Chapter Text
Not every king or queen, no matter how great they have been for Narnia, is called a Legendary. To be a Legendary, one must have protected (or attempted to protect) Narnia from great dangers, or have reshaped the very functioning of the realm, or simply have marked the end or beginning of an era. As of the present day, in the year 3458 of Narnian history, the kings and queens who have been elevated to Legendary status may be classified into different categories, linked to their historical eras.
First, one cannot speak of Narnia without mentioning the Age of Conquest, often also called the Time of All Beginnings, or The Time When Everything Was a First, a fittingly verbose Narnian name, as tradition demands.
Of course, we begin with the founders of the Old Dynasty: King Frank I the Builder and Queen Helen I the Creator. Among their descendants, some have been forgotten, while others have left indelible marks upon history. Among the latter, we might cite Prince Col of Narnia, the youngest son of King Frank V, who founded Archeland and became King Col I.
Then there is Queen Vera II, the Dragonslayer, who drove the dragons of Narnia from our borders into the deep sea, where her great-grandson, King Gale III of Narnia, would deliver the Lone Islands from a dragon and be made Emperor by their grateful inhabitants. His sister, Princess Misla, became the first Duchess of Galma. The full history of Galma merits a chapter of its own, but briefly: Gale and Misla disagreed on nearly everything, except the necessity of avoiding civil war within Narnia. Thus, Princess Misla established herself on the island after marrying one of its original inhabitants. The history of Galma is complex, and I must admit that our beloved country has not always played a noble role therein. Due to the enduring sibling rivalry, Galma remained a sovereign nation, yet, owing to the belief that war must be avoided at all cost, Galma continued pledging alliance to Narnia and maintaining close relations. The relation between Galma and Narnia was deeply impacted and slightly altered by the Pevensies, but even they could not change the principle that it was a relationship of both rivalry and alliance.
A further chapter of our course shall focus on Narnia’s acquisition of Terebinthia and the Seven Isles. Here, it is important to mention King Olive IV of Archeland and Queen Helen VII of Narnia, the Built-Bridger, who forged strong diplomatic ties with Calormen. Their work remains, to this day, the foundation of our diplomatic relations.
And, last but certainly not least, Queen Swanwhite of Narnia: The Queen Who Stood, The Lost Queen—the final monarch of the Age of Conquest. She resisted, and ultimately fell to, Jadis’s invasion. The old Narnians called this struggle the Battle of Ice—Joyful Ice against Deadly Ice—and that is still how we remember this defeat.
This naturally led to the Golden Age of Narnia, the Age of the Kings and Queens of the Old, who freed Narnia from Jadis. Naturally, all four of them bear the title of Legendary: High King Peter the Magnificent, High Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant. These four are renowned not merely for freeing Narnia, vanishing only to return millions of years later, but also for strengthening the realm, defending it against the giants of Ettinsmoor and the Dark Age of Calormen, quelling conflicts among provinces, rebuilding the justice system (whose foundations we still use), creating laws still in practice today, establishing an educational system for all Narnians, reforming taxes and finances, and much more. Narnia was transformed at its very core under their reign; they are arguably the most important sovereigns of Narnia alongside Frank I and Helen I. Multiple chapters shall be devoted to them.
The Legendary title is also bestowed upon King Corin the Dutiful, first prince of Archeland and later king, who sought not to be king yet proved a remarkable sovereign, carrying forward the great works of the Pevensies. No king of Narnia has ever borne so little love for the throne, yet this never prevented him from performing his duty to the best of his abilities, with grace and sympathy for his people.
We must also speak of the two monarchs who marked the end of this period, father and daughter, who lost the fight against the Telmarines: King Cosa IV, who died at thirty-seven defending his people, and his daughter, Queen Sol, crowned and deceased at the tender age of thirteen. Legend says that she knelt in her father’s blood to receive her coronation. This image, so poetic and symbolic, is likely untrue, yet it captures the grief of the Narnians at losing their country and the tragedy of this dark episode in our history. The tales of her siblings, Prince Hol and Princess Livie, are among the least-known in our chronicles, yet they remain crucial to understanding how parts of Narnia both succumbed to and resisted Telmarine rule. Be warned, however: these stories are far from pleasant.
Later came King Caspian the Seafarer, also known as the Navigator, the King of Renewal, who reunited the old Narnia of the Narnians with the new Narnia of both Narnians and Telmarines. His son, King Rilian the Disenchanted, left a personal legacy marked by diplomatic relations with the ancient peoples of Narnia—the merpeople and the people of the Underland—who had long kept their distance. It was during his reign that the Underland became formally part of the Narnian realm. It is said that his long captivity at the hands of the Snake-Witch left him perpetually wary of enclosed spaces, a trait akin to claustrophobia. This, in turn, explains the shift in Narnian human architecture toward more open designs.
And since that time, only one has been called Legendary: Queen Silva the Regretful—but that is a story we shall not cover in this course, for historians still struggle to decipher how her tale will mark our broader history.
This concludes our introduction. We shall meet again next week to begin our in-depth lectures, starting with the first sovereigns: King Frank and Queen Helen. Be warned, dear students, that little documentation has survived from this era. Much of what we shall recount comes from legends, folk tales, and stories passed down through the ages, tales that time has not left unscathed. As such, reality, veracity, and historical accuracy may often be elusive. Nevertheless, these narratives it is through them that we may best understand our past.