Chapter 6—

“Throwing Up the Sponge”:

Trust vs. Luck in The Horse and His Boy

In The Educated Imagination Northrop Frye writes that “if you open the Bible, you’ll soon come to the story of the finding of the infant Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter. That’s a conventional type of story, the mysterious birth of the hero. . . . It was told of Perseus in Greek legend; then it passed into literature with Euripides’ play Ion; then it was used by Plautus and Terence and other writers of comedies; then it became a device in fiction, used in Tom Jones and Oliver Twist, and it’s still going strong” (p. 42). The device, still strong and healthy, is used as the initiating incident of the fifth book of the Chronicles of Narnia. It is a device closely associated with the theme of self-knowledge. The hero does not know who he is—his initial sense of identity is incorrect—and his story concerns his efforts to discover, or regain, his true identity. Supported by the devices of the “missing twin” and of the return to one’s homeland, the “lost child” device establishes the structure of The Horse and His Boy and its theme, a central theme in all literature, “the loss and regaining of identity” (The Educated Imagination, p. 55).

The “lost child” motif, in which a child is separated from his or her parents by being sold, kidnapped, or put [ß p. 81] away and later reunited with them, is one of the most frequently used plot situations in literature. Frye goes so far as to call it “not a good plot, but the good plot” (The Secular Scripture, p. 102). One can recall, in literature, such examples as the Biblical story of Joseph (with which Shasta’s story has several affinities), Oedipus the King, Cymbeline, Joseph Andrews, and many, many plays and novels of the Victorian era. The Horse and His Boy opens with that motif. As Shasta, the boy, eavesdrops on a stranger’s conversation with the man he calls Father, he discovers that he is not the son of Arsheesh, as he has always supposed: “This boy is manifestly no son of yours, for your cheek is as dark as mine but the boy is as fair and white like the accursed but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the remote north” (p. 5). And Arsheesh admits that he discovered the boy as a baby years ago in a boat that washed ashore and that he has no idea who the boy’s parents are. The impact of this plot device derives particularly from its exploration of the question of identity, the natural and universal need in all people, even those whose parentage is known, to learn who they are. The question of identity becomes a strong theme in The Horse and His Boy—Shasta responds to the discovery that Arsheesh is not his father, “Why, I might be anyone! . . . I might be the son of a Tarkaan myself—or the son of the Tisroc (may he live for ever )—or of a god!” (p. 7).

That motif blends very naturally into the quest for one’s homeland, introduced by the horse, Bree, with whom Shasta escapes from his home and Calormen. Bree ran away from Narnia as a foal, was captured and forced to work like an ordinary horse, and has been longing to return home ever since. This too is an archetypal theme, one which has reflected human desires and needs throughout the centuries. Poets of all times have written about people’s concern with their origins, with the community in which they were born, with a place that gives them a sense of their beginning [ß p. 82] and thus helps give them a sense of identity. This urge was especially deep among the ancients: the greatest of the ancient stories is about Odysseus’s longing to return to Ithaca. Ithaca was a rocky island on which horses could not run, few crops could be grown, and life was demanding and difficult, but it was Odysseus’s homeland and the urge to return to it became a driving passion. A similar longing for their homeland is exhibited by the Israelites during their captivity: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. . . . There they that carried us away captive required of us a song. . . . How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Ps. 137:1-6). That concern has reappeared in a major way in the 1970s. It is reflected in the popularity of Alex Haley’s Roots, in the growing interest in genealogical studies, and in the increasing numbers of people who visit the lands from which their forefathers emigrated.

