Review: The Golden Key and Other Fairy Tales by George MacDonald

A new illustrated collection of stories by the 19th Century "grandfather of the Inklings"

First, a “few” words…

So, most of my reading these days is based on answering one question: “Is this something I want my kids to read?” That’s it. That’s the entire rubric. With one about to turn ten (the Punkin), and one on the way (the Monkeywrench), the word “curate” doesn’t begin to describe my curmudgeonly approach to this task. Case in point, I read poetry with the soon-to-be-oldest, and we’ve just started Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three. The next sit-down daddy-daughter movie night will be The Song of Bernadette. My wife is incredibly patient.

They’re all doomed by the fact that I worked in a public library as a teenager, so when it comes to things fantasy, weird fiction, or sci-fi, I like to go back to the beginning. One hot summer’s afternoon, 16-year-old me, sorting the stacks, found a massive hardcover tome of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, a lurid cover of course, and including letters and literary criticism. By the time I finished that cursed volume I was also reading Lord Dunsany, William Hope Hodgson, Clark Asthon Smith, Robert E. Howard, and like the meme says, making the formative Gen X mistake: reading a Stephen King book way too young; I spent all junior year of high school toting around a hardcover, unabridged copy of The Stand. My forearms were jacked by the end of the school year.

Anyhow, I’ve spent my life since then playing catch-up. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve gotten serious about the Inklings and their contemporaries beyond their most famous works.

This personal deep dive is what brought me to this book of stories by nineteenth-century Scotsman George MacDonald. A fairytale author writing in the tradition of the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christien Andersen, and medieval morality playwrights. MacDonald was highly praised as an important influence by the Inklings as well as Inkling-adjacent and inspired writers including G.K. Chesterton, J.M. Barrie, and Madeline L’Engle.

The Stories

MacDonald is not out of print but seems to have been all but forgotten by public consciousness. In late 2023, the new children's book imprint launched by Catholic ministry Word on Fire, called “Spark,” set out to reverse this with a new, gorgeously illustrated hardcover of three of MacDonald’s most important fairytales.

The volume reprints the titular “The Golden Key,” as well as “The Light Princess,” and “Little Daylight.” The recommended age range according to Amazon is “eight to fourteen” and after reading the book with my family I agree that’s an accurate description. The book also contains an especially useful introduction “for young readers” by Spark line editor Haley Stewart that provides background and context for both parents and children alike. I was happy to see that the original spellings, punctuation, and word choices were preserved as close to the original versions as possible, and even included short footnotes to explain words and phrases unfamiliar to modern readers. The illustrations by Anastasia Nesterova are gorgeous.

Here’s a summary of the three stories:

“The Golden Key:” The most profound of the three, and the most difficult to understand and to like perhaps. It’s not the most active story, being the tale of a young boy and girl searching for the locked door which fits an enchanted golden key, which will lead them to a beautiful unknown country, “the place from whence the shadows fall.” It’s more of a dream-like prose poem than a story. It’s also very flexible with time and space, even looping back on itself if I interpreted it correctly.

It has the strongest connection to and description of “Faerie land” as a distinct place, “far from the fields we know,” that one also finds in Lord Dunsany’s Elfland, and that Neil Gaiman attempts to invoke in his work. It’s the story that most evokes Celtic mythology and feels the “most Scottish” of the three. There are elements to this which would not feel out of place in a modern work like Howl’s Moving Castle (both the book and the Studio Ghibli film), or a Hayao Miyazaki film like Spirited Away.

It’s also the most allegorical of the three stories and expects the most of the reader’s assumed familiarity with classical books of the Western canon: everything from the Bible to ancient European faerie lore. I enjoyed it, but then again, I read a lot and have a penchant for ‘90s shoegaze. I get it man.

“The Light Princess:” The king and queen of a small lakeside kingdom are finally blessed with a child. Unfortunately, the absent-minded king forgets to invite his own sister to the christening. That sister also happens to be a powerful witch, and she curses the beautiful baby princess to a horrible fate. She loses her very gravity! The king and queen desperately search for a way to keep her from floating away forever.

This was my daughter’s favorite story of the three. It’s also the funniest, done in a “fractured fairytale” style mimicked by everyone from the Muppets to the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The humor is very British, even Monty Python-esque. I think it’s highly likely that Tolkien drew a lot of inspiration from this style in his more juvenile works, such as The Hobbit, Roverrandom, Mr. Bliss, and The Father Christmas Letters.

“Little Daylight:” This was my favorite of the three. Again, a young princess is cursed by a witch, this time a slighted fairy. This time, a beautiful young princess is cursed to sleep by day, and only wake by night. Also, her health, age and beauty follow the lunar cycle of waxing and waning. Can anyone break the curse? Note, the story itself lampshades and acknowledges its similarities to the oft-told Sleeping Beauty. Personally, I would not be surprised to learn that the 1959 Disney film version drew on this unique version of the story.

