Well, this chapter must have been something of a marathon for me at the time, whether I was eight or nine! Seven whole pages and three illustrations - epic!

There are so many story quirks and fortuitous coincidences in this chapter that I'm not even going to begin trying to list them all. What should be immediately apparent, however, is the extent to which this was "influenced"(!) by the Chronicles of Narnia.

Even if the title hadn't already given it away, it's clear that the task set for Chris and Joan in this chapter owes more than a little to the plot of Prince Caspian. More striking than that, however is the inclusion of creatures from classical mythology and the terminology. Are there any books other than C.S. Lewis's that refer to human beings as "Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve"? I'm certainly not aware of any!

I should add that, although I usually try to change the original punctuation and spelling as little as possible, from here on in the story is littered with incorrect usage of thees and thous and thys. I've tried to correct all of those (or, at least, to the extent I can with the limited knowledge of archaic English I have now!) If, for any reason you do have a perverse interest in seeing just how wrong I got it first time round however, feel free to click on the thumbs of the original pages!

Please do feel free to leave any comments in the Prince Sashtan forum. But be gentle - I was only young!