I have thought about this too. Maybe this was an error that Lewis didn't realize. Or maybe the Telmarines did enter Narnia long before the Pevensies, but they lived isolated for many years and did not enter Narnia until the Pevensies left.

No that still would not work because there were no pirates when Digory was a child. Which was when Narnia was created.

For starters, I think your time frame is a little off.

In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. MN, The Wrong Door
Based on this quote, MN occurs closer to 1900 than 1880.

Also, there are still pirates in our world today. Yes, the golden age of piracy was before the creation of Narnia, but that doesn't mean there weren't any pirates at the time.

But the way he describes it isn't the pirates we know today but the ones you would see in the 1700s.
Like sacking islands and taking the women for wives, things like that weren't happening then.

This has bothered me for the longest time. As someone who hates these kinds of inconsistencies, I feel your pain, Aragorn2.

Fact is, Lewis likely didn't realize when writing PC that Narnia began circa 1900. He didn't write most of MN until years later, so the possibility of a historical inconsistency didn't rise until the publication of later books.

Usually when I bring this up, people tell me that it was probably a 'wrinkle in time' type of thing. When the pirates passed through the portal to Narnia, they not only passed through space, they also moved through time up to some point after the creation of Narnia. I guess it's possible, but it's never satisfied me, since I don't think that's what Lewis had in mind. Whatever floats your boat, I guess (no pun intended, ).

I've always just had to square with the fact that there actually were pirates living from 1900 to 1940 (which there were), and that they were the ones who founded Telmar. Though they weren't the glorious pirates of the 16-1700's, there were pirates existing at the time. And pirates, well, pirate. In all eras, they've indulged themselves in theft, vandalism, and yes, rape.

Wow. That was a really long post...

This thought has always bothered me as well; however, I've come up with a solution that satisfies me (whether it satisfies any of you is not my problem )

My theory is this: During the golden age of piracy (or perhaps even as late as the mid 1800's,) Dutch pirates (as C.S. Lewis once said that the Telmarines were of Dutch ancestry) crashed on an island in the South Pacific, and lived there. They settled, and lived there for a generation or two, and it is the second generation of pirates that took to the hills with their women.

My second theory is this: Piracy was still a very big business in the early 1900's, particularly in the South China Sea, and particularly concerning the opium business. Chinese pirates were infamous for attacking the ships of the Brittish East India Co. and stealing all of the opium. So it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to believe that the Dutch, which might have still had some settlers in India due to the fact that the Dutch East India Co. didn't go bankrupt until 1800, could have robbed a ship and therefore been given the name pirate.

I just think rather that Lewis simply didn't think it through, Yes Lewis was a finite being like the rest of us

Pirates have always been around and are still around. I hear horror stories in the news about pirate attacks often. Just because it was not a major pirate ship in the historical period when most famous pirates lived does not automatically prevent piracy from taking place.

But I am talking of the times when pirates would land on islands and kill the men and take the women for wives, those were not around at the time.

Then again, if we're being completely accurate, I doubt that there were ever very many pirates who would do such a thing. In my opinion, and throughout the study of history, even the big-name pirates like Blackbeard and crew didn't land on islands and kill everybody. One has to look at what pirates were after. . . money, not blood.

I think that the whole "Pirates plundering islands, killing men, selling children into slavery, taking women for wives" thing has been romanticised in films, television, and novels. The only pirates for which there is proof that this sort of behaviour existed, was for the Vikings.

But actually it make sense if these pirates who make their living off others misfortune, if they were stranded on some island why wouldn't they get rid of the male natives (who they would doubtless come into conflict with sooner or later) and take the women for wives so they wouldn't die out? What else would they do in that kind of situation?

Given that the relative timeflow between the Real World and Narnia is consistently shown to be inconsistent within the stories, i see no reason to expect it to behave by any sort of logical rule in this instance.

Incidentally, whenever topics on the Telmarine Pirates' ancestry has come up before, i have often mentioned that i have heard it said that the incident as described in the book was based upon the Mutiny on the Bounty of 1789 - the mutineers from which ended up on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific and did much as Lewis described - however, i have yet to find anyone else who has ever heard such a thing, not have i been able to find the source from which i'm certain i once read it. Anyway, just something to think over.

Icarus, time always went forward between the worlds, Narnia was created in the late 1800's and all the other stories happen after that.
There is no instance of happenings between Narnia and our world going back in time.

Yet icarus has a point. I think that I too have heard that Lewis had in mind the Mutiny on the Bounty when writing the Telmarines. I can't be sure, but I think Paul Ford might have said it in his Narnian Encylcopedia, which doesn't really verify it, as he doesn't provide either source of proof. When reading it, I kind of got the impression that Ford was putting word's in Lewis' mouth...er, pen.

Yet still, it's out there.