When The Waves Grow Sweet: VDT Part 7

The closer we sail to the Utter East, the more the world seems different and yet, better. We feel that we need less sleep and food, the sun is larger than it used to be, and Lucy sees something on the ocean floor that no human has ever seen before. 
If you enjoy a thoughtful Voyage of the Dawn Treader recap, Narnia symbolism, and the Christian themes threaded through Lewis’s writing, hit subscribe, follow the podcast, and share this with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

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Transcript

Intro

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Very soon after they had left Ramandu's country, they began to feel that they had already sailed beyond the world. All was different. For one thing, they all found that they were needing less sleep. One did not want to go to bed, nor to eat much, nor even talk except in low voices. Another thing was the light. There was too much of it. The sun, when it came up each morning, looked twice, if not three times, its usual size. And every morning, which gave Lucy the strangest feeling of all, the huge white birds singing their song with human voices in a language no one knew, streamed overhead and vanished astern on their way to their breakfast at Aslan's table. A little later, they came flying back and vanished into the east. How beautifully clear the water is, said Lucy to herself, as she leaned over the port side early in the afternoon of the second day. And it was. The first thing that she noticed was a little black object, about the size of a shoe, traveling along at the same speed of the ship. For a moment, she thought it was something floating on the surface. But then there came floating past a bit of stale bread, which the cook had just thrown out of the galley. And the bit of bread looked as if it were going to collide with the black thing, but it didn't. It passed over it. And Lucy now saw that the black thing could not be on the surface. We just recently passed a milestone of 500 downloads, and I want to thank everybody for their support. Let's keep going and let's have an amazing 2026. Today we are continuing our adventure as it nears its end. Um and just so you know this may be a bit of a shorter episode, and it does not include a stop on an island like the the last episodes we've done. But it is more of what we experience between Ramandu's Island and their last stop, which will be in the next episode. So only two episodes left in our Voyage of the Dawn Shredder series, and then I plan to do an episode that has an in-depth look of the seven lost lords, and so that is something to look forward to as well. And in preparation for this episode, I decided to look at chapter 14 of Voyage of the Dawn Shredder, as there's a lot of detailed imagery that I think will only do it justice to talk about on its own. So before we get into this, I want to highlight a comment that we got on the on the last episode on YouTube. Now, not the last episode as like the Easter special, but the last main episode on the YouTube. And this comment is from Michelle who says, so excited to see where this journey takes us. Thank you for your comment and your support, Michelle. I'm thankful to have you along for the journey, and I'm excited to see where this takes us. Lastly, I want to mention Free Luma bracelets. Free Luma is a Christian company that makes fashionable bracelets with a Christian theme. But it is so much more than that. These bracelets have an NFC reader on them, and then with that you can scan it with your smartphone, and what that does is it opens up a web page to daily Bible scripture, inspiration, and even mental health support with a community of fellow believers to interact with using prayer walls and commenting on posts, etc. If this interests you, go to freeluma.com and use my code STAYFAITFUL, all one word, capital S, capital F, stay faithful, at checkout, and save yourself 15% on your order. Now, with all that out of the way, let's get into this. After leaving Ramandu's Island, we notice that we are all suddenly in need of less sleep and less food, and that the sun looks two or even three times the usual size that it normally does, and every morning we can see the large white birds singing, and then we see them vanish as they go to Aslan's table. And then we see them come up moments later and vanish again, but into the east this time. We are seeing that this does indeed happen daily, and that Lu and that gives Lucy a stranger feeling than it gives the rest of us. The water is also clearer than before, and Lucy sees something black in the water that seems to be matching speed with the ship. And she thought that the black thing was on the surface of the water. That's what it appeared to be. And as she kept looking at it, she noticed that the the cook had thrown out some of the old stale bread, and suddenly that bread sit like just went over the black thing, and so she realizes okay, this isn't actually on the