For Lewis this natural longing for home reflects a more than natural origin. It suggests, and The Horse and His Boy images, the longing a soul has for its real heavenly home. In his sermon “The Weight of Glory” Lewis discusses this “desire for our own far-off country”;¹ in Mere Christianity he calls it “the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death” (p. 120). This deeper dimension of the search for one’s home and thus for one’s identity is conveyed by the symbolism of the North. Shasta from the first is “very interested in everything that lay to the north” (p. 2) and he says, “I’ve been longing to go to the north all my life” (p. 12). Bree cries out frequently, “Narnia and the North” (p. 16), a phrase which Lewis first planned to use as the title for the book, and he speaks of the North in paradisal terms: “‘The happy land of Narnia—Narnia of the heathery mountains and the thymy downs, Narnia of [ß p. 83] the many rivers, the plashing glens, the mossy caverns and the deep forests ringing with hammers of the Dwarfs. Oh the sweet air of Narnia! An hour’s life there is better than a thousand years in Calormen.’ It ended with a whinny that sounded very like a sigh” (p. 9). The North was a source of longing for Lewis himself. When he first saw the title Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, he recalls in Surprised by Joy, “pure ‘Northernness’ engulfed me,” and the longing he felt for the first time in years was like “returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country.”²

He develops the longing for the North by associating it and Narnia with the archetypal images of lushness and rural life, in contrast to the images of a desert and a city. A desert, though it can be a place of rugged beauty, is usually associated in people’s minds with barrenness and death. So it is in The Horse and His Boy. When Shasta reaches the desert, “it was like coming to the end of the world for all the grass stopped quite suddenly a few feet before him and the sand began: endless level sand like on a sea shore but a bit rougher because it was never wet” (pp. 79-80). Later, when Shasta and his companions are in the middle of the desert at dawn, and Shasta slowly, very slowly could see the vast grey flatness on every side, “it looked absolutely dead, like something in a dead world” (p. 123). Symbolic of that death is the absence of birds, which are mentioned repeatedly in the book: “It was the morning at last but without a single bird to sing about it” (p. 124). The city, Tashbaan, is described earlier in the book as crowded and stifling, full of smells of “unwashed people, unwashed dogs, scent, garlic, onions, and the piles of refuse which lay everywhere” (p. 52). Most of all, it is repressive: “In Tashbaan there is only one traffic regulation, which is that everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important” (p. 53). In striking contrast, as Shasta and his fellow [ß p. 84] travelers reach the end of the desert and the beginning of the North, they find water and life: “There was soft grass on both sides of the river, and beyond the grass, trees and bushes sloped up to the bases of the cliffs. There must have been some wonderful flowering shrubs hidden in that shadowy undergrowth for the whole glade was full of the coolest, and most delicious smells. And out of the darkest recess among the trees there came a sound Shasta had never heard before—a nightingale” (p. 129). In contrast to the denseness in Tashbaan, the North is “all open park-like country with no roads or houses in sight” (p. 134). Most important, instead of the repression of Tashbaan, in the North there is freedom. “Every morning the sun is darkened in my eyes,” says the Tisroc to his son, “and every night my sleep is the less refreshing, because I remember that Narnia is still free” (p. 110). The contrasting images are summed up as Aravis is leaving Tashbaan: “The air was fresh and cool and as she drew near the further bank she heard the hooting of an owl. ‘Ah! That’s better!’ thought Aravis. She had always lived in the country and had hated every minute of her time in Tashbaan” (pp. 120-21).

Shasta and Bree, two “long-lost captive[s] returning to home and freedom” (p. 202), set off on a journey, a traditional image for growth in experience. The two in their journey present contrasting but complementary patterns: Shasta must become more adult, Bree more childlike. Shasta’s journey begins in the ignorance of childhood. He is unfamiliar with the world beyond the limited horizons of the fisherman’s hut—he knows nothing of geography, he has not acquired manners, he is ignorant of customs among the wealthy, he has “no notion of what a great city would be like and it frightened him” (p. 46). His awkwardness is the more pronounced because it is in constant contrast to the adult confidence of Bree which is born of broad knowledge of himself and the world. As a free-born Narnian and a trained, experienced war horse, he [ß p. 85] distinguishes himself from the simple, dumb creatures he has lived among. Bree’s superior opinion of himself is manifest in the patronizing attitude which he adopts toward Shasta, as, for example, when the boy is struggling to climb onto his back for the first time: “Funny to think of me who has led cavalry charges and won races having a potato-sack like you in the saddle” (p. 14). Shasta has no reason for such self-confidence. He has always assumed himself to be the son, and little better than the slave, of a humble fisherman, who in turn was little better than a slave to his social superiors. Unlike Bree he has no reason to be proud of what he is and no basis for knowing who he is.

