HOW SHASTA SET OUT ON HIS TRAVELS THIS is the story of an advehat happened in Narnia and en and the lands between, in the Golden Age wheer was High King in Narnia and his brother and his two sisters were King and Queens under him.
In those days, far south in en on a little creek of the sea, there lived a poor fisherman called Arsheesh, and with him there lived a boy who called him Father. The boys name was Shasta. On most days Arsheesh went out in his boat to fish in the m, and iernoon he harnessed his doo a cart and loaded the cart with fish a a mile or so southward to the village to sell it. If it had sold well he would e home in a moderately good temper and say nothing to Shasta, but if it had sold badly he would find fault with him and perhaps beat him. There was always something to find fault with for Shasta had plenty of work to do, mending and washing the s, cooking the supper, and ing the cottage in which they both lived.
Shasta was not at all ied in anything that lay south of his home because he had once or twice been to the village with Arsheesh and he khat there was nothing very iing there. In the village he only met other men who were just like his father - men with long, dirty robes, and wooden shoes turned up at the toe, and turbans on their heads, and beards, talking to one another very slowly about things that sounded dull. But he was very ied ihing that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the s, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it.
Sometimes if Arsheesh was there Shasta would say, "O my Father, what is there beyond that hill?" And then if the fisherman was in a bad temper he would box Shastas ears and tell him to attend to his work. Or if he was in a peaceable mood he would say, "O my son, do not allow your mind to be distracted by idle questions. For one of the poets has said, `Application to business is the root of prosperity, but those who ask questions that do not them are steering the ship of folly towards the rock of indigence.」
Shasta thought that beyond the hill there must be some delightful secret which his father wished to hide from him. Iy, however, the fisherman talked like this because he didnt know what lay to the North. her did he care. He had a very practical mind.
One day there came from the South a stranger who was unlike any man that Shasta had seen before. He rode upon a strong dappled horse with flowing mane and tail and his stirrups and bridle were inlaid with silver. The spike of a helmet projected from the middle of his silken turban and he wore a shirt of mail. By his side hung a curving scimitar, a round shield studded with bosses of brass hung at his back, and his right hand grasped a lance. His face was dark, but this did not surprise Shasta because all the people of en are like that; what did surprise him was the mans beard which was dyed crimson, and curled and gleaming with sted oil. But Arsheesh knew by the gold orangers bare arm that he was a Tarkaan reat lord, and he bowed kneeling before him till his beard touched the earth and made signs to Shasta to kneel also.
The stranger demanded hospitality for the night which of course the fisherman dared not refuse. All t