Eustace Scrubb (dragon form)
Eustace Scrubb is a selfish English boy in C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) who is turned into a dragon after falling asleep on a dragon's hoard, and is later restored by Aslan.
| Also known as | Eustace the dragon, Eustace Clarence Scrubb |
|---|---|
| Type | dragon |
| Tradition | C.S. Lewis (Narnia) |
| Category | Literature |
| Earliest source | The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis, 1952 |
| Wings | Yes |
| Breathes fire | Yes |
| Guards treasure | Not specified |
| Nature | Benevolent |
The Story
Eustace Clarence Scrubb is the cousin of Edmund and Lucy Pevensie. At the start of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader he is a spoiled, complaining boy who is pulled into Narnia with them and sails on King Caspian's ship. When the ship stops at a wild island, Eustace slips away to avoid work and gets lost in a mountain valley.
There he sees an old dragon crawl out of its cave and die. Sheltering from the rain in the empty cave, he finds the dragon's hoard. He slips a gold bracelet onto his arm, dreams of how rich he will be, and falls asleep on the treasure. He wakes up as a dragon himself, and the bracelet, now far too small for his huge foreleg, digs painfully into his flesh. The narrator explains that greedy thoughts, brooded over on a dragon's treasure, have turned him into a dragon himself.
As a dragon, Eustace cannot speak, but he manages to show the others who he is. For the first time, he finds he wants to be liked and to help. He hunts food for the crew, helps find timber for a new mast, and serves as a living fire-lighter. One night the lion Aslan leads him to a well. Eustace tries to scratch off his dragon skin, but each time another layer lies beneath. Only when he lets Aslan tear the skin away with his claws is he made a boy again, sore but changed for good.
Appearance and Powers
Eustace has the shape of the old dragon he saw: long, scaly, winged, with claws and a long tail, and able to breathe fire. He keeps his human mind but loses his voice, which is part of his misery.
Origins and Sources
The idea that greed turns a person into a dragon is old. In the Völsunga saga, the dwarf Fáfnir becomes a dragon while brooding over his stolen gold, and Lewis, a lifelong reader of Norse myth, knew that story well. The "un-dragoning" by Aslan is widely read as a picture of Christian conversion and grace, a reading supported by Lewis's own writings about change and repentance.
Legacy
Eustace's transformation is one of the most remembered episodes in the Narnia series. It was dramatized in the BBC television serial of 1989 and in the 2010 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which expanded the dragon scenes. It also gave many young readers a first look at the old idea of the dragon as a symbol of greed. See what is a dragon? for more on dragon symbolism.
Related
- Fáfnir: Fáfnir is a dwarf turned dragon in Norse legend who guards a cursed hoard of gold until the hero Sigurd kills him by stabbing him from a pit dug in his path.
- Smaug: Smaug is the greedy, cunning fire-breathing dragon of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), who seizes the dwarves' treasure under the Lonely Mountain and is killed by Bard the Bowman.
- Chrysophylax: Chrysophylax Dives is the rich, crafty, and cowardly dragon of J.R.R. Tolkien's comic tale Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), who is outwitted by a reluctant farmer and ends up as his ally.
- What is a Dragon?
- Dragon Books
Sources and Further Reading
- C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Geoffrey Bles, 1952), chapters 6 and 7
- Paul F. Ford, Companion to Narnia, revised edition (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005)
- Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Cite this entry: “Eustace Scrubb (dragon form),” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/eustace-dragon.