"Aslan! Dear Aslan!" said Lucy, "what is wrong? Can't you tell us?"
"Are you ill, dear Aslan?" asked Susan.
"No," said Aslan. "I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that."
And so the girls did what they would never have dared to do without his permission, but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw him - buried their cold hands in the beautiful sea of fur and stroked it and, so doing, walked with him.
C.S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
