"Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable." ~W.H. Auden

My blog is called “Caer Paravel.” Cair Paravel is the castle in Narnia. I didn’t choose the name because of some spiritual connection (I don’t even know what said connection would be. My knowledge of the manner in which The Chronicles of Narnia connects to Christianity extends only to the fact that theoretically there is one, nothing more), or even as a tribute to a beloved book of my childhood. I chose it as a blog title because of the Decemberists' cover of the song “Bridges and Balloons.”

It had been running through my head all day on the day I created this blog (which technically is today, I suppose), specifically the lines “and I / can recall our caravel: / a little wicker beetle shell / with four fine masts and lateen sails, / its bearings on Cair Paravel.” It’s a good song. But so is Of Montreal’s “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse,” but you’ll notice that’s not the title of this blog.

I want my blog to feel like a place, somewhere you can visit and immerse yourself in before leaving again. Maybe that’s not what you want, but that’s the way I always feel when I read the best books. I forget the outside world, and all I see or hear is the fictional one. I want my blog to have the same kind of staying power. If any of you have read Pamela Dean's Secret Country series, I want it to be a bit like that, or have the same feeling evoked by the Secret Country. A place that's special and private(esque), that you've known since you were little and play in with your oldest and closest friends.

I also love old legends and myths. My blog only barely escaped being called “Cantre’r Gwaelod.” First, my mother told me not to name it some ‘weird Welsh thing,’ and my mother is generally a pretty smart lady. And second, the url was already taken. But The Chronicles of Narnia were some of my favorite books growing up, and Cair Paravel is the kind of place I used to dream about going to––just listen to the description and you’ll understand why:

“The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and sea weed, and the smell of the sea, and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking forever and ever on the beach. And, oh, the cry of the sea gulls! have you heard it? Can you remember?

That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand between their toes. But next day was more solemn. For then, in the Great hall of Cair Paravel––that wonderful hall with the ivory roof and the west door all hung with peacock’s feathers and the eastern door which opens right onto the sea, in the presence of all their friends and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them onto the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, ‘Long Live King Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live Queen Lucy!’”

Finally, you’ll notice that my blog’s name is spelled “Caer” rather than “Cair.” The real reason is that was taken. The secondary, fake justification reason is that ‘Caer’ is the generally accepted spelling of the Celtic word. Places like Caer Arianrhod, Caer Bran, and Caer Caradog are in the Mabinogi, and it is that sort of place from which (I assume) C. S. Lewis drew his Cair Paravel. So yes, my blog is “spelled wrong.” That’s because this isn’t the Narnian castle of kings and queens. It is the more humble home of a young girl. Aaaand that sounded pretentious. But whatever. Calling my blog Caer Paravel and then pretending I have a reason to spell it that way is pretentious too. So shut up.