The Chronicles of Narnia and Blue Flower, Part IV
How "The Silver Chair" relates to "Pale Moonlight"
Welcome back, folks, to my Chronicles of Narnia/Blue Flower series! I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far! We’ve reached, after months, Part IV.
I recently published Part III to this seven-part series! If you haven’t already caught the previous three articles, check them out below to catch up!
The Chronicles of Narnia & Blue Flower, Part I
Last summer (2024) I was rereading the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time in several years. As I neared the end of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (the first published in the series; second in chronological order, which was how I was reading them), a paragraph struck a familiar chord in my brain.
In this essay, as we’re following Lewis’s order of publication, we’ll be exploring The Silver Chair and how The Gray Havens’ song Pale Moonlight correlates to it. I’ve linked the song and also added the lyrics in case you, my dear reader, either do not have Spotify or do not want to listen to the song. (In that case, why are you here?)
“Pale Moonlight” (The Gray Havens)
In the pale moonlight
In the dark, in the dead of night
Second hand from a star it shines
The fire's on
Cold touch of an ancient rhyme
There's a god that I left behind
Second-hand everywhere I find
The fire's gone
They told me keep to your course
In chasin' after desire
I'm not findin' a source
Like some sun-gold fire
But maybe I've been sold a lie
I can't find a light
Tell me how many go down and never return
To the sunlit lands, heaven please
Have I lost 'em for good
Had a dream where I went to find
Far away, over seas and time
The lost shores of a distant island, for so long
Woke up to the pale moonlight
Cold touch of an ancient rhyme
Second-hand everywhere, I'll find it
The first one
They told me keep to your course
In chasin' after desire
I'm not findin' a source
Like some sun-gold fire
But maybe I've been sold a lie
I can't find a light
Tell me how many go down and never return
To the sunlit lands, heaven please
But maybe I've been sold a lie
I can't find a light
Tell me how many go down and never return
To the sunlit lands, heaven please
Have I lost 'em for good
This correlation, similarly to the one in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, occurred to me with a specific phrase.
Tell me how many go down and never return to the sunlit lands.
There’s a very, very similar phrase repeated over and over in The Silver Chair: “many go down and few return to the sunlit lands.”
That was the spark to my realizing this connection.
I believe this song occurs from the viewpoint of Rilian, who “chases after his desire” of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, but was “sold a lie.” He abandoned Aslan, the “god” of Narnia, to chase after his false desire and was drawn down into the dark, away from the “sun-gold fire” of aboveground.
In Planet Narnia, Michael Ward correlates The Silver Chair to Luna in the midieval Heavens; Pale Moonlight (as in the title) specifically references moonlight and darkness opposed to light, like the two sides of the moon, one brilliantly lit and the other forever in darkness. The song itself also has an eerie, moon-mad feel to the instrumentation.
Pale Moonlight also makes mention of “the lost shores of an ancient island” which is most likely referring to the island in Underland where Rilian is imprisoned—lost to the world above. He “had a dream” where he “went to find” the island, which is akin to when he sought after the Lady of the Green Kirtle and was drawn into her charms and witcheries. When Jill and Eustace finally bring him aboveground, it is his awakening, and it is indeed in the “pale moonlight” before dawn.
The song also speaks to Rilian not finding a source for his desire in the witch—she provides nothing like the “sun-gold fire” of the “god he left behind.” The source of his desire does not reside in her.
We’re, of course, going to totally disregard the line “second hand from a star it shines” because I can’t figure out what it can do with Narnia, as its clearly a Peter Pan reference (there’s a similar line in their more recent song Anywhere), unless it’s referring to Underland being sort of a second-rate world, secondhand, second best, something like that. I am still unsure.
One last thing, perhaps random. In Proverbs 7, when the young man going to the harlot is described, it is “in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.” Isn’t that eerily similar to Pale Moonlight’s “In the pale moonlight, in the dark, in the dead of night?”
This is one of the most story-substantial songs (these songs are not very lyric heavy) in Blue Flower, and I’ve quite enjoyed expostulating on it! I hope I’ve convinced you of the correlation, and if you’ve enjoyed this, I encourage you to go back and read—or reread—The Chronicles of Narnia and listen—or relisten—to Blue Flower, enjoying the new depth which the correlation brings to the songs.
Until next time,
—Glori