Bree and Shasta are joined in their journey by two female characters, also on a journey to find a homeland and new identity. Hwin, the horse, and Aravis, her girl, contrast to each other and to their respective male counterparts. In this case the human possesses self-confidence and needs to learn humility, while the horse needs to gain in self-esteem and assurance. As their journey together begins, Hwin feels “rather shy before a great war horse like Bree” and she says very little (pp. 41-42). Not so with Aravis, who is after all a Tarkheena—cultured, sophisticated, and intelligent—and converses with the assurance her social positions and experience have given her: “Now it was Bree and Aravis who did nearly all the talking. Bree had lived a long time in Calormen and had always been among Tarkaans and Tarkaans’ horses, and so of course he knew a great many of the same people and places that Aravis knew” (p. 41). To Shasta, however, “Aravis never spoke . . . at all if she could help it” (p. 42). Her haughtiness and self-centeredness, which place her in contrast to both Shasta and Hwin, appear especially in her attitude toward the servant she drugged in order to slip away from her home:

“And what happened to the girl—the one you drugged?” asked Shasta.

“Doubtless she was beaten for sleeping late,” said Aravis [ß p. 86] coolly. “But she was a tool and spy of my stepmother’s. I am very glad they should beat her.”

“I say, that was hardly fair,” said Shasta.

“I did not do any of these things for the sake of pleasing you,” said Aravis. (p. 40)

Her attitude is summed up a bit later when Bree has to urge her to “droop [her] shoulders a bit and step heavier and try to look less like a princess” (p. 50), a problem Hwin and Shasta do not face at all.

As the four characters proceed on their journey, they pass through testing grounds which lead to self-understanding and growth—Shasta and Aravis in the city (Chapters 3-8), Bree and Hwin in the desert (Chapters 9-11). In the city of Tashbaan Shasta and Aravis encounter models which prove instrumental in their development. Shasta’s model is a positive one, of what he can and would like to be, a group of men very different from the people he has lived with all his life:

They were all as fair-skinned as himself, and most of them had fair hair. And they were not dressed like men of Calormen. Most of them had legs bare to the knee. Their tunics were of fine, bright, hardy colours—woodland green, or gay yellow, or fresh blue. Instead of turbans, they wore steel or silver caps, some of them set with jewels, and one with little wings on each side of it. A few were bare-headed. The swords at their sides were long and straight, not curved like Calormene scimitars. And instead of being grave and mysterious like most Calormenes, they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders go free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly and didn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t. Shasta thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life. (pp. 54-55)

When Shasta is “mistaken for a prince of Archenland, wherever that is” (p. 59), and taken to the palace where the Narnians are staying, he gets to know them as “the very nicest kind of grown-up[s]” (p. 57). Although he “would [ß p. 87] have liked to make a good impression” (p. 57), he withdraws and stays silent, the way his life in Calormen has taught him (“Having been brought up by a hard, close-fisted man like Arsheesh, he had a fixed habit of never telling grown-ups anything if he could help it”—p. 70); and because he is in the room as the Narnians discuss their strategy for escaping from Prince Rabadash, he assumes they will kill him if they discover who he is: “He had, you see, no idea of how noble and free-born people behave” (p. 71). But the model they provide him is a helpful one, as is that of Prince Corin, for whom Shasta had been mistaken. The “missing twin” motif, another well-established storyteller’s device, carries on the identity theme. Corin asks, when he sees Shasta, “Who are you?” and Shasta replies, “I’m nobody, nobody in particular, I mean” (p. 74). But now he has met a boy “almost exactly like himself” (p. 74), who provides him an example of openness and honesty:

“You’ll just have to tell them the truth, once I’m safely away.”

“What else did you think I’d be telling them?” asked the Prince with a rather angry look. (p. 76)

Shasta has time for reflection next day, as he waits among the tombs: “He thought a good deal about the Narnians and especially about Corin. He wondered what had happened when they discovered that the boy who had been lying on the sofa and hearing all their secret plans wasn’t really Corin at all. It was very unpleasant to think of all those nice people imagining him a traitor” (p. 88). Meeting “nice people” and caring what they think about him is a major step in the growth in his character.

