The Horse and His Boy

Summary

The Horse and His Boy takes place during the golden age of Narnia, while the four Pevensie children reign at Cair Paravel, and it happens mostly in Calormen, the hot, crowded empire far to the south. Shasta, a boy of about eleven, lives in a fishing village with Arsheesh, a hard man who works him like a servant. One night a great lord, the Tarkaan Anradin, offers to buy Shasta as a slave, and Shasta learns that Arsheesh is not his father at all: he was found as a baby in a boat washed ashore. In the stable Anradin's warhorse speaks to him. He is Bree, a Talking Horse of Narnia stolen as a foal, and he proposes that they escape north together. On the road they are chased by lions and meet two more runaways, Aravis, a proud Tarkheena fleeing a forced marriage to the old Grand Vizier Ahoshta, and her mare Hwin, another Talking Horse. Aravis tells how she was about to kill herself before Hwin spoke to her, and how she escaped by drugging the maid who was set to watch her. The four agree to pass through the great city of Tashbaan separately and meet at the Tombs of the Ancient Kings in the desert. In Tashbaan Shasta is mistaken for Prince Corin of Archenland and carried off by the Narnian visitors, King Edmund, Queen Susan and the faun Tumnus, who are planning to slip away from Prince Rabadash, Susan's unwanted suitor. When the real Corin climbs in at the window, Shasta escapes over the roofs and spends a frightening night alone among the tombs, comforted by a strange cat and guarded from jackals by a lion. Aravis, hiding in the palace with the help of her silly friend Lasaraleen, overhears Rabadash, the Tisroc and Ahoshta plotting a surprise attack on Archenland and Narnia. The runaways cross the desert to warn King Lune. Near the end a lion chases them, wounds Aravis on the back, and drives Shasta to run on alone to King Lune while a Hermit of the Southern March tends Aravis. Lost in the fog on a mountain pass, Shasta walks beside an unseen Large Voice, who is Aslan and who tells him that he was every lion Shasta met. Rabadash's attack on Anvard fails, and Shasta is revealed as Cor, Corin's elder twin, kidnapped as a baby and destined to be king. Aslan turns Rabadash into a donkey to teach him humility. Bree learns to be a humbler horse, Aravis learns to be gentler, and years later she and Cor marry. Published by Geoffrey Bles on 6 September 1954, it was the fifth Chronicle to appear and is dedicated to David and Douglas Gresham.

Top Lessons

• A hidden hand in hard things

  In the fog Aslan tells Shasta that the lions that frightened him, the cat at the tombs, and the lion who pushed his boat ashore as a baby were all Aslan. Events that felt like bad luck were care. The book teaches that providence is often seen only looking back.

• Pride and the cure for it

  Bree is proud of being a warhorse and fears looking silly in Narnia; Aravis is proud of her rank; Rabadash is proud past all reason. Bree is humbled when he flees the lion and the Hermit tells him he has lost only his self-conceit, Aravis by her wound and her apology, and Rabadash by becoming a donkey. Each gets the humbling he needs.

• Your own story

  When Shasta asks why Aslan wounded Aravis, Aslan says he tells each person only his own story. The same answer comes to Aravis later. Lewis shows that we are given what we need to know about our own lives, not a right to judge others'.

• Courage that turns back

  When the lion attacks Aravis, Shasta jumps off Bree and runs back with no sword to face it. The Hermit then sends him on to run again without rest. The book shows that courage often means doing the next hard thing when you are already tired.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

There is little clinical material. Aravis tells how, ordered to marry Ahoshta, she rode into the woods meaning to kill herself with a dagger, and was stopped when her mare Hwin spoke to her; the scene is handled briefly and the turn to escape is presented as hope. The lion's claws leave scratches across Aravis's back, which the Hermit washes and dresses, and Aslan later tells her they matched the stripes her drugged maid received for her escape; the wound is moral rather than medical in purpose. Shasta's long runs without food or sleep, the battle at Anvard and the Hermit's care for the exhausted horses complete the small amount of bodily detail.

• Chapter 3

  Aravis tells how she meant to kill herself rather than marry Ahoshta, until Hwin spoke.

• Chapter 10

  The Hermit tends the lion's scratches on Aravis's back and rests the horses.

• Chapter 13

  The battle at Anvard, seen in the Hermit's pool.