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 the Mouse." In the fable, a lion catches a mouse, but the mouse persuades the lion to release him, promising that the favor would be rewarded. Later in the story, he gnaws through the lion's bonds after he has been captured by hunters. It is also reminiscent of a scene from Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum," in which a prisoner is freed when rats gnaw through his bonds. In a later book, "Prince Caspian," we learn that as reward for their actions, mice gained the same intelligence and speech as other Narnian animals. One of the