The model Aravis finds, on the other hand, provides a reminder of the kind of life she is fleeing from. As she waits on a street for a litter to pass, she is recognized by an old acquaintance, Lasaraleen Tarkheena, who takes her and the horses home. Lasaraleen possesses the same [ß p. 88] haughtiness and self-concern as Aravis, aggravated by self-indulgence and empty-headedness: “The fuss she made about choosing the dresses nearly drove Aravis mad. She remembered now that Lasaraleen had always been like that, interested in clothes and parties and gossip” (p. 96). Running through Aravis’s adventure is a motif of disguise—she is disguised as her brother when she runs away from home, as a peasant when she enters Tashbaan, and as a slave-girl when she leaves. Disguise is another standard storyteller’s device, one that is often used as a variant on the identity theme, symbolizing a confusion of identity for the person wearing the disguise. In this case it suggests that Aravis has not reached a comfortable level of self-acceptance—she seems to think the “common little boy” she is traveling with is “not good enough” for her (p. 28, 31) and finds it painful to walk into Tashbaan as a peasant, rather than ride in “on a litter with soldiers before [her] and slaves behind” (p. 50). She comes to a clearer understanding of who she is and what she values by spending time with Lasaraleen and particularly by hearing Lasaraleen rebuke her for having a peasant boy as companion: “It’s not Nice” (p. 99). Aravis “was so tired of Lasaraleen’s silliness by now that, for the first time, she began to think that travelling with Shasta was really rather more fun than fashionable life in Tashbaan. So she only replied, ‘You forget that I’ll be a nobody, just like him, when we get to Narnia’” (p. 99). The answer is ironic, of course, for by now the reader has ample hints that Shasta will not be just a nobody in Narnia, but it signals the direction Aravis’s growth will take, with a humility and acceptance new to her character.

The testing ground for the horses is the desert. From their adventures in Tashbaan, Shasta learned the best route across the desert and Aravis learned about the surprise attack on Archenland and Narnia planned by Prince Rabadash. As the horses and children set out to warn King [ß p . 89] Lune of the danger, the grueling trip across the desert brings out the main attributes of the two horses. When the worst is over but the journey not yet complete, Bree insists on a rest and a snack, but Hwin replies, “I feel just like Bree that I can’t go on. But when Horses have humans (with spurs and things) on their backs, aren’t they often made to go on when they’re feeling like this? and then they find they can. I m-mean—oughtn’t we to be able to do even more, now that we’re free?” (p. 131). But she says it modestly and shyly and allows Bree to overwhelm her with his forceful assertion, “I think, Ma’am . . . that I know a little more about campaigns and forced marches and what a horse can stand than you do” (p. 131). Hwin is “a very sensible mare” (p. 45)—she, after all, thought up the plan they used for getting passed Tashbaan. She must gain more confidence and assert herself a bit more, and slowly she does, for “it was really Hwin, though she was the weaker and more tired of the two, who set the pace” the rest of the way (p. 132).

It takes the threat of a lion, as they approach Archenland, to force Bree to begin to know himself. The contrast in the responses of Bree and Shasta to this danger reminds one again of the different directions their growth must take. Shasta’s cry to Bree, as he sees the lion snapping at Hwin’s heels and clawing at Aravis’s back, “Must go back! Must help!” (p. 138), is a recognition of duty which overrides personal desire. He discovers the meaning of courage as he turns back to help Aravis and Hwin with no weapon and little chance of saving himself or them. All the awkwardness and self-consciousness are swallowed up as he responds to an as yet undefined desire to do the right thing, another indication of how he benefited from meeting the Narnians. As Shasta is ennobled, Bree faces the destruction of his self-conceit. In comparison with Shasta’s bravery, Bree’s desperate flight from the lion looks very much like cowardice. He says of it later, “[Shasta] ran in [ß p. 90] the right direction: ran back. And that is what shames me most of all. I, who called myself a war horse and boasted of a hundred fights, to be beaten by a little human boy” (p. 145). In facing this shame, Bree learns a first and necessary, but not yet adequate, lesson in humility.

