TLC Forum

"It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill " Lucy VDT

This line from the VDT as well as the Story of Refreshment intrigue me. I believe that this spell (well more like a story) of refreshment for the spirit is the story of Christ's Death and Resurrection; the cup to me symbolizes the cup that Jesus shared with his disciples at the last supper symbolizing His blood, the tree I believe to be His cross, and the green hill His tomb from which He rose to life again.

The only part of the story that I do not know what it could/does symbolize is the sword; does anyone have any ideas as to what part of the story this could be a part of? From what I do think I believe it happens after the Last Supper and before his Crucifixion but I can't put my finger to what it is since there is a good amount that does happen between these two parts in the Story of Refreshment.

I was also wondering why couldn't Lucy remember the story? Lewis doesn't explain that she could or couldn't remember the spell of 'eavesdropping' but it does say she couldn't remember the Spell of Refreshment for the Spirit. And if it only applied to this story, the story Lucy claimed to be the loveliest story she had ever read, I wonder why. Although it could just be that you were not allowed to remember the spells because they belonged to Coriakin.

Why was this 'story' called a spell? Well it could be that she felt so much nicer after reading it and that she never had wanted to stop. But was it a spell any one have any ideas?

This was first time reading VDT and I so thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

If you have any thoughts or ideas about the Spell or Story of Refreshment for the Spirit please post ^.^

Wow Eriathwen! I have never really stopped to think about that part of the book, but I really enjoyed your thoughts on it. I think you're on to something .

I wonder if Aslan did not permit her to remember the story so she would be filled with a longing for it that would lead her to search for it in her own world (i.e. having a desire for the joy of that story, she would go and find it in the scriptures). I have two reasons for considering this as a possibility: 1.) In his autobiography, Lewis talks about how imagination can give you fleeting glimpses of joy, and lead you to find that joy in its fullness in Christ. Perhaps the story is that kind of joy. 2.) In the end, Aslan tells Lucy she has known him in Narnia so she will seek to know him in her world. This story could be one of the ways she knew him in Narnia, and could be a tool Aslan uses to lead her to seek him in her own world.

Just a few thoughts. I'm curious if anyone has any ideas on what the sword signifies...

That's a great thought ^.^ I imagine that must be the case because it fits in perfectly with the stories as well as what the human nature is. When we find something that gives us pleasure we would go to the ends of the earth just to see it again And I do believe that Christ does show us himself in ways that we would understand better that draws us to him not by force but because of true longing.

I also wonder if anyone has any ideas about the sword...

Maybe the sword represents the spear used to pierce Jesus' side after He died?

Other hypotheses would include Word of God (from the armor passage in... Ephesians?), return of the King at the end of the world, or an allegorical picture of the conquest of death/crushing of the serpent through the cross...

@ Jaygee - That is a great thought , but because he was pierced after he had already died I don't think it would fit in the place of the sword.

@Lily - Yes that could be it, I had not thought of it resembling the Word

I wonder if the sword could be Peter's use of a sword when the guards come to take Jesus, and Jesus reproves him. I think of its significance as meaning that Jesus did not want his followers to spread his word by force but by love. And I think it would fit in terms of being between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.

Yes that would fit between both time periods. I was reading the story of His crucifixion the other day, but had no thought of it as you have pointed out. But I agree and think that you have hit the nail on the head.
Thank you
Eria

Ooh, I like Yorick's thoughts on the "spell" aspect!
As for the sword, ask Kristi. She told the tale during the Christmas Party last year and she included all of the elements most beauteously!

Wow, I hadn't thought of that! I did think of the "glimpses of Joy" part quite early on - it's rather obvious when you know of Lewis' opinions on the subject (and he tends to bring similar points up often in his apologetics). And also because, ahem, once upon a time I woke from a dream I knew was the Spell for the Refreshment of the Spirit, and I couldn't remember it, only that it left behind a certain feeling I wished I could find again, exactly as Lucy did, or maybe write down because I have these writerly ambitions. But since I knew Lucy's experience with it, as I realised this I just left it in God's hands. True story.

Another true story: Before that dream, my mom once told me and my sisters a story without an end. There was a hill in which there lived a many-headed dragon, and if I remember correctly (it might be just what I imagined), some of those heads would stick out of caves in the sides of the hill. Travellers would come to the hill, maybe even climb up, and the dragon would... kill them, maybe? I don't quite remember, except that the dragon was dangerous and people would come to fear the hill.
Hearing that story, I finished it: One day, someone would come and deliver the dragon.
Mom was, for some reason, astonished by that solution to the story, saying she never had thought of it.
I think I made it because I'd heard echoes of the green hill from that story in hers.

But it never occurred to me it could be applied to the Easter story so plainly!
Firstly, it might be because I knew the story of Jesus even before I knew Narnia, so it never occurred to me that Lucy might not? I never read the Pevensies as coming from a non-believer or barely-believer family, to tell the truth; I ascribed my own experience to them, including early familiarity with all manner of Bible stories, more so because of the contrast with Eustace. So the "finding me in your own world" was always, in my perception, about finding a personal relationship with God rather than about learning about Him from point blank.
(Now I'm wondering if my knowing the story of Christ's crucifiction so early is more common, or if it's yet another result of my having learned to read very early...)
Also, the tree = cross equivalence is not something you encounter often in Czech, so all I would have had to go on was the cup... and the translation didn't exactly help there, because the most commonly used word in Czech is equivalent to "chalice", not the more general "cup" translation used in the book.
And if we do do that (I have my doubts, see below), the green hill could also be the garden of Gethsemane...

Third point, what with the above experience with the dream (and maybe even mom's story), I don't think it was a story with symbols that would "stand for something". I think Lucy, as she was reading it, was experiencing it, sort of dreaming it, was inside the story, living it. Ouch, I miss an English equivalent of a very neat Czech word for what I have in mind! It's a word that can be used both for "experience/live through" and "really get/be into a story". So that would be why it was a spell, why it was magic: making you really live through it, the way good stories do but even more so.

Despite my doubts, Lewis very well might have really meant the Easter story in a way, and in writing that passage maybe aimed at mythical motifs that he himself had encountered somewhere before his conversion and that had given him those glimpses of Joy. Motifs, rather than symbols, if that makes sense... I tried to somehow make what I have in mind work inside the "icon, index and symbol" linguistic theory of signs, but neither of them actually works. The literary term of motif really applies best. And that's another reason why I did not think of the Easter story myself. It did not have to be it - maybe not the one from our world. Maybe it was yet another Easter story from yet another world.