The Battle with the White Witch

The Battle with the White Witch is the decisive armed conflict that ends the White Witch's tyrannical reign over Narnia and fulfills the ancient prophecy that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve would sit on the four thrones of Cair Paravel. It is the event toward which the entire narrative has been building: the confrontation between the forces loyal to Aslan, the true King, and the army of the self-proclaimed Queen Jadis, whose power has been sustained by the Deep Magic of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. The battle is not merely a military engagement but the final working-out of the deeper magic that Aslan's willing sacrifice has set in motion, and it is the moment when the four Pevensie children—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—fully assume their destined roles as rulers of Narnia.

Causes and Background

The battle is the direct consequence of the White Witch's claim on Edmund's life under the Deep Magic, which Aslan satisfied by dying in the traitor's place on the Stone Table. Aslan's resurrection, made possible by a deeper magic from before the dawn of time, broke the Witch's hold over Narnia's eternal winter and restored spring to the land. After the resurrection, Aslan led Susan and Lucy on a ride across Narnia to the Witch's castle, where he breathed life back into the stone statues that filled her courtyard—creatures she had petrified over years of rule. Among the liberated were Mr. Tumnus, the Faun whose arrest had set the children's quest in motion, and Giant Rumblebuffin, who smashed the castle gates to allow the army to march out. Aslan then organized this newly freed host, assigning the larger creatures—lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants, and eagles—to carry the smaller ones, while the keen-nosed lions and dogs led the way to locate the battlefield. The Witch, meanwhile, had summoned her own forces: giants, werewolves, evil tree-spirits, ghouls, boggles, ogres, minotaurs, hags, spectres, and the people of the toadstools, and had already engaged Peter's army at the Fords of Beruna.

The Course of the Battle

When Aslan's reinforcements arrived, they found Peter and Edmund and the rest of Aslan's army fighting desperately against a far larger host of horrible creatures. The battlefield was dotted with stone statues, evidence that the Witch had been using her petrifying wand. She was not using it now, however; she was fighting hand-to-hand with her stone knife against Peter, their blades flashing so quickly that they seemed to multiply. Aslan, with Susan and Lucy on his back, charged into the narrow, winding valley where the fighting raged. He ordered the girls to dismount, and then, with a roar that shook all Narnia from the Western Lamp-post to the shores of the Eastern sea, he flung himself upon the White Witch. Lucy saw the Witch's face lifted toward him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement. Then Lion and Witch rolled over together, with the Witch underneath. At the same moment, all the war-like creatures Aslan had freed from the castle rushed madly on the enemy line: dwarfs with battle-axes, dogs with teeth, the giant with his club, unicorns with their horns, centaurs with swords and hoofs. Peter's tired army cheered, the newcomers roared, and the enemy squealed and gibbered until the wood re-echoed with the din of that onset.

Edmund's Crucial Role

Peter later reported to Aslan that the battle would have been lost without Edmund. The Witch had been turning their troops into stone right and left, but nothing could stop Edmund. He fought his way through three ogres to reach her at the very moment she was turning one of Aslan's leopards into a statue. Instead of attacking her directly—which would have resulted in his own petrification—he had the presence of mind to bring his sword smashing down on her wand. That was the mistake all the rest had been making. Once her wand was broken, Aslan's army began to have a chance, though many had already been lost. Edmund himself was terribly wounded in the effort, covered with blood, his face a nasty green color. Lucy used the cordial given her by Father Christmas—a few drops of the juice of fire-flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun—to heal him. Aslan then made Edmund a Knight on the field of battle.

Consequences and Aftermath

The battle was over within minutes of Aslan's arrival. Most of the enemy were killed in the first charge; those still living either gave themselves up or fled when they saw the Witch was dead. The next day, the army marched eastward down the side of the great river, and the day after that, at about tea-time, they reached the mouth of the river and the castle of Cair Paravel. There, in the Great Hall with its ivory roof and its eastern door opening onto the sea, Aslan solemnly crowned the four children and led them to the four thrones amid shouts of "Long Live King Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live Queen Lucy!" Aslan declared, "Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen. Bear it well, Sons of Adam! Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!" The mermen and mermaids swam close to the castle steps, singing in honor of the new Kings and Queens. That night there was a great feast with revelry and dancing, and the music of the sea people answered the music inside. The four children governed Narnia well and long, and their reign was happy: they stamped out the remnants of the Witch's army, made good laws, kept the peace, and were known as King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant.