Incubus

The Incubus is one of the many malevolent creatures that serve the White Witch in Narnia, appearing only as a named member of her assembled army on the night of Aslan's sacrifice. Its inclusion in the catalogue of horrors that gather around the Stone Table marks the Incubus as part of the Witch's most feared and loathsome allies, creatures whose very existence is so dreadful that the narrator declines to describe them fully, lest adult readers forbid the book to children.

Role in the Witch's Army

The Incubus is listed among the "Cruels and Hags and Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins" that the Wolf had summoned at the White Witch's command. This roll call of terror follows the Witch's order to "Call out the giants and the werewolves and the spirits of those trees who are on our side. Call the Ghouls, and the Boggles, the Ogres and the Minotaurs." The Incubus thus belongs to the innermost circle of the Witch's power, creatures that are not merely enemies of Narnia but embodiments of nightmare itself. The narrator's deliberate refusal to describe these beings—"other creatures whom I won't describe because if I did the grown-ups would probably not let you read this book"—creates a gap that the reader's imagination fills with something worse than any explicit depiction. This rhetorical strategy elevates the Incubus from a mere monster to a symbol of the unspeakable evil that the Witch commands.

Thematic Significance

The Incubus, as a figure drawn from medieval demonology, represents the intrusion of a specifically Christian mythological evil into the fairy-tale world of Narnia. Its presence alongside hags, wraiths, and efreets creates a composite of folkloric and theological terror, suggesting that the White Witch's dominion draws on every tradition of darkness. The Incubus does not act individually in the story; it is part of a collective that surrounds Aslan during his humiliation and later fights in the battle at the Fords of Beruna. Its function is to thicken the atmosphere of dread and to make the Witch's defeat by Aslan and the children feel like a victory over cosmic evil, not merely a political or military one. The Incubus, never seen in detail, remains a shadow at the edge of the narrative—a reminder that some horrors are best left unnamed.