Gnomon; What Shape was the World of Narnia?
Created | Updated Nov 21, 2019
The series of books known as the Chronicles of Narnia describe a world which can only be reached by magic. Narnia is a country in that world, rather than the name of the world, but sometimes the whole world is referred to as Narnia rather than 'the world of Narnia'. If we do that here, forgive us.
The world of Narnia would appear to share many features of our own:
- the sun rises at one side of the sky and sets at the other side. If we keep the convention that the sun rises in the east, then we have defined four directions: north, south, east and west.
- Like the northern hemisphere of our world, the north is cold, with harsh winters, while the south is hot - the land of Calormen even includes 'Calor' (heat) in its name.
- Sailing east, the ocean has a horizon and things are below the horizon when they are far away. The ship has a lookout at the top of the mast because you can see further from up there.
- When the travellers fall asleep at Aslan's Table (which is in the open) and wake up later on, they find the stars have changed their positions, as they would do on earth.
We'd be forgiven for assuming that the world is a planet like our own. But in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we find out a few things which suggest that the world of Narnia is actually flat:
1. Caspian and other well-educated people believe that the world is flat. He expresses great surprise when he hears that our world is a 'ball world', although he has read about such worlds.
2. As they travel east, the sun gets bigger and bigger in the sky, suggesting that the Narnian sun is small and close rather than big and far away.
3. The travellers reach a place which they think is the edge of the world - there is a giant standing wave about 30 feet high (9m) and through the clear water of the wave they seem to see the waters of the ocean pouring over the edge of the world in a giant waterfall. They also see the sun and a land beyond the sun, which they assume is Aslan's Land. But all of this is viewed through a wall of water.
4. They reach a place where the sky appears to come down to meet the ground. Aslan opens a door in the sky and they step through.
5. As they sail into the far east, the constellations change. They see stars and constellations that are not visible from home.
All of these suggest that the world of Narnia is not constructed the same as ours, although exactly what shape it is is not clear. Is there any model of Narnia which fits all the facts?
I think it is extremely possible that CS Lewis himself thought of Narnia as a purely flat world, but didn't think that his would affect things like the horizon or the positions of the stars.
Let's see what we can figure out...
The presence of a horizon proves that the surface of the world is curved. It could be curved in both directions (N/S and E/W) like a sphere or just in one direction (E/W) like a cylinder. We're not saying here that the world is a sphere or cylinder, just that the surface is curved like one.
The stars move significantly in a few hours at night, which suggests that either the "celestial sphere" which holds the stars spins around the world, or that the world spins on its axis. But how can we reconcile this with the statement that the constellations change as one goes east?
In our world, the constellations change as one goes north or south. At the north pole, only 50 % of the night sky is visible. The horizon blocks out half the sky, and the rotation of the earth each day does not bring any new stars into view. As we go south from the north pole, we start to see new stars and constellations appearing until at the equator, we can all all the sky (although we only see 50% of it at any one time). This effect does not happen when we go east or west.
If the constellations change as one goes east in Narnia, it suggests that the axis or rotation is an east/west one rather than a north/south one as we have, but the sun still travels in an east to west direction.
This suggests that Narnia is fixed with the sky rotating around it around an east west axis, while the sun travels around it around a north south axis.
The world of Narnia would appear to share many features of our own:
- the sun rises at one side of the sky and sets at the other side. If we keep the convention that the sun rises in the east, then we have defined four directions: north, south, east and west.
- Like the northern hemisphere of our world, the north is cold, with harsh winters, while the south is hot - the land of Calormen even includes 'Calor' (heat) in its name.
- Sailing east, the ocean has a horizon and things are below the horizon when they are far away. The ship has a lookout at the top of the mast because you can see further from up there.
- When the travellers fall asleep at Aslan's Table (which is in the open) and wake up later on, they find the stars have changed their positions, as they would do on earth.
We'd be forgiven for assuming that the world is a planet like our own. But in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we find out a few things which suggest that the world of Narnia is actually flat:
1. Caspian and other well-educated people believe that the world is flat. He expresses great surprise when he hears that our world is a 'ball world', although he has read about such worlds.
2. As they travel east, the sun gets bigger and bigger in the sky, suggesting that the Narnian sun is small and close rather than big and far away.
3. The travellers reach a place which they think is the edge of the world - there is a giant standing wave about 30 feet high (9m) and through the clear water of the wave they seem to see the waters of the ocean pouring over the edge of the world in a giant waterfall. They also see the sun and a land beyond the sun, which they assume is Aslan's Land. But all of this is viewed through a wall of water.
4. They reach a place where the sky appears to come down to meet the ground. Aslan opens a door in the sky and they step through.
5. As they sail into the far east, the constellations change. They see stars and constellations that are not visible from home.
All of these suggest that the world of Narnia is not constructed the same as ours, although exactly what shape it is is not clear. Is there any model of Narnia which fits all the facts?
I think it is extremely possible that CS Lewis himself thought of Narnia as a purely flat world, but didn't think that his would affect things like the horizon or the positions of the stars.
Let's see what we can figure out...
The presence of a horizon proves that the surface of the world is curved. It could be curved in both directions (N/S and E/W) like a sphere or just in one direction (E/W) like a cylinder. We're not saying here that the world is a sphere or cylinder, just that the surface is curved like one.
The stars move significantly in a few hours at night, which suggests that either the "celestial sphere" which holds the stars spins around the world, or that the world spins on its axis. But how can we reconcile this with the statement that the constellations change as one goes east?
In our world, the constellations change as one goes north or south. At the north pole, only 50 % of the night sky is visible. The horizon blocks out half the sky, and the rotation of the earth each day does not bring any new stars into view. As we go south from the north pole, we start to see new stars and constellations appearing until at the equator, we can all all the sky (although we only see 50% of it at any one time). This effect does not happen when we go east or west.
If the constellations change as one goes east in Narnia, it suggests that the axis or rotation is an east/west one rather than a north/south one as we have, but the sun still travels in an east to west direction.
This suggests that Narnia is fixed with the sky rotating around it around an east west axis, while the sun travels around it around a north south axis.
