The Golden Key

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Dec 29, David Gregg rated it really liked it Shelves: Bewilderingly creative--almost to the point of being, as one reviewer put it: I read it again. My appreciation of "The Golden Key" has risen, and so has my rating: Oct 29, Aaron rated it did not like it. I did not get it. Aug 03, Jeremiah rated it liked it Shelves: This book has more metaphor and symbolism that Dylan's first four albums.

I understood what many of the allusions were in this story, but can someone tell me what the hell this book is all about? This is the first of McDonald's "children's" books that I've read and I found myself wincing at parts I won't go into detail right now about which ones that I thought were too stilted, underdeveloped or just weird. I know "The Golden Key" is supposed to be McDonald's best or nearly his best "childre This book has more metaphor and symbolism that Dylan's first four albums.

I know "The Golden Key" is supposed to be McDonald's best or nearly his best "children's" book, but I just don't know. My wife loves this book I beg to differ, at least for now. A little hard to follow. I'm going to listen again. I feel like much of the allegory was going over my head. Apr 14, Mailee Pyper rated it it was ok. This book was interesting and sweet at moments, but so strange.

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I really wasn't sure what was going on, or what the point was of what did occur. It ended and I thought Jul 20, Juushika rated it it was amazing Shelves: A boy finds a golden key at the base of a rainbow in Fairyland; a girl flees home to join him on a journey in search of the key's lock.

A dreamlike, numinous fairytale, The Golden Key is delicate, brief, and bold. It reminds me best of Neil Gaiman's remarkable poem "Instructions," despite the gap of years and style that separate the two works: It reminds me also of Catherynne M. Valente's T A boy finds a golden key at the base of a rainbow in Fairyland; a girl flees home to join him on a journey in search of the key's lock. But really, what The Golden Key is is the best that this sort of fairy tale can be.

The Golden Key is deceptively short, nearly a short story; it's short enough to read twice, and its rambling, looping journey benefits from a second look.

MacDonald's voice makes for brevity in more than page count, his language light and slightly distant, nodding at the repetition key to classic fairy tales without overindulging, skimming over long journeys but casting a sharp eye on remarkable sights, and the effect is eminently consumable and almost effervescent. The brevity also keeps the drifting plot and dream logic in check, so where a longer story may grow repetitive even in its slew of wonders, The Golden Key dances from nighttime rainbows to a land of layered shadows to underground caverns with streams of molten metal and each one is a pure, crystalline miracle.

The Golden Key is dreamlike, fantastical, utterly convincing; consumable, deceptive, quiet; numinous, allegorical, inspirational. I have a certain bias towards the stories it reminds me of, largely because I encountered them first, but I'm glad to have stumbled upon this one; it is the best I hope for, in a story like this: Of course I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I read the version of this book that was illustrated by Ruth Sanderson and it was a beautiful reading experience. The scratchboard drawings are rich with detail and have a lovely warmth and promise to them even though they are in black and white. The illustrations capture the story perfectly, which on the surface is simple enough, but also leaves you with a sense of warmth and hope and promise that is hard to pin down and hard to explain.

Finishing this book, I was filled with a sense of simple I read the version of this book that was illustrated by Ruth Sanderson and it was a beautiful reading experience. Finishing this book, I was filled with a sense of simple happiness and wonder. Yet the story is a little odd on the surface. Mossy and Tangle have a series of adventures that involve talking animals, fairies, a quest for the country where the shadows come from, sequential meetings with the Old Man of the Sea, the Old Man of the Earth and the Old Man of the Fire where each is younger than the one before.

The Old Man of the Fire is the wisest of all and presented as a baby. There is always the Golden Key that Mossy has in his possession and that both started the adventure and drives it forward. For all the oddness of these elements, the story moves forward fluidly and the reader is engrossed. I am not sure exactly what the story means, but I do know that I finished with a sense that the quest of Mossy and Tangle was beautiful and purposeful. I felt like their travails were worth the effort. Though years had passed and both Mossy and Tangle had aged and aged and become young again that thread of purpose to get to the land where the shadows come from remained compelling for them and for me.

I felt like their destination was heaven and that there is beauty and magic, incomprehension and suffering along the way, but we must stay the course. Staying the course, will bring us the knowledge and contentment of the very young and a happiness that we cannot understand or even explain.

The story of Mossy and Tangle, the Golden Key, and 'The land from which the shadows fall' is one to rival anything in the MacDonald oeuvre; and therefore necessarily since MacDonald is peerless as an original mythmaker among the very finest fairy tales you could read.

