Dr. Danny Gabelman introduces us to the fairy tales of George MacDonald.
S7E34: “MacDonald Month: George’s Fairy Tales” After Hours with Dr. Danny Gabelman (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Quote-of-the-week
[George MacDonald] could give the real sense that everyone had the end of an elfin thread that must at last lead them into paradise.
G. K. Chesterton
Biographical Information
Dr. Danny Gabelman is Head of English at King’s Ely (EE-LEE) school. He received his BA from Roanoke College, his MA from Wheaton College, and his PhD from the University of St. Andrews. He appeared as a guest on the documentary “The Fantasy Makers” and he is author of the book, George MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity and the song he’s most likely to sing at karaoke is ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ by Bob Dylan.
Chit-Chat
- Dr. Gabelman remarked how the weather in Britain reminded him of MacDonald’s fairytales, in particular, “The Golden Key”.
Toast
- David had a cup of Earl Grey tea.
- Dr. Gabelman was sipping a glass of white wine.
Discussion
01. “Background”
Q. Would you mind telling us a little more about yourself?
–
02. “Meeting MacDonald”
Q. When did you first discover MacDonald, and when did he become an author of particular serious interest?
- Dr. Gabelman was a fan of “The Chronicles of Narnia” while growing up. Lewis later introduced him to MacDonald through his autobiography, “Surprised by Joy”, and “The Great Divorce”.
- Convinced to give him a try, Dr. Gabelman picked up “Phantastes”. It took him multiple tries, but when he completed it, it was one of the most transformative readings of his life.
- The second book he encountered was “The Complete Fairy Tales”, which he found in a used book shop. Following this was his essay “The Fantastic Imagination”. Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton all drew from this essay and had a “manifesto” on fiction and fantasy writing. Lewis displays this in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” and “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said”.
03. “Childhood Fairy Tales”
Q. Before we speak about MacDonald’s own fairy tales, do we know which ones he read himself as a child?
- MacDonald was born at the dawn of many classic fairy tales, including “Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, which MacDonald gave to various people throughout his life. He borrows the title “The Golden Key” from the Grimm brothers. “Charles Perrault: The Complete Fairy Tales” also made it into MacDonald’s bookshelf.
- MacDonald wrote semi-autobiographical accocunts of his own childhood, in books such as “Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood”, which often include the image of the old woman at a spinning wheel telling stories to children.
- Dr. Gabelman believes that George was likely influenced by German Romantics later in life, when he catalogued a Lord’s library.
04. “MacDonald’s Fairy Tales”
Q. Would you mind giving our listeners a quick rundown of the fairy tales which MacDonald wrote?
- MacDonald believed one grows more childlike as they grow older, and so wrote for the childlike of all ages.
MacDonald’s tales of real life are allegories, or disguised versions, of his fairy tales. It is not that he dresses up men and movements as nights and dragons, but that he thinks that knights and dragons, really existing in the eternal world, are dressed up here as men and movements…Almost all the faults of his novels are the virtues of a fairy tale.
G. K. Chesterton
- His long works for children include books like “The Princess and the Goblin” and “The Princess and Curdie”.
I…can really testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence, which has helped me to see…a vision of things…so real….Of all the stories I have read…it remains the most real, the most realistic, in the exact sense of the phrase the most like life. It is called The Princess and the Goblin, and it is by George MacDonald.
G. K. Chesterton
- MacDonald also wrote a strange story called “At the Back of the North Wind”, a novel heavily influenced by the German Romantics and Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.
- He also wrote a number of short fairy tales. Some were more light and playful, like “The Light Princess” and “Little Daylight”, retellings of the Sleeping Beauty story. Others were darker, such as “The Giant’s Heart”, “The Carasoyn”, and “The Wise Woman”. Yet others are in a category of their own, like “The Golden Key” and “The History of Photogen and Nycteris”.
- In addition to these tales, George also wrote fairy tales “for grown people”. Some of these stories were books like “Phantastes” and “Lilith”.
05. “The Role of Faerie”
Q. Why are MacDonald’s fairy tales so important?
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
C. S. Lewis
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Dedication
- Tolkien believed in the fairy tale nature of the Gospels…
The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories.
J. R. R. Tolkien
- MacDonald did not think of his stories in an allegorical way. It is something small and beautiful to be loved…
Let fairytale of mine go for a firefly that now flashes, now is dark, but may flash again. Caught in a hand which does not love its kind, it will turn to an insignificant ugly thing, that can neither flash nor fly.
George MacDonald, The Fantastic Imagination
- MacDonald also had an uncanny ability to make his readers desire to aspire to goodness. Lewis was one such reader…
I did not yet know the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was Holiness. For the first time the song of the sirens sounded like the voice of my mother or my nurse.
C. S. Lewis
- W. H. Auden also grew up with MacDonald, and had a similar notion to Lewis…
George MacDonald’s most extraordinary, and precious gift is his ability, in all his stories, to create an atmosphere of goodness about which there is nothing phony or moralistic. Nothing is rarer in literature. This is why his permanent importance in literature is assured.
W. H. Auden
- It is difficult to make things good, rather than boring or moralistic. Dr. Gabelman described his experience teaching “Paradise Lost”, and how most characters empathise with the antagonist Satan, while thinking of the holy characters as boring! But MacDonald makes goodness exciting.
- MacDonald was not posessive over his works. If a reader saw something in a story he did not intend, he was more or less okay with their own subjective interpretations…
So many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time with things that came from thoughts beyond his own.
George MacDonald, The Fantastic Imagination
06. “A Place to Begin?”
Q. Where would you suggest people begin?
- Do not begin with “Lilith”, “Phantastes”, or “At the Back of the North Wind”.
- The “Princess” stories are a good entry point, as are “The Light Princess” and “The Golden Key”.
Wrap-Up
Concluding Thoughts
- Try picking up a copy of Dr. Gabelman’s book, “George MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity”.
- Visit George-MacDonald.com to learn about upcoming conferences.
