"....Lewis himself said he didn't set out to write a Christian story, but simply a great children's tale. His creative influences, at least at the outset, were not Christian, but various mythologies from early cultures.
"The world of Narnia is populated mainly by talking animals. But it also includes mythological creatures and figures, such as fauns, nymphs, dryads, Bacchus, and Silenus from the Greek and Roman traditions, and dwarfs and giants from Norse mythology....."