But what to say about the tale that would do it justice? Ostensibly, it's a quest of two children to take the Golden Key, found by one of them at the foot of a rainbow on the borders of fairyland and find the lock it was made to The story of Mossy and Tangle, the Golden Key, and 'The land from which the shadows fall' is one to rival anything in the MacDonald oeuvre; and therefore necessarily since MacDonald is peerless as an original mythmaker among the very finest fairy tales you could read. Ostensibly, it's a quest of two children to take the Golden Key, found by one of them at the foot of a rainbow on the borders of fairyland and find the lock it was made to fit Rather it is a sort of beautiful but inscrutable tapestry that will haunt you in the remembrance ever afterwards.

There is much here that we find elsewhere in MacDonald: I am as happy to read MacDonald the mystic as MacDonald the preacher, but I don't doubt that he can be both at once. I suppose that if Lewis's imagination could be baptised by MacDonald, then mine can be preached to, and that is what happens with 'The Golden Key', and this is a sermon I'll be returning to, I'm sure, till I myself reach the country whence the shadows fall.

View all 3 comments. Aug 28, Bryan rated it it was ok Recommends it for: Only those who like to understand the mind of G. MacDonald, and those who like poetic imagery. The book tells the account of a little boy and girl who find a golden key in fairy land and follow a trail to the door the key unlocks. I did like one particular quote immensely. The dialogue is spoken to the little girl who at this time in the story is lost and has come far down in a cave and there she meets 'The Old Man of the Earth.

It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-dow The book tells the account of a little boy and girl who find a golden key in fairy land and follow a trail to the door the key unlocks. As they start to climb, the story ends. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the George MacDonald book. For the book, see Don Shaw screenwriter. For the collaborative fantasy novel, see The Golden Key novel. For the novella by A. Works by George MacDonald. Retrieved from " https: Articles with LibriVox links. Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 13 May , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: There she lay, half asleep with weariness and rest, listening to the low plash and retreat of the tiny waves, which seemed ever enticing the land to leave off being land, and become sea. And as she lay, her eyes were fixed upon the foot of a great rainbow standing far away against the sky on the other side of the sea. At length she fell fast asleep. When she awoke, she saw an old man with long white hair down to his shoulders, leaning upon a stick covered with green buds, and so bending over her.

I am so glad! For there she hoped to find Mossy again. But I will send you to the Old Man of the Earth. Perhaps he can tell you. He is much older than I am. Leaning on his staff, he conducted her along the shore to a steep rock, that looked like a petrified ship turned upside down. The door of it was the rudder of a great vessel, ages ago at the bottom of the sea. Immediately within the door was a stair in the rock, down which the old man went, and Tangle followed. At the bottom, the old man had his house, and there he lived. As soon as she entered it, Tangle heard a strange noise, unlike anything she had ever heard before.

The Golden Key

She soon found that it was the fishes talking. She tried to understand what they said; but their speech was so old-fashioned, and rude, and undefined, that she could not make much of it. And moving a slide in the wall of his house, he first looked out, and then tapped upon a thick piece of crystal that filled the round opening.

Tangle came up behind him, and peeping through the window into the heart of the great deep green ocean, saw the most curious creatures, some very ugly, all very odd, and with especially queer mouths, swimming about everywhere, above and below, but all coming towards the window in answer to the tap of the Old Man of the Sea.

Only a few could get their mouths against the glass; but those who were floating miles away yet turned their heads towards it. The Old Man looked through the whole flock carefully for some minutes, and then turning to Tangle, said, I want more time than she does. But I will send some as soon as I can. Presently a great noise arose in the sea. The old man opened the slide again, and tapped on the glass, whereupon the fishes were all as still as sleep. He lives a long way from here. He led her to a hole in the wall, which she had not observed before.

It was covered with the green leaves and white blossoms of a creeping plant. Tangle went in, and found a smaller room or cave, in the further corner of which was a great basin hollowed out of a rock, and half full of the clearest sea-water. Little streams were constantly running into it from cracks in the wall of the cavern. It was polished quite smooth inside, and had a carpet of yellow sand in the bottom of it.

Large green leaves and white flowers of various plants crowded up and over it, draping and covering it almost entirely. No sooner was she undressed and lying in the bath, than she began to feel as if the water were sinking into her, and she was receiving all the good of sleep without undergoing its forgetfulness.

She felt the good coming all the time. And she grew happier and more hopeful than she had been since she lost Mossy. But she could not help thinking how very sad it was for a poor old man to live there all alone, and have to take care of a whole seaful of stupid and riotous fishes. After about an hour, as she thought, she heard his voice calling her, and rose out of the bath.

