Did Chesterton Give Lewis the Idea for Aslan?

If you read The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton, you’ll find in the final chapter the great untameable madman of the character Sunday, who is at once terrifying but also bounding in joy. As C.S. Lewis also read and loved Chesterton’s works, I can’t help but wonder if the character Sunday was an early seed of his own raucous character, who was terrible yet honourable, untamed but a king, Good, but entirely unsafe.

“Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” —The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

“One would have thought that the untamable tune of some mad musician had set all the common objects of field and street dancing an eternal jig.” —The Man Who Was Thursday