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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/25/25: Narnia Big Cat Names (Narnia LIX)

Though C. S. Lewis apparently had a hatred for small cats (look at Ginger’s fate in The Last Battle) he admired the larger species. Aslan was a lion, after all, and his attendants were leopards, panthers, and other (unnamed) species of big cats; a cat-a-mount is mentioned as being one of the statues in the witch’s courtyard, which might be a puma or cougar or some other wild cat like a lynx. But…

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Narnia French Editions, 1973

Last year I posted these two interesting French editions of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian from the early 1950s. Back then foreign publishers, once they acquired the rights, usually had their own artists create the covers, likely because it was too much bother to ship over the original artwork and recreate the whole thing all over again, wasting time and money. Remember,…

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The Lion, the Witch, and the IKEA Wardrobe

Cartoon by Andrew Birch. It wrote itself, don’t you think?

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Jadis and Her Sleigh, Part 1

Artwork by Anastasia Nestarov Without bells, remember. It’s one of the most iconic images from the first book and also iconic to the Snow Queen story, which inspired Lewis to include it in the first place. Most artists don’t stray too far from the text. There’s a dwarf, at least two reindeer, and a luxurious sleigh which includes furs on the inside. The witch’s costume and the sleigh’s design…

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/18/21: Narnian Star Magic (Narnia LVIII)

Ramandu is one of those Narnian characters who plays a significant role in the book but not in artists’ depictions. Pauline Baynes’ original illustration remains the best one I’ve seen: a grave, elderly man in a robe of silver fleece, with a white beard that falls to his feet… which are bare, in the manner of the humble and the ascetic. He opens his mouth to accept a fire-berry from the beak of a…

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Narnia Church Sculptures at St. Mary's

We all know who this lion is, right? This is a bit of old news, but in 2020 fifteen sculptures were created and then consecrated to decorate the interior of St. Mary’s Church in Beverley, Yorkshire in England. Before being hoisted into the clerestory, they were displayed at ground level so churchgoers could see them up close. Visit the church’s site for more pictures. The church makes clear that…

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/11/24: What's New in Narniaworld for 2025 (Narnia LVII)

The new Queen Charlotte hotel in Narniaworld is based on Victorian seaside resorts like this one. It’s been a whole year since Narniaworld, the theme park and resort based on C. S. Lewis’ famous book series, was introduced to the public on this blog. Let’s see what new features and activities are planned for this summer. Previous Narniaworld posts are here. Narniaworld, Part 1 (Food) Narniaworld,…

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Summer of Narnia 2025

The time comes once again for the Cobalt Jade Summer of Narnia. Essays, pictures, Narnia ephemera, and much more! ( The picture above, done in a midcentury linocut style that was used heavily for children’s books, seems to be depict Lucy succumbing to her moment of temptation in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader and following a Sea Person down into the briny deep. Except it’s hard to tell her actual…

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/9/25: Undiscovered Hobbit Types, Part 2

A cute but feral-looking Bilbo on the cover of a Czech edition of The Hobbit Continuing on with this series. Tolkien says in several places that Hobbits are more akin to Men than either Elves or Dwarves. If so, they share Men’s mortality in that they do not go to Valinor after death, but somewhere else (even though Frodo and Sam did.) However, their lifespans are longer than that of Men. How did…

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Smaug the not so great and often terrible.

Today comes one the crueler parts of Tolkien March/April — mocking Smaug! Of The Hobbit fame. He’s been depicted many times over the years, and in my judgement most of the artwork has been appropriate for the story and, in many cases, superlative. But many renditions fall short in depicting the giant reptile’s majesty and malice. Like these. How threatening can Smaug be when he’s carrying a…

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/2/25: Undiscovered Hobbit Types, Part 1

A Hobbit in Mordor (close-up of a painting by Gary Cook)Nowhere in The Hobbit was it said that hobbits had oversized feet — just hairy ones. After all the different hobbits on the covers of Russian and Slavic translations, surely there must have been more types in Middle-earth than just the ones in The Shire? After all, it’s a big place with plenty of room. In his other notes, Tolkien stated that…

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The Silmarillion [Review]

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien HarperCollins, 2001 (Originally published 1977) Though a longtime fantasy and Tolkien fan I held off on reading The Silmarillion for many years. It seemed too dry, too complicated. But after I’d tackled the more recently published The Fall of Númenor I wanted more of the dusty pedantic history I’d been so fearful of, and it turns…

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Tolkien March Extended into April

… because I’ve been having that much fun, that’s why. Below, Saruman of the Many Colors, by Harold Jog. Known in some circles as “Saruman shows his Gay Pride.”

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The Russian Hobbit, Part 6

I thought I was finished with this series, but there’s just too much good material, and a few book covers I overlooked. So let’s proceed. First of all, it occurred to me I never included pictures of non-Russian hobbits to serve as comparisons. So here’s the first ever, drawn by Tolkien. And isn’t it amazing how Bilbo bears a resemblance to the artist himself! An in-joke, maybe? That said, it’s…

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Valinor

Valinor was where the gods, or Valar, of Middle-Earth dwelt; it lay far over the western sea. In the age of The Silmarillion, there were comings and goings to it all the time (by the standards of elves that is) but by the LOTR, it was only a legend to mortals. This illustration by Michael Naismith emphasizes the land’s otherworldly nature. Only conifer trees grow there (some kind of arbor vitae,…

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/26/25: Some Words of Orkish, Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1, Tolkien described orcs in racially stereotyped terms, in fact, he even admitted to it: ” squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.” The above illustration by Tim Kirk, then a fan artist, adheres to this description. To my mind, though, his orcs don’t…

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Tolkien Humor

The Tolkien revival has grown up with the internet. When the Jackson trilogy began in 2001, memes, forums, message boards, and myspace were new and fresh, enabling fans to find each other and begin to create… humor, that is.  The following is a sampling from those 25 years. You’d need to be born before 1980 to get which TV detective this drawing references. This little dog in chainmail has…