The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the Stone Table, shadowed by Susan and Lucy. Aslan welcomes their company but warns them not to interfere with what is about to happen. He has traded his own life to the Witch for Edmund's, and the girls watch from the bushes as the Witch orders Aslan tied to the Stone Table, shaved, and muzzled. She administers the killing blow herself. Confident now of victory, the Witch leads her army away to battle. Susan and Lucy remain and keep vigil all night, weeping over Aslan's abandoned body. They un-muzzle him, and mice gnaw away his bonds. As the sun
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe young Lewis much about thinking and communicating clearly, skills that would be invaluable to him later. Narnia is caught in endless winter that has lasted a century when the children first enter. Norse tradition mythologizes a "great winter", known as the Fimbulwinter, said to precede Ragnarök. The trapping of Edmund by the White Witch is reminiscent of the seduction and imprisonment of Kay by The Snow Queen in Hans Christian Andersen's novella of that name. The dwarves and giants are found in Norse mythology; fauns, centaurs, minotaurs and dryads derive from Greek mythology. Father Christmas, of course, was part of