The Telmarines are a people in the
fictional world of
Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...
created by the
British author
C. S. Lewis for his series ''
The Chronicles of Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, te ...
''. Hailing from Telmar, the Telmarines are prominent in the book ''
Prince Caspian
''Prince Caspian'' (originally published as ''Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia'') is a high fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1951. It was the second published of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of ...
'', the second book published in the series (but numbered volume 4 in recent editions ordered chronologically). The Telmarines were pirates in our world before entering the Narnian world through a magical cave.
No scene from the books takes place there, but Telmar is said to be "far beyond the Western Mountains." According to the
timeline
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events.
Timelines can use any suitable scale represen ...
drawn up by Lewis,
Calormen extended west into Telmar some three centuries after the world was first created. However, after only two years, the Calormenes in Telmar behaved so wickedly that
Aslan
Aslan () is a major character in C. S. Lewis's '' The Chronicles of Narnia'' series. Unlike any other character, he appears in all seven chronicles of the series. Aslan is depicted as a talking lion, and is described as the King of Beasts, the ...
turned them into dumb beasts, and the area became effectively unpopulated. Pirates from our world arrived in Telmar over a century later, through a rare gateway between the worlds. ''Prince Caspian'' describes how the descendants of these pirates, the Telmarines, invaded Narnia many generations later, leaving Telmar behind and suppressing Narnia's native inhabitants. This led eventually to the events related in ''Prince Caspian''.
Telmarine leaders of Narnia in ''Prince Caspian'' are King Miraz (brother of the late Caspian IX), Queen Prunaprismia, Lord Glozelle, and Lord Sopespian. In the
film version
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
of ''Prince Caspian'', the principal Telmarine characters are portrayed by Spanish, Latin American, and Italian actors.
The high-ranking Telmarines are shown to be corrupt, scheming individuals. Miraz had his own brother killed in order to claim the throne. Sopespian and Glozelle plot together to kill Miraz and blame it on the Narnians in order to declare all-out war on them. This plan succeeds, although the Telmarine army is defeated in the subsequent battle, ending some 300 years of oppression (according to the timeline).
Family tree
This is the family tree of Telmarine monarchs of Narnia.
References
{{Narnia
Literary characters introduced in 1951
The Chronicles of Narnia countries
Fictional ethnic groups
Fictional pirates