What sold me was MacDonald’s description of Princess Daylight’s nighttime dancing; she dances away from her home (protected of course, by three fairies), in ever expanding concentric circles, moving throughout the forest until she tires and falls asleep with the coming dawn. Her movements mimic the orbital mechanics of the moon circling the earth (as understood in the mid-1800s), and it’s charming.

The Characters

Each story maintains a small, simple cast of characters who are more archetypical than individual. There’s a young man and a young woman, who either start out in love or end up in love by the story’s end. There are magical beings who either help them or hinder them along the way. There are other human characters, usually incompetent boobs, who either start them out on their journeys or hinder them. I’ll outline each story’s characters and end with an observation that I found interesting.

“The Golden Key:” There is a young boy who is told by his great aunt of the magical golden key, and she tells him that his father once found it but that no one knows what door it unlocks. He sets out to find it and finds his way to Fairyland, where he is accompanied by friendly talking animals who name him “Mossy,” since his real name never comes up. There is a girl called “Tangle” which isn’t her real name either but it’s what the servants always called her. Once she journeys to Fairyland, Tangle is taken in by “Grandmother,” who, despite being “thousands of years old” looks young and beautiful. I’m absolutely convinced that Grandmother is a direct inspiration for Tolkien’s character Goldberry, the wife of Tom Bombadil.

There are also the three Old Men (of the Sea, of the Earth, and of the Fire). To say more would spoil the story.

“The Light Princess:” There’s the nameless and quite silly king and queen of Lagobel, their daughter the nameless title princess, who starts the story as a spoiled brat, and her nameless and hapless suitor-prince.

The only characters whose names are revealed in the story are the evil witch Princess Makemnoit, and castle servants with bit parts, including two bumbling “Chinese court Metaphysicians,” Hum-drum and Kopy-keck.

Yes, really.

“Little Daylight:” The Princess Daylight is the only named character in the story. Everyone is “the prince,” or “her father,” or “the fairy disguised as an old woman.”

Given the deliberate use of Fairyland as the main setting of “The Golden Key,” using pseudonyms and protecting one’s true name, i.e., “You may call me…” fits in with folklore. However, the deliberate lack of naming of the main characters, except either for villains and commoners, the Princess Daylight herself, in the other two stories could be intended as encouragement for children to imagine themselves in the stories, to shift their focus away from the characters as characters, to the readers themselves in a universal “what would you have done?” sense. There may even have been some politics to it (see below).

The World

Each story is set in the fairytale world, described in loving naturalistic detail. Only “The Golden Key” ventures into Fairyland itself as a distinct place. The forests and lakes of the three settings are lush and real, inspired by MacDonald’s Scotland. I find echoes of his style in Tolkien’s famous (or infamous, depending on your mileage) level of detail in his descriptions of the Shire in the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring, and his descriptions of Beleriand in The Silmarillion.

Politics

None. Welllllllll…..there’s gentle ribbing of royalty and nobles, and the upper classes in general, done in the dry British wit reminiscent of classic Monty Python but lacking the mean-spiritedness.

Content Warning

None. There are some dark moments in these stories, as there should be in any fairytale. For example, the journey and end of “The Golden Key” story itself heavily imply the earthly death of Mossy and Tangle, but also their passage into Heaven.

The witches and evil fairies of the other two stories are rightfully witchy and evil, scary in a way that suggests they may have influenced Disney’s Wicked Queen, Mad Madam Mim and my absolute favorite Disney villain, Maleficent. (You, NOT YOU).

Bear in mind these are 19th-Century stories built on even older fairytale tropes, characters, and ideas, and through the lens of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Furthermore, this edition is published by a dedicated Catholic ministry emphasizing a classical approach to “the true, the good, and the beautiful,” always pointing to the proper ordering of the world and right worship of God. It is a very deliberately Christian book, however even with strong use of allegory and metaphor MacDonald never beats one over the head. The stories are enchanting and entertaining more than anything else.

Who is it for?

I think several disparate audiences can enjoy this book. First, this is for parents (like me) who are often desperately searching for something to read to their children but feel very alienated by contemporary works either because of content, themes, worldviews, and dumbed-down writing. Second, most children around 8-14 years old are more than capable of reading this book on their own with a little assistance provided by the editor and footnotes, and this can help prepare them for more challenging texts. Third, this is for readers of the Inklings and like-minded contemporaries interested in learning more about the writers and works that influenced them. Finally, this is for people who just enjoy 19th-Century British Literature, and if that’s you, you are in for a treat.

Why buy it?

The best endorsement I can give is that my almost-ten-year-old daughter loved it and kept the book for herself. While “The Golden Key” itself put her off a bit, she loved “The Light Princess” and “Princess Daylight.” I have a feeling that as she grows, she’ll start to figure out “The Golden Key” on her own.

Finally, rediscovering “lost” writers is plain cool, period. If you are a fan of any of the Inklings themselves, you really owe it to yourself to read this and other work by MacDonald. I promise, it will enhance your reading and understanding of Tolkien and his colleagues. Finally, it’s a beautiful little hardbound, with enchanting illustrations. Highly recommended.