surface, the black thing must be in the water instead of just on top. So really strange. Not sure what it is just yet, but I think we're about to find out. Now Lucy knew she had seen something just like that happen somewhere else. If only she could remember where. She held her hand to her head and screwed up her face to put out her tongue in the effort to remember. At last she did. Of course. It was like what you saw from a train on a bright sunny day. You saw the black shadow of your own coach running along the fields at the same pace as the train. Then you went into a cutting, and immediately the same shadow flicked close up to you and got big, racing along the grass of the cutting bank. Then you came out of the cutting and flick. Once more the black shadow had gone back to its normal size and was running along the fields. It's our shadow! The shadow of the Dawn Treader, said Lucy. Our shadow running along the bottom of the sea. That time, when it got bigger, it went over a hill. But in that case, the water must be clearer than I thought. Good gracious, I must be seeing the bottom of the sea, fathoms and fathoms down. As soon as she had said this, she realized that the great silvery expanse which she had been seeing without noticing for some time was really the sand on the seabed, and all sorts of darker or brighter patches were not lights and shadows on the surface, but real things at the bottom. At present, for instance, they were passing over a mass of soft, purpley green with a broad, winding strip of pale gray in the middle of it. But now that she knew it was the bottom, she saw it much better. She could see that the bits of dark stuff were much higher than other bits and were waving gently. Just like trees in a wind, said Lucy. And I do believe that's what they are. It's a submarine forest. They passed on above, and presently the pale streak was joined by another pale streak. If I was down there, thought Lucy, that streak would be just like a road through the wood. And that place where it joins the other would be a crossroads. Oh, I do wish I was. Hello, the forest is coming to an end. And I do believe this streak really was a road. I can still see it going across the open sand. It's a different color. And it's marked out with something at the edges. Dotted lines. Perhaps they are stones, and now it's getting wider. The black speck she was seeing was actually the shadow of the ship, and this reminds her of being on a train and seeing the shadow of the coach. I want to point out that from what we've already read so far in this chapter, we see so many vivid details from C.S. Lewis, and it's gonna continue to get better, so just get ready for that. But she sees a submarine forest at the bottom of the sea. And this is basically remains of trees and tree stumps that are submerged at the bottom of the sea or ocean. I take these to be full trees and not stumps, because Lucy says that they look like they are waving at us. In this forest, she sees also what looks like roads and hills. Now I'm both fascinated and terrified of the thought of the bottom of a lake or sea or even the ocean, especially the ocean. And I rarely think of what the landscape would look like. I had to look up submarine forests and I'm stunned at how beautiful the pictures of them are. And I think to myself, like, why can't there be hills and even you know things that look like roads at the bottom of the sea or even just like the idea of an underwater forest, like why why can't that be a reality? And as I as I researched it just even slightly, I saw that that is in fact a thing. So I thought that was pretty cool. But it was not really getting wider, it was getting nearer. She realized this because of the way in which the shadow of the ship came rushing up toward her, and the road, she felt sure it was a road now, began to go in zigzags. Obviously, it was climbing up a steep hill, and when she held her head sideways and looked back, what she saw was very like what you see when you look down a winding road from the top of a hill. She could even see the shafts of sunlight falling through the deep water onto the wooded valley, and in the extreme distance, everything melting away into a dim greenness. But some places, the sunny ones, she thought, were ultramarine blue. She could not, however, spend much time looking back. What was coming into view in the forward direction was too exciting. The road had apparently now reached the top of the hill and ran straight forward. Little specks were moving to and fro on it. And now something most wonderful. Fortunately, in full sunlight, or as full as it can be when it falls through fathoms of water, flashed into sight. It was knobbly and jagged, and of a pearly or perhaps an ivory color. She was so nearly straight above it that at first she could hardly make out what it was. But everything became plain when she noticed its shadow. The sunlight was falling across Lucy's shoulders. So the shadow of the thing lay stretched out on the sand behind it. And