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Symbolic Journeys toward Death: George MacDonald and Howard PyIe as Fantasists by Jill P. May Diamond said nothing to his mother about his adventures. He had half a notion that North Wind was a friend of his mother, and that, if she did not know all about it, at least she did not mind his going anywhere with the lady of the wind. At the same time he doubted whether he might not appear to be telling stories if he told all, especially as he could hardly believe it himself when he thought about it in the middle of the day, although when the twilight was once halfway on to night he had no doubt about it. . . . (At the Back of the North Wind. 52). "I should like you to take me to see my great old grandmother." The king looked grave, and said - "What does my little daughter mean?" "I mean the Queen Irene that lives up in the tower—the very old lady, you know, with long hair of silver." The king only gazed at his little princess with a look which she could not understand. "She's got her crown in her bedroom," she went on; "but I've not been in there yet. You know she's here, don't you?" "No," said the king very quietly. "Then it must be all a dream," said Irene. (The Princess and the Goblin, 70 ) . David's father sat staring at him, holding his pipe in his crooked brown fingers. "What is all this nonsense? said he. "Hans Krout, is it?—showing you the moon-path? Well, you shall go with Hans Krout no more, for he is crazy and knows not what he does. Here, Margaret, take the child and put him to bed. Why, he is cold to the morrow! Moonpath! The crazy shoemaker will be the death of somebody yet!" (The Garden Behind the Moon, 30). All three of the heroes in these Victorian children's books are traveling with unusual guides into a world unknown by the inhabitants of this earth. And instinctively they know that the grownups they love might not want to hear about their adventures, tittle Diamond in At the Back of the North Wind rationalizes his failure to share his adventures by saying that his mother probably suspects he is making friends with North Wind; Irene tries to share her adventures, but does not pursue the conversation when her father denies his knowledge of her great grandmother; David is caught in his failure to travel to the garden behind the moon, and experiences his father's anger at his travels. The reactions of these storybook adults are to be expected. Adults have no desire to discuss the idea of dying with young children. In fact, although death was often the final reward for the good child in early children's literature, it was usually approached in a practical, down-to-earth way. One could say, "the good die young" and leave it at that. The journey to the land of the dead has always been a difficult topic to face, especially when the traveler is a child. One critic has commented that the journey is more difficult to face than death itself because society fears it. He concludes: "Death demands but a rhetoric; dying an aesthetic and a philosophy" (Kuhns, 177). Yet, death, or rather the journey to the land of death, was of major interest to two of our most important early children's authors. Both of these men were deeply religious men and both had experienced death in their real world prior to their writing fantasy for children. And so, they penned mystical adventures for their young audience, .centering the story's drama upon the hero's successful journey to death. 129 George MacDonald was a Scot of Celtic background. Born in 1824, his own mother died when he was eight years old (Hein, 2). He chose to be a minister but was a rather unsuccessful one. His beliefs in the Fatherhood of God, in states of goodliness, and in an afterworld without punishment were not typical of the Congregationalists in his church. Critics today label MacDonald a "mystic...

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