The separation of Shasta and Bree is a further step in their progress toward identity and maturation. Shasta moves on into Narnia and initiation into adulthood (Chapters 12-13); Bree remains at the hermitage until, by giving up his illusions about his own worth, he becomes like a little child (Chapter 14). Shasta discovers that his act of courage was only the beginning of doing good and is sent running to King Lune, to learn “that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one” (p. 140). After fulfilling his responsibility by warning the King about Rabadash’s approach, he travels over the mountains and joins Corin and the Narnian army on its way to aid the Archenlanders. Now it is Shasta, rather than Bree, who participates in battle, not arrogantly but with determination: “It suddenly came into his head ‘If you funk this you’ll funk every battle all your life. Now or never’” (p. 179). And though “he knows nothing about this work, . . . hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with his sword” (p. 183), he again does what he believes he should and takes another major step toward adulthood. Bree needs rest rather than action, time to reflect upon the lessons he has been taught all his way. His host, the Hermit of the Southern March, becomes his mentor: “If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You’re not quite the great horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn’t follow that you’ll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you’re nobody very special, you’ll be a very decent sort of Horse” (p. 146). As Bree is discovering that [ß p. 91] he is no longer a great Calormene war horse and that he must accept a new identity as an ordinary citizen of Narnia, Shasta is meeting King Lune and discovering his father and his identity—he is no longer Shasta, the common, self-conscious fisherman’s child, but Cor, Crown Prince of Archenland.

Even before he learns his name, however, Shasta has found a deeper identity and his true Fatherland in a meeting with Aslan. Here again an idea in Mere Christianity is translated into an action of Narnia. Lewis discuses there what it is that “leads the Christian home” and summarizes it as “throw[ing] up the sponge,” and recognizing one’s personal inadequacy and putting “all his trust in Christ.” The Christian begins to trust that “Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His crucifixion: that Christ will make the man more like Himself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies. In Christian language, He will share His ‘sonship’ with us, will make us, like Himself, ‘Sons of God’” (pp. 129, 128). To Lewis, “my true country” (p. 120) and full identity can be found only in a relationship outside the self, only in “handing everything over to Christ” (p. 129).

For all four main characters in The Horse and His Boy an encounter with Aslan is the final step in regaining their identity. Shasta meets Aslan on the road across the mountains into Narnia. As he rides along in the fog, he notices the breathing of a creature beside him, but notices it “so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there” (p. 156). When he is told that the creature has been beside him all his life, comforting, protecting, and preparing for him, he asks, “Who are you?” “‘Myself,’ said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again ‘Myself,’ loud and clear and gay: and then the third time ‘Myself,’ whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it” (p. 159). The reply alludes to the answer [ß p. 92] God gave Moses when he asked the same question beside the burning bush, “I am” (Ex. 3:14), and it catches up in images the Christian idea of a God in three persons. Gradually the light increases and Shasta is able to see his companion: “After one glance at the Lion’s face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn’t say anything but then he didn’t want to say anything, and he knew he needn’t say anything” (p. 160). Having come to know Aslan, Shasta begins to love and to trust him.

Such trust relates directly to the important theme of Providence. Though present throughout the story, Providence stands out in an episode involving the Hermit of the Southern March. Aravis arrived at the Hermit’s compound by escaping with only some scratches from the lion who chased her and Hwin. “I say,” she exclaims, “I have had luck.” The Hermit replies, “Daughter, . . . I have now lived a hundred and nine winters in this world and have never yet met any such thing as Luck” (p. 143). The word appears several other times in the book, each time in a situation where it emphasizes that none of the occurrences have been accidental (pp. 42, 158, and 162). From the apparently fortuitous encounter of Shasta and Bree at a remote cottage along the sea, to the seeming coincidence of a look-alike being seen and brought where he would learn directions across the desert, to the seemingly trivial recognition of Aravis by Lasaraleen, which put her in a position to learn of the plans to attack Archenland and Narnia, all was shaped and guided by Aslan. Talking to Shasta later, Aslan adds other details to fill out the plan: “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. . . . I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you” (p. 158). Aslan allowed Shasta to spend years in a disagreeable [ß p. 93] situation and then triggered a series of interrelated events in order to put Shasta in a position to “save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which ever she lay” (p. 198). In the words of Joseph, who underwent a similar series of unpleasant but important events, to the brothers who sold him into slavery, “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to being to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen. 50:20).

