"I've known good Dwarfs," said Mrs. Beaver.
"So've I, now you come to speak of it," said her husband, "but precious few, and they were the ones least like men. But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, chapter eight
(I observe they left that exchange out of the movie.)
What strikes me (and this is entirely beside the point, which fits it snugly into the category of what usually strikes me), is why would a beaver have a hatchet? Clearly not for cutting wood...
ReplyDeleteThat's...a good point. Maybe he used it to keep his fishing hole open in the ice? I think the text mentioned that.
ReplyDeleteHe did use it to cut a hole in the ice, as it happens.
ReplyDeleteInteresting question though; it had never occurred to be before.