Tree of Protection

The Tree of Protection was a beautiful tree with silvery apple fruit, planted in what would become the Lantern Waste by Digory Kirke during the creation of Narnia. It guarded Narnia from evil for approximately nine hundred years, specifically from Jadis the White Witch after she fled to the north. It is possible that the death of this tree is the event which allowed the White Witch to conquer Narnia and impose the Hundred-Year Winter.

The Other Trees
Though the Tree of Protection refers singularly to the tree planted on the banks of the Great River in Lantern Waste, there were at least three other trees that were directly related to that tree. The first was the Tree of Protection’s parent, planted in the center of the hilltop garden in the Western Wild at the Dawn of Time. This is the tree that Aslan sent Digory to pluck an apple from, and bring it back to Narnia to plant the Tree of Protection. This tree is also the roost of a great bird, the Phoenix. It is implied that the Phoenix is the guardian of the tree, as well as the entire hilltop garden.

The second Tree was the tree planted in London, England, which was a direct offspring of the actual Tree of Protection, having grown from the planted core of a magic apple from that Tree. This tree, being in our world and far from the air of Narnia, was not entirely magic. It looked the same as a regular apple tree, only far more beautiful, and its apples were bigger, more beautiful, and very good for you. Deep within that tree, in its very sap, it was still connected with its parent in Narnia; in fact, it would even tremble and move when there were large winds blowing on the Tree of Protection. Eventually, that tree in London fell during a storm, and Digory (now a middle-aged professor) had its wood made into a Wardrobe, which would later be found by Lucy Pevensie to be a portal into Narnia.

The third Tree was an exact replica of the original Tree in the garden. It was in the center of a sacred garden of Aslan's Country, and there too it was guarded by the Phoenix. King Frank I and Queen Helen sat beneath it at the Great Reunion.

It is also possible, though there is no substantial proof, that the Tree of Protection and its like are the same sort of tree as the legendary Tree of Life in our world. Both could grant everlasting life to those who partook of its fruits rightfully, and both were planted in a sacred garden at the dawn of their respective worlds. One was guarded by a fiery bird, while the other was guarded by a fiery sword. Other than these similarities, however, there is no real evidence to prove this theory true or false.

The Fruit
The Fruit of the Tree were much like apples, only they were silvery in appearance and beautiful, even casting a light of their own beneath the branches of the tree. The juice of the apples was a darker colour than one would expect, and stained one’s mouth. The smell of the apples are described numerous times as being almost irresistable, tempting Digory to eat one even when he knew he shouldn't. When in our world, one of the apples is described as being so beautiful that in comparison all other colors fade, and the light from the apple is so glorious it is like a window into Heaven.

The apples were magic, and had different effects on people depending on whether they ate it rightfully and where they were when they ate it. In Narnia, one who ate it would live forever; if eaten illegally, however, they would find their length of days to be merely length of misery, and the smell and sight of the apples would be loathsome to them forever. Such was the fate of Jadis the White Witch; the apples were so dreadful to her after she ate one that she didn’t dare come within one hundred miles of the Tree of Protection while it stood for nine hundred years.

In our world, they do not grant eternal life, but they do magically heal. Aslan allowed Digory take one back home, where he gave it to his mother who was deathly ill. Only minutes after she ate it she began to recover, and within the next week she was perfectly healthy and happy again.