Rambly background head-canon
I have tried a dozen times to see how to structure 'The Ivory Merchants', with no luck yet; hence a rambly post on background. The story itself is bouncing off Avia Scott Tantella's sad and beautiful story, 'What the Elephants Forgot' (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6373192/1/What-the-Elephants-Forgot), though from the Narnian and Telmarine side of things rather than the Elephants' own POV. But before I could get to the much later trade in ivory, I felt I needed to revisit the first Council set up by Aslan in 'The Magician's Nephew', and also a successor Council some five generations later.
The Council called by Aslan, but not much used in the plot, is made up of an Owl, an Oak, two ravens (male and female), the River-God, the Chief Dwarf, and the male Elephant. I was thinking that:
In the bright days of beginning
Aslan took from out among us
seven sages, six in kind
seven from earth and air and water
called to counsel queen and king.
Seven sages, six in kind,
male and female, one undying,
from the earth and air and water
Aslan called and came to council:
Dwarf-chief, doughty, deep-earth-given
Father of both Red and Black clans
Sturdy, strong in understanding
Out of air, the Owl, the mother,
Deemed debate the best discerning,
Opened parliament to our people
From the forest, forth for conference
both begetter and birthgiver,
though one only: augur, Oak-tree.
River-God from river rising
Never-ending, knowing Narnia
all the length of land through-flowing.
From the air the sharp-eyed Ravens
Pair unsundered, close-knit counsel
Ripe in rede and rich in reason
Lumbers large, the last to council,
Elephant of well-won wisdom
Came to join at Aslan's calling
This, the Council: male and female
Earth and Air and Water
Both the dying and undying
Called to counsel king and queen,
So it was and so it will be.
The Council called by Aslan, but not much used in the plot, is made up of an Owl, an Oak, two ravens (male and female), the River-God, the Chief Dwarf, and the male Elephant. I was thinking that:
- The Council has representation from those who move in or on Earth,those who move in Water and those who move in Air, and it has male and female, and also the Oak,which is monecious, ie each tree is both male and female, and it has representation from the mortal and the immortal (taking the River-God as immortal).
- The Council would be ongoing, to advise the new monarchs, especially since they do nothing much at all on-screen in TMN.
- And I thought it would have changing membership, but always with representation as first established, covering the range of Narnian life, though not always the same exact mix. (Obviously, the Elephants would have to drop out.) I know who I want to be the Immortal on the fifth-generation Council, but I don't know who else would be on it, unless there are always Ravens, maybe?
- And in part of my story, someone has to remember that there were Elephants in early Narnia, with an Elephant on the Council, and they'll do it, I think, by quoting a few lines from an old chant about the Council. So I wrote the chant, which won't go in the story, but:
In the bright days of beginning
Aslan took from out among us
seven sages, six in kind
seven from earth and air and water
called to counsel queen and king.
Seven sages, six in kind,
male and female, one undying,
from the earth and air and water
Aslan called and came to council:
Dwarf-chief, doughty, deep-earth-given
Father of both Red and Black clans
Sturdy, strong in understanding
Out of air, the Owl, the mother,
Deemed debate the best discerning,
Opened parliament to our people
From the forest, forth for conference
both begetter and birthgiver,
though one only: augur, Oak-tree.
River-God from river rising
Never-ending, knowing Narnia
all the length of land through-flowing.
From the air the sharp-eyed Ravens
Pair unsundered, close-knit counsel
Ripe in rede and rich in reason
Lumbers large, the last to council,
Elephant of well-won wisdom
Came to join at Aslan's calling
This, the Council: male and female
Earth and Air and Water
Both the dying and undying
Called to counsel king and queen,
So it was and so it will be.