Nightmares were often given names such as Hag-riding, Wizard-pressing, Mare-riding, Witch-dancing etc. The Night Hag rides her mare through the realm of the eighth continent. In the worst of situations the rider feels in jeopardy, experiences an over-riding terror, panic, total vulnerability and the inability to distinguish between imagined and internal aggressors and external reality. But this is not to say that one should not ride the night mare in search of the light which lies within the dark. This is an early, experimental drawing that depicts le Enchanteur riding the Night Hag in search of a truth.
Heather Blakey
“Mercy!” cried the voice. “mercy! Even if you are only one more dream, have mercy. Take me on board. Take me, even if you strike me dead. But in all the name of all mercies do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land.”
There came another cry, whether of joy or terror, and then they knew that someone was swimming towards them.
“Stand by to heave him up, men,” said Caspian.
“Aye, aye, your Majesty,” said the sailors. Several crowded to the port bulark with ropes and one, leaning far out over the side, held the torch. A wild, white face appeared in the blackness of the water and then after some scrambling and pulling, a dozen friendly hands had heaved the stranger on board.
Edmund thought he had never seen a wilder looking man. Through he did not otherwise look very old, his hair was an untidy mop of white, his face was thin and drawn, and for clothing only a few wet rags hung about him. But what one mainly noticed were his eyes, which were so widely opened that he seemed to have no eyelids at all, and stared as if in an agony of pure fear. The moment his feet reached the deck he said:
“Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly. Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore!”
“Compose yourself,” said Reepicheep, “and tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying.”
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the voice of the Mouse, which he had not noticed before.
“Never the less you will fly from here,” he gasped. “This is the island where dreams come true.”
“That’s the island I’ve been looking for this long time,” said one of the sailors. “I reckoned I’d find I was married to Nancy if we landed there.”
“And I’d find Tom alive again,” said another.
“Fools!” said the man stamping his foot with rage. “That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I’d better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams – dreams, do you understand? – come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.
There was about a half a minutes’s silence and then, with a great clatter of armour the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that half-minute to remember certain dreams they had had – dreams that make you afraid to go to sleep again – and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true.
Only Reepicheep remained unmoved.
“Your Majesty, your Majesty,” he said, “are you going to tolerate this mutiny, this poltroonery? This is a panic, this is a rout.”
“Row, row,” bellowed Caspian. “Pull for all our lives. Is her head right, Drinian? You can say what you like Reepicheep. There are some things no man can face.”
“It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man,” replied Reepiceep with a very stiff bow.
(C.S. Lewis – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
If, upon arriving in the caves of the Dream Masters and you are greeted by this woman bearing red poppies, you will soon discover that this is not a world of daydreams, wishes and hopes. It is the world of dreaming and the path you must follow is sometimes known as the Royal Road of Unconsciousness.
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