Dawn-treading: #Narniathon21

Everhardus Koster: Viking ships on the river Thames (1847)

The Dutch artist Everhardus Koster, who died in 1892, in 1847 painted a fanciful picture of Viking ships in the river Thames. This being a while before any sleek clinker-built Viking era vessels were scientifically excavated Koster’s imagined ships appear somewhat clunky, but at least they feature the familiar square sail and single mast, together with the animal head prows we know from the Oseberg longboat (a serpent’s head ornament found with other detached animal-head posts) and from depictions of Norman ships on the Bayeux tapestry.

What I find interesting though is the fact that their appearance closely resembles the illustrations that Pauline Baynes drew for C S Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952).

In this post for #Narniathon21 I want to say a bit about the sea journey undertaken by the Dawn Treader (this name somehow feels typical as a kenning for a ship of the early medieval period in Northern Europe); but I want to leave the kinds of sources and influences Lewis very likely drew on for his narrative to a later post.

© C A Lovegrove

King Caspian and Reepicheep, whom we met with in Prince Caspian (1951), are journeying east beyond the Lone Islands to discover the whereabouts of seven Telmarine lords: they’d been sent by Caspian’s wicked uncle Miraz on an expedition from which he’d hoped they’d never return. Reepicheep the Mouse was also desperate to travel to the End of the World and, just maybe, to arrive at last at Aslan’s country.

The first part of the voyage (Pauline Baynes)

Pauline Baynes, who illustrated Lewis’s Narniad, provided maps — or rather charts — for this instalment, and they variously appear in different editions. Hardbacks show the first part of the voyage from Cair Paravel to the Lone Islands, going via Galma, Terebinthia and the Seven Isles in the Bight of Calormen, and picking up Lucy, Edmund and the disagreeable Eustace mid-ocean.

The Lone Islands (Pauline Baynes)

My paperback edition includes a chart of the Lone Islands where Caspian, Reepicheep the Mouse and the youngsters get captured as slaves, the first real adventure the Pevensies and their cousin experience after entering Narnia through Aunt Alberta’s painting.

The Dark Island, by Pauline Baynes

Though illustrations show the Dawn Treader at sea in full sail, I can’t help being reminded by Koster’s early Victorian painting. Here is the high dragon head’s prow with a tail on the stern, the broad and generous hull, the high gunwale and the square rig for the single mast. Even the small fishing boat shown in Koster’s painting has a prow-ornament resembling that made for a boat and found in a bog at Midtvåge, Onarheim, Tysnes in Norway in 1948. Whether or not a reproduction of this painting was known to Lewis from his childhood reading of Norse myths it’s striking how close the Baynes depiction approaches it (though of course the Dawn Treader includes a forecastle and poop deck).

Everhardus Koster’s Viking ships on the river Thames (detail)

Baynes also provided a schematic representation of the expedition’s route; however, though the sequence of landfalls is correctly shown, the final stage of the voyage is not shown going directly east as it should but more southeast. Also, while the sail is drawn billowing out the banner at the masthead seems to be subject to a different wind altogether!

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by Pauline Baynes

I’ve therefore sketched out (in an unimpressive homage to Baynes) the more correct wake made by the Dawn Treader according, as I hope, to the directions in the text:

The Second Part of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in the style of Pauline Baynes

Lastly — for now — I did try to concoct a log of the voyage derived from the dates given in Eustace’s diary but it proved impossible to be exact as to the start and end. I estimate that the ship left Cair Paravel late July (the twenty-seventh?) and picked up the three cousins around the 26th August, but I can’t be certain.

© C A Lovegrove

In late October after leaving the Island of the Star (Ramandu’s Isle or the Island of the Sleepers) the passing of time is noted even more vaguely. If the conclusion of the novel occurs, as I presume, towards the end of November then that mayn’t be a coincidence: Lewis was born on the 29th November.

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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a particularly rich novel in terms of themes and influences and narrative. My next #Narniathon21 discussion post will attempt to look at some of these, including some of the less obvious sources that may have fed into the story.

• Cobalt Jade. 2020. ‘The Odd Geography of the Utter East.’ http://www.cobaltjade.com/2020/08/odd-geography/ accessed 23rd February 2022.
• C S Lewis. 1952. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: a story for children. Puffin Books, 1965.
• C S Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia. HarperCollins,
• Thorleif Sjovøld. 1954. The Viking Ships: a short description of the Tune, Golstad and Oseberg ships. dryers Forlag, Oslo.

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