The Place of the Lion, a 1931 „spiritual shocker” by Charles Williams, an editor of the Oxford University Press and a member of the Inklings, opens with a chapter in which Mr Berringer walks around his house at night and is attacked by a lioness, which transforms into the titular lion. C.S. Lewis’s troubled dreams, following his friend's death in 1945, closely replay the Berringer-lioness scene and testify to the major imprint Williams left on his life. They also give some clues as to the mysterious appearance of the Narnian Lion in Lewis's creative puzzle, completing and invigorating the picture of a faun he carried in his imagination since his youth (Lewis, “It All Began with a Picture” 529). As he recollects in his essays:

This unwillingness to accept the influence of his colleague, whose charismatic presence animated the meetings in the Eagle and Child (1936-1945), have formed the undercurrent of their relationship from its inception to Williams's death, and well after it.