by its shape, she saw clearly that it was the shadow of towers and pinnacles, minarets and domes. Why? It's a city or it's a huge castle, said Lucy to herself. But I wonder why they've built it on the top of a high mountain. Long afterward, when she was back in England and talked all these adventures over with Edmund, they thought of the reason and I'm pretty sure it is the true one. In the sea, the deeper you go, the darker and colder it gets. And it's down there, in the dark and cold, that dangerous things live. The squid and the sea serpent and the kraken. The valleys are the wild, unfriendly places. The sea people feel about their valleys as we do about mountains, and feel about their mountains as we feel about valleys. It is on the heights, or as we would say, in the shallows, that there is warmth and peace. The reckless hunters and brave knights of the sea go down into the depths on quests and adventures, but return home to the heights for rest and peace, courtesy and counsel, the sports, the dances and the songs. They passed the city and the seabed was still rising. It was only a few hundred feet below the ship now. The road had disappeared. They were sailing above an open park like country, dotted with little grooves of bright colored vegetation. And then Lucy nearly squealed aloud with excitement. She had seen people. There were between fifteen and twenty of them, all mounted on seahorses, not the tiny little seahorses which you may have seen in museums, but horses rather bigger than themselves. They must be noble and lordly people, Lucy thought, for she could catch a gleam of gold on some of their foreheads, and streamers of emerald or orange-colored stuff fluttered from their shoulders in the current. Then, Oh bother these fish, said Lucy, for a whole shoal of small fat fish swimming quite close to the surface had come between her and the sea people. But though this spoiled her view, it led to the most interesting thing of all. Suddenly, a fierce little fish of a kind she had never seen before came darting up from below, snapped, grabbed, and sank rapidly with one of the fat fish in its mouth. And all of the sea people were sitting on their horses staring up at what had happened. They seemed to be talking and laughing. And before the hunting fish had got back to them with its prey, another of the same kind came up from the sea people. And Lucy was almost certain that one big sea man who sat on his sea horse in the middle of the party had sent it, or released it, as if he had been holding it back till then in his hand or on his wrist. Lucy saw the shadows of these towers and pinnacles, and she sees like she's seeing a city fathoms and fathoms down in the sea. And C.S. Lewis explains that Edmund and Lucy would, once they're back home, talk about this and they they they figure that the inhabitants of the sea city find their peace and rest on the mountains. Because if they go deeper in the water, it's darker and colder, and that's where the dangers are, like the sea serpent and the cracking. And so they would go on quests in the depths and then come back home to the mountains for peace. And they say that it's unlike in our world, where it's different, and we might go on quests in the mountains, but then return to the valleys for peace and safety. And then Lucy gets excited as she sees the sea people. She sees about 15 to 20, and they're all sitting on seahorses. And Lewis mentions that they're not the seahorses that you're probably thinking of, but probably horses that are I would assume that look like our horses, but they're just maybe not as big, but they're in the sea. Um but they're that type of horse. And then she sees a a b bunch of what looks like small fat fish, or they are small fat fish, and that they're swimming between us and the people at the bottom of the sea. And then another fish suddenly rushes up, snaps, grabs, and scurries back to the sea people with one of the fat fish. And it's almost looking as if the sea people were sending off that other fish to go get the small fat fish. Lucy actually realizes that we are witnessing a hunting party like the ones they had long ago in Narnia, except instead of bringing falcons on their wrists, they have these fish that are on their wrists before they are released. Which when we continue reading, we hear Why, I do declare, said Lucy, it's a hunting party, or more like a hawking party. Yes, that's it. They ride out with these little fierce fish on their wrists, just as we used to ride out with falcons on our wrists when we were kings and queens at Care Paravel long ago. And then they fly them, or I suppose I should say swim them, at the others. How she stopped suddenly because the scene was changing. The sea people had noticed the Don Treader. The shoal of fish had scattered in every direction. The people themselves were coming up to find out the meaning of this big black thing which had come between them and the sun. And now they were so close to the surface that if they had been in air