain that the danger is not limited to Jill and Eustace. The three travellers are potential dishes, and the castle’s welcome has concealed a threat to all of them.

Slipping out of the castle

The travellers wait until the giantess is asleep. Her shifting and fidgeting repeatedly frustrate their hope that she has settled, so they huddle at the far end of the kitchen, watching and listening. They would have slipped through to the scullery earlier if she had not sat up, opened her eyes, and brushed away a fly. The thought that the hunters might return at any moment keeps the delay charged with danger.

At last the giantess snores. The sound signals the chance they have been waiting for: the escape becomes a matter of tiptoe steps, not daring to move too quickly or even breathe freely. They pass through the scullery and emerge into the pale sunlight of a winter afternoon. The quiet exit is only a temporary advantage. They are on a rough path above the City Ruinous, and the broad, steep road from the castle’s main gate leaves them in full view of nearly fifty windows. Coarse grass, pebbles, and flat stones provide scant cover. Their clothes, supplied by the giants the previous night, add to their vulnerability: Jill wears a vivid green robe and a scarlet mantle edged with white fur, while Eustace wears scarlet stockings, a blue tunic and cloak, a gold-hiked sword, and a feathered bonnet. Puddleglum, by contrast, could not fit into the clothes provided.

Pursuit and refuge beneath the stairway

The returning hunt appears about half a mile away, and then a clamour of giant voices and shouts announces that the travellers have been seen. Puddleglum orders them to run. Jill gathers up her long skirts and follows, hearing the hounds and the King’s voice calling for the hunters to catch them so that they will have human pies for the next day. The pursuit gives the danger its bluntest confirmation: the discovery in the book was not a general warning but a plan that includes the children.

Jill falls behind, hampered by her clothes and stumbling on loose stones. As she runs uphill towards the lowest step of the giant stairway, she does not know what they will do if they reach the top, or whether it will make them any safer. The immediate pressure of the hounds leaves no room to decide; she runs because the pack is after her. At the lowest step, Puddleglum stops, looks to one side, and darts into a small opening. Eustace hesitates, then follows.

Jill reaches the opening about a minute later. It is a crack between the earth and the stone, roughly three feet long and barely more than a foot high. She has to throw herself flat and crawl, fearing that a dog will seize her heel before she gets inside. In the pitch-dark space, Puddleglum calls for stones to fill the entrance. Eustace and Puddleglum are already piling them against the opening; Jill gropes for larger stones and passes them to the others. They nearly block the gap before the dogs are baying at the cave mouth. With the light shut out, Puddleglum tells them to move farther in. The escape from the castle has brought the travellers into concealment, but the hounds’ arrival leaves their flight unresolved at the threshold of the dark refuge.

The turn from hospitality to survival

The episode is structured as a sequence of increasingly concrete recognitions. First, the giants’ casual talk makes the venison suspect; then the cookery book names humans as food and identifies the Autumn Feast as the occasion; finally, the King’s shout confirms that the travellers themselves are being hunted for pies. Each discovery narrows the distance between an ominous hint and immediate bodily danger. The book’s alphabetical entries turn a domestic object into evidence, while the children’s own meal becomes an unsettling counterpoint to the giants’ appetites.

The flight also shifts from stealth to exposure and then to concealment. In the kitchen, safety depends on waiting for the giantess to sleep and moving without noise. Outside, the open road, the many windows, and the approaching hunt make running unavoidable. The crevice reverses that exposure: the travellers disappear from view, but only by crawling into a cramped darkness and sealing the entrance with stones. The episode ends not with a return to safety but with the hounds at the blocked opening, carrying the danger forward into the next stage of their escape.