I've been reflecting on the Chronicles (as I often do) and thinking in particular about my favourite scenes of all, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) all the ones that have stuck most in my mind over the years are scenes that involve Aslan. He was always my favourite character by far, right from when I was a young first-time reader, and I know I twigged deep down that he was in some way more than just a storybook character, even before I got to the end of Dawn Treader and it became clear who Lewis meant him to be...

So I just thought it would be fun to hear from others on NarniaWeb — which encounters with Aslan (in any of the 7 books) do you find the most awesome and/or meaningful, and why?

I'll start out with my own favourite two, since I can't bear to pick just one!! I should add that there are a LOT of other scenes that are very close runners-up, but these are the ones that have stayed with me the most and come back to me most often... (Funnily enough, they're both scenes that involve my favourite human character — Lucy — as well.)

Aslan's resurrection in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I honestly have never found any better portrayal in literature of the sheer ecstatic joy of an encounter with the Divine than Lewis's portrayal of the Lion's "mad chase" with Susan and Lucy:

Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.

Lucy's encounter with Aslan in Prince Caspian

This is a quieter and less outwardly ecstatic episode, but I think just as deep in its way. I love the long slow build-up, from the moment Lucy wakes "out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name", and then her walk through the "almost awake" trees, "half wondering whether she had been using her arms to push branches aside, or to take hands in a Great Chain with big dancers who stooped to reach her", to the moment when she sees Aslan and runs to him, feeling that "her heart would burst if she lost a moment". And then, after their slightly confronting conversation, as Lucy falters over Aslan's quiet demand for her to wake her siblings and tell them to follow him, even though they won't believe her...

Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.

"I'm sorry, Aslan," she said. "I'm ready now."

"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed. But come. We have no time to lose."

And again, there are SO many others I could quote as very near the top, but I could be here all night doing that and this discussion will be a lot more meaningful if other people have their say as well, so fire away...