instead of water, Lucy could have spoken to them. There were men and women both. All wore coronets of some kind, and many had chains of pearls. They wore nor other clothes. Their bodies were the color of old ivory, their hair dark purple. The king, in the center, no one could mistake him for anything but the king, looked proudly and fiercely into Lucy's face and shook a spear in his hand. The knights did the same. Okay, so here we see that the it is actually a hunting party, and and now that the sea the sea people are actually coming up closer to the ship to see what's blocking the sunlight, which of course is the Don Treader casting, you know, a shadow because it's sailing over them, right? And so it's actually what we can't mistake for the king. Like the king of the sea people looks right at Lucy and he shakes his spear in his hand, with the knights doing the same. Now, as we continue reading, the faces of the ladies were filled with astonishment. Lucy felt sure they had never seen a ship or a human before. And how should they? In seas beyond the world's end where no ship ever came. I think that's a good point too. Of course that they had never seen a ship before, because no ship had come out this far. Remember, the the lords of Narnia, they only came as far as Ramandu's Island. So literally no human has ever come out that far. And so we continue. What are you staring at, Lou? said a voice close beside her. Lucy had been so absorbed in what she was seeing that she started at the sound, and when she turned she found that her arm had gone dead from leaning so long on the rail in one position. Drinian and Edmund were beside her. Look, she said. They both looked, but almost at once Drinian said in a low voice, Turn around at once, your Majesties. That's right, with your backs to the sea. And don't look as if we were talking about anything important. Why? What's the matter? said Lucy, as she obeyed. It'll never do for the sailors to see all that, said Drinian. We'll have men falling in love with a seawoman and falling in love with the undersea country itself, and jumping overboard. I've heard of that kind of thing happened before in strange seas. It's always unlucky to see these people. But we used to know them, said Lucy, in the old days at Care Paravelle, when my brother Peter was high king. They came to the surface and sang at our coronation. I think that must have been a different kind, Lou, said Edmund. They could live in the air as well as under the water. I rather think these can't. By the look of them, they'd have surface and started attacking us long ago if they could. They seem fierce. At any rate, began Drinian, but at that moment two sounds were heard. One was a plop, the other was a voice from the fighting top shouting Man overboard. Then everyone was busy. Some of the sailors hurried aloft to take in the sail, others hurried below to get the oars, and Rince, who was on duty on the poop, began to put the helm hard over so as to come round the back to the man who had gone overboard. But by now everyone knew it wasn't strictly a man, it was Reapich. Alright, so here we wet reread that Drinian instructs Lucy to turn around and to not look at the sea people anymore. And this is because if the crew saw that this like they if they saw this, they may risk falling in love with a seawoman or even the undersea life. And we would have men jumping overboard. Lucy points out that she and Edmund know these people because long ago they sang at their coronation. But Edmund also points out that those were different because the ones that sang at their coronation could live in the sea and in the air, and that these ones couldn't because I mean the fact that they looked so fierce and with their spears, if they could fly, they would have already come and attacked. And then we hear what Drinian feared. We hear a splash, and someone from the fighting top shouts man overboard, and when we look to see what's going on, we see that it's none other than Reapycheep in the water. Drat that mouse, said Drinian, it's more trouble than all the rest of the ship's company put together. If there's any scrape to be got into, in it will get. It ought to be put in irons, keelhauled, marooned. Have its whiskers cut off. Can anyone see the little blighter? All this didn't mean that Drinian really disliked Reapach, on the contrary, he liked him very much, and was therefore frightened about him, and being frightened put him in a bad temper, just as your mother is much angrier with you for running out into the road in front of a car than a stranger would be. No one, of course, was afraid of Reaper Cheep's drowning, for he was an excellent swimmer, but the three who knew what was going on below the water were afraid for those long, cruel spears in the hands of the sea people. In a few minutes the Don Treader had come round and everyone could see the black blob in the water which was Repacheep. He was chattering with the greatest excitement, but his mouth kept getting filled with water nobody could understand what he was saying. He'll blurt the whole thing out if we don't shut him up, cried Drinian. To prevent this, he rushed to the side and lowered a rope himself, shouting to the sailors All right, all right, back to your places. I hope I can heave a mouse up without your help. And as Ribichi began climbing up the rope, not very nimbly, because of his his wet fur made him heavy, Drinian leaned over and whispered to him, Don't tell, not a word. But when the dripping mouse had reached the deck, it turned out not to be at all interested in the sea people. Sweet, he cheeped. Sweet, sweet. What are you talking about? asked Drinian crossly. And you needn't shake yourself all over me either. I tell you, the water's sweet, said the mouse. Sweet. Fresh. It isn't salt. For a moment, no one quite took in the importance of this. But then Repacheep once more repeated the old prophecy. Where the waves grow sweet, doubt not, Repacheep. There is the Utter East. Then at last everyone understood. Let me have a bucket, Rhinof, said Drinian. It was handed him, and he lowered it, and up it came again. The water shone in it like glass. Perhaps your majesty would like to taste it first, said Drinian to Caspian. The king took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply, and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes, but everything about him seemed to be brighter. Yes, he said, it is sweet. That's real water, that. I'm not sure that it's going to kill me, but it is the death I would have chosen if I'd known about it till now. What do you mean? asked Edmund. It's like light more than anything else, said Caspian. That is what it is, said Reapercheep. Drinkable light. We must be very near the end of the world now. There was a moment's silence, and then Lucy knelt down on the deck and drank from the bucket. It's the loveliest thing I have ever tasted, she said, with a kind of gasp. But oh, it's strong. We shan't need to eat anything now. And one by one everyone on board drank. And for a long time they were all silent. They felt almost too well and strong to bear it, and presently they began to notice another result. As I have said before, there had been too much light ever since they left the island of Ramindu. The sun too large, though not too hot, the sea too bright, the air too shining. Now, the light grew, no less, if anything, it increased, but they could bear it. They could look straight up at the sun without blinking. They could see more light than they had ever seen before, and the deck and the sail and their own faces and bodies became brighter and brighter, and every rope shone. And next morning, when the sun rose, now five or six times its old size, they stared hard into it and could see the very feathers of the birds that came flying from it. Okay guys, so this is where things start to get a little more interesting. Repacheep obviously is the one that jumped overboard, and he's trying to say something, but his mouth keeps filling up with water and we cannot understand him. So Drinian throws over a rope and he pulls Repacheep back on board and tells him not to say anything about the sea people. But Repacheep is not even concerned with the sea people. He announces that the water is sweet and not salty, and he's excited about this because of the prophecy that that dryad gave to him when he was a baby, or just like a young mouse, which says, Where the waves grow sweet, doubt not, Repacheep, there is the utter east. And so Caspian also drinks some of the sweet water, and it seems that everything about him is now brighter. And Repacheep refers to it as drinkable light. And Caspian agrees with this description. Now, the reason Repacheep was so excited, and it reminded him of that prophecy, is just because his goal of the being on this voyage is to discover Aslan's country, which is obviously in the Utter East. And the water being sweet is a sign of that. And then of course, yeah, with Caspian now having tasted it, uh everything about him seems different. They're describing it as drinkable light. And after drinking the water, because now we all get a a drink of it now, all of us have s had enough and we no longer need food, which is interesting. And it actually reminds me of in the Bible, uh it reminds me of a passage from John chapter four, seven to ten, which says A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. And his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. And then in verse thirteen he explains this and says, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. It is this part of not thirsting again that reminds me of Lucy's comments about being satisfied with the water. And it makes sense. And the that this could be the connection that C.S. Lewis is making because of where we are in the sea, and you know, we've reached the utter east, and where we will end up will make this connection come to life. We start to notice that we can look at the sun without blinking, and it's becoming bigger and bigger. So at this point I'm gonna continue reading from the chapter. It continues Hardly a word was spoken on board all that day, till about dinner time. No one wanted any dinner, the water was enough for them. Drinian said, I can't understand this. There is not a breath of wind. The sail hangs dead. The sea is as flat as a pond, and yet we drive on as fast as if there were a gale behind us. I've been thinking that too, said Caspian. We must be caught in some strong current. Hm, said Edmund. That's not so nice if the world really has an edge, and we're getting near it. You mean, said Caspian, that we might be just well, poured over it? Yes, yes, cried Reapachep, clapping his paws together. That's how I've always imagined it. The world is like a great round table, and the waters of all the oceans endlessly pour over the edge. The ship will tip up, stand on her head for one moment, and we shall see over the edge and then down the rush, the speed. And what do you think will be waiting for us at the bottom, eh? said Drinian. Aslan's country, perhaps, said the mouse, its eyes shining. Or perhaps there isn't any bottom. Perhaps it goes down forever and ever. But whatever it is, won't it be worth anything just to have looked for one moment beyond the edge of the world? But look here, said Eustace. This is all rot. The world's round. I mean round like a ball not like a table. Our world is, said Edmund. But is this? Do you mean to say? asked Caspian, that you three come from a round world, round like a ball? And you've never told me it's really too bad of you, because we have fairy tales in which there are round worlds, and I always loved them. I never believed there were any real ones, but I've always wished there were, and I've always longed to live in one. Oh, I'd give anything. I wonder why you can get into this world and we can never get into yours. If only I had the chance. It must be exciting to live on a thing like a ball. Have you ever been to the parts where people walk upside down? Edmund shook his head. And it isn't like that, he added. There's nothing particularly exciting about a round world when you're there. Repacheep was the only person on board besides Drinian and the two Pevensies who had noticed the sea people. He had dived in at once when he saw the sea king shaking his spear, for he regarded this as a sort of threat or challenge, and wanted to have the matter out there and then. The excitement of discovering the water was now fresh had distracted his attention, and before he remembered the sea people again, Lucy and Drinian had taken him aside and warned him not to mention what he had seen. So here a few of us begin to speculate how we're moving so fast with no wind and with no current, and this starts a conversation about the world being flat and how we may just pour over the edge. Eustace tells everyone that the world is round, and Edmund replies to him and he tells him that our world is round, but we don't know if this one is. Caspian then seems to almost be upset or maybe even annoyed with us for never telling him that we are from a world that is round, like a ball. And he says that he has always dreamed of living on a world like that. And he asks Edmund if he has ever been to the places where the people walk upside down. Edmund tells him that that's not how it works. And Caspian is very much wondering why we can go to Narnia, but Narnians can't go to our world. And I feel like there's a lot of. So it's not like people would actually be walking upside down. Of course, if it didn't spin, then yeah, you'd have to wonder, like, are there people actually upside down somewhere? So I thought that was kind of a funny part, and uh really interesting as we are nearing the end of the world, and possibly the edge of the world. Well, this is where we're gonna end it for today. We are just about done the voyage, and that makes me sad, but we have one more exciting episode for you all, so I hope that you tune into this next episode. We have reached the end of the world, but not quite yet. The journey has just begun. We learned that Lucy saw into the depths of the waters that have never been seen by any human before, and the beauty and the mysteries of life under the sea. We learned that the water we were sailing on is sweet and it satisfies to the point of needing, of not needing to eat, and it hints towards the living waters that Jesus talks about. That the water that we drink from him, we will never thirst again. The sun is also five to six times bigger that it has been before, and that we can stare into it with no problems whatsoever. Now, if you've made it this far, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. This content must be something you really enjoy and it must resonate with you. And I just ask that you leave a rating and a comment as it helps the algorithms and subscribe to the YouTube as I'm putting out more content on there other than these episodes. And so make sure to check that out. Thank you again for listening, and until next time, stay faithful.