Splendor Hyaline

The Splendor Hyaline is a fictional ship from the children's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. It was built during the Golden Age and ship is mentioned in at least two books of the series - Prince Caspian and The Horse and His Boy. The ship served as official transport for the High King Peter, as well as King Edmund and Queens Susan and Lucy.

The Splendor Hyaline makes a major appearance in The Horse and His Boy, when two of the four Narnian royals (King Edmund, Queen Susan, and their party) are planning to escape from Calormen and its capital city of Tashbaan for fear of being kept prisoner if Queen Susan refuses to marry the Calormene prince, Rabadash.

It is the faun Tumnus who comes up with the escape plan for getting out of Tashbaan. Tumnus proposes inviting Prince Rabadash to a banquet on board the Splendor Hyaline - with the banquet as the pretext for why the Narnians need to go down to their ship and stock up on supplies. But instead of holding the banquet, the Narnians will sail away in the middle of the night, leaving the city and heading for their home port.

When a Narnian lord raises the prospect of being chased by the Calormenes, King Edmund replies:

"That's the least of my fears. I have seen all the shipping in the river and there's no tall ship of war nor swift galley there. I wish he may chase us! For the Splendor Hyaline could sink anything he has to send after her - if we were overtaken at all."

By all accounts in the books, the Splendor Hyaline is a large, sleek, and fast galleon of war, as well as one of the best ships in Narnia's whole fleet. The ship is also mentioned in Prince Caspian, when Susan and Lucy are reminiscing about the Golden Age. Susan and Lucy offer a colorful description:

"It's like old times," said Lucy. "Do you remember our voyage to Terebinthia - and Galma and Seven Isles and the Lone Islands?

"Yes," said Susan, "and our great ship, the Splendor Hyaline, with the swan's head at her prow and the carved swan's wings coming back almost to her waist?"

"And the silken sails, and the great stern lanterns?"

"And the feasts on the poop and the musicians."

"Do you remember when we had the musicians up in the rigging playing flutes so that it sounded like music out of the sky?"

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