Marshwiggles

I'm going to start posting Chronicles of Narnia stuff that I've been pondering....

Leave it to C.S. Lewis to weave key theology into children's story books.

Here's one from Puddleglum, a Marshwiggle who is neither fully frog nor fully human. And quite the most down cast creature. Poor Puddleglum always sees the glass half empty and the world dark and dismal. However, in his shining moment, he stands up to the Dark Queen of the Underworld who has enslaved an entire population and brainwashed them into forgetting everything of joy, brightness and beauty. Her attempt to do the same to the children from Narnia is thwarted when brave Puddleglum interupts her scheme by stomping out the poison she's placed on the fire and saying:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
— C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair)