第1390章 The Silver Chair(243)

All this takes a long time to tell， but of course it took a very short time to see. Jill turned almost at once to shout down to the others， “I say！ It’s all right. We‘re out， and we’re home.” But the reason she never got further than “I say” was this. Circling round and round the dancers was a ring of Dwarfs， all dressed in their finest clothes； mostly scarlet with fur.lined hoods and golden tassels and big furry top.boots. As they circled round they were all diligently throwing snowballs. （Those were the white things that Jill had seen flying through the air.） They weren‘t throwing them at the dancers as silly boys might have been doing in England. They were throwing them through the dance in such perfect time with the music and with such perfect aim that if all the dancers were in exactly the right places at exactly the right moments， no one would be hit. This is called the Great Snow Dance and it is done every year in Narnia on the first moonlit night when there is snow on the ground. Of course it is a kind of game as well as a dance， because every now and then some dancer will be the least little bit wrong and get a snowball in the face， and then everyone laughs. But a good team of dancers， Dwarfs， and musicians will keep it up for hours without a single hit. On fine nights when the cold and the drum.taps， and the hooting of the owls， and the moonlight， have got into their wild， woodland blood and made it even wilder， they will dance till daybreak. I wish you could see it for yourselves.