The experiences of the other three characters are less dramatic, but in meeting Aslan, they also confront their inadequacies and begin to trust in him. Bree, in his desire to be self-sufficient, asserts disdainfully that “it would be quite absurd to suppose he is a real lion” (p. 192), one which can really help or hurt those who need it. When a lion’s whisker tickles his ear, he must face up to himself: “I’m afraid I must be rather a fool” (p. 193). His pretensions have been destroyed, his pride has been lost, and he enters his homeland “in a rather subdued frame of mind” (p. 200), aware “of how little he [knows] about Narnian customs and what dreadful mistakes he might make” (p. 201). He has become like a child, lacking experience and a settled sense of his identity, but now having a firm basis for regaining them. Aravis, when she meets Aslan, learns that she has encountered him before. It was Aslan who scratched her back to teach her an essential lesson: “The scratches on your back, tear for tear, throb for throb, blood for blood, were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your step-mother’s slave because of the drugged sleep you cast upon her. You needed to know what it felt like” (p. 194). Aravis learns, on her journey, to know more about herself and to care more about others. “There’s something I’ve got to say at once,” she tells Shasta when he returns to the Hermit’s compound. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a pig. But I did change before I knew you were a Prince, honestly I did” (p. 196). She had learned the humility and openness she needs for further growth and maturity. Hwin, from the leadership [ß p. 94] role pressed upon her on the journey, has gained assurance without losing her humility. When she sees the lion, though shaking with fear, she has the strength to trot directly across to him: “‘Please,’ she said, ‘you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.’” In handing herself over to Aslan, she finds confirmation and affirmation of her being. “Dearest daughter, . . . I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours” (p. 193). It is only after an encounter with Aslan, then, that they can truly be said, as they enter Archenland and the North, to be “returning to home and freedom” (p. 202).

The central theme of the loss and regaining of identity is summed up through Prince Rabadash in the final chapter. Like Shasta, now Prince Cor, Rabadash has met the Narnians in Tashbaan and been on a journey through the desert, but he has not profited from his experiences. In contrast to Cor’s humility—“I do hope you won’t think I’m got up like this (and the trumpeter and all) to try to impress you or make out that I’m different or any rot of that sort” (p. 196)—Rabadash is arrogant and defiant: “Learn who I am, horrible phantasm. I am descended from Tash, the inexorable, the irresistible” (p. 209). Of the major characters, only Rabadash claims to know Aslan already when he meets him: “I know you. You are the foul fiend of Narnia. You are the enemy of the gods” (p. 209). He obviously does not know Aslan, however, and he must learn that he does not know himself, does not realize that he is being an ass. He must learn the lessons of humility and submission that Cor and the others had to learn. “Forget your pride,” Aslan urges him, “(what have you to be proud of?) and your anger (who has done you wrong?) and accept the mercy of these good kings” (p. 208). Because he will not give up the traits and actions which he thinks make him what he is, he must lose his identity. He can face up to what he is only by being turned physically into the ass he has already [ß p. 95] become through his attitude and behavior. He will regain his identity, “be healed” as Aslan puts it (p. 211), only by submitting himself to his own god, Tash. At the great Autumn Feast that year, he does stand before the altar of Tash and turn to “a man again” (p. 212) and eventually he becomes “the most peaceable Tisroc Calormen had ever known” (p. 212). But the change for Rabadash must come by the Calormene modes of compulsion and constraint, not in the joyful, fulfilling way by which Hwin, Bree, Aravis, and Shasta found themselves and freedom on their way to Narnia and Aslan. [ß p. 96]