All the fatigue and aching of her long journey had vanished. She was as whole, and strong, and well as if she had slept for seven days. Returning to the opening that led into the other part of the house, she started back with amazement, for through it she saw the form of a grand man, with a majestic and beautiful face, waiting for her. Others have another name for me, and are terribly frightened when they meet me taking a walk by the shore. Therefore I avoid being seen by them, for they are so afraid, that they never see what I really am. You see me now. But I must show you the way to the Old Man of the Earth.

He led her into the cave where the bath was, and there she saw, in the opposite corner, a second opening in the rock. With humble thanks Tangle took her leave. She went down the winding-stair, till she began to fear there was no end to it. Still down and down it went, rough and broken, with springs of water bursting out of the rocks and running down the steps beside her.

It was quite dark about her, and yet she could see. For after being in that bath, people's eyes always give out a light they can see by. There were no creeping things in the way.

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All was safe and pleasant though so dark and damp and deep. At last there was not one step more, and she found herself in a glimmering cave. On a stone in the middle of it sat a figure with its back towards her--the figure of an old man bent double with age. From behind she could see his white beard spread out on the rocky floor in front of him. He did not move as she entered, so she passed round that she might stand before him and speak to him.

The moment she looked in his face, she saw that he was a youth of marvellous beauty. He sat entranced with the delight of what he beheld in a mirror of something like silver, which lay on the floor at his feet, and which from behind she had taken for his white beard. He sat on, heedless of her presence, pale with the joy of his vision. She stood and watched him. At length, all trembling, she spoke. But her voice made no sound. Yet the youth lifted up his head. He showed no surprise, however, at seeing her--only smiled a welcome.

I only dream about it myself. I see its shadows sometimes in my mirror: But I think the Old Man of the Fire must know. He is the oldest man of all. I wish I could go to see him. But I must mind my work. That river is the only way to him. Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.

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She turned and looked him full in the face--stood so for a whole minute, as she thought: When she came to herself, she found herself gliding down fast and deep. Her head was under water, but that did not signify, for, when she thought about it, she could not remember that she had breathed once since her bath in the cave of the Old Man of the Sea.

When she lifted up her head a sudden and fierce heat struck her, and she sank it again instantly, and went sweeping on. Gradually the stream grew shallower. At length she could hardly keep her head under. Then the water could carry her no farther. She rose from the channel, and went step for step down the burning descent. The water ceased altogether. The heat was terrible. She felt scorched to the bone, but it did not touch her strength. It grew hotter and hotter. She said, "I can bear it no longer. At the long last, the stair ended at a rude archway in an all but glowing rock.

Through this archway Tangle fell exhausted into a cool mossy cave. The floor and walls were covered with moss--green, soft, and damp. A little stream spouted from a rent in the rock and fell into a basin of moss. She plunged her race into it and drank. Then she lifted her head and looked around. Then she rose and looked again.

She saw no one in the cave. But the moment she stood upright she had a marvellous sense that she was in the secret of the earth and all its ways. Everything she had seen, or learned from books; all that her grandmother had said or sung to her; all the talk of the beasts, birds, and fishes; all that had happened to her on her journey with Mossy, and since then in the heart of the earth with the Old man and the Older man--all was plain: The next moment she descried, in a comer of the cave, a little naked child, sitting on the moss.

He was playing with balls of various colours and sizes, which he disposed in strange figures upon the floor beside him. And now Tangle felt that there was something in her knowledge which was not in her understanding. For she knew there must be an infinite meaning in the change and sequence and individual forms of the figures into which the child arranged the balls, as well as in the varied harmonies of their colours, but what it all meant she could not tell. He went on busily, tirelessly, playing his solitary game, without looking up, or seeming to know that there was a stranger in his deep-withdrawn cell.

Diligently as a lace-maker shifts her bobbins, he shifted and arranged his balls. Flashes of meaning would now pass from them to Tangle, and now again all would be not merely obscure, but utterly dark. She stood looking for a long time, for there was fascination in the sight; and the longer she looked the more an indescribable vague intelligence went on rousing itself in her mind. For seven years she had stood there watching the naked child with his coloured balls, and it seemed to her like seven hours, when all at once the shape the balls took, she knew not why, reminded her of the Valley of Shadows, and she spoke: There was such an awfulness of absolute repose on the face of the child that Tangle stood dumb before him.

He had no smile, but the love in his large grey eyes was deep as the centre. And with the repose there lay on his face a shimmer as of moonlight, which seemed as if any moment it might break into such a ravishing smile as would cause the beholder to weep himself to death. But the smile never came, and the moonlight lay there unbroken.

For the heart of the child was too deep for any smile to reach from it to his face. I am very, very old. I am able to help you, I know. I can help everybody. I know the way quite well. I go there myself sometimes. But you could not go my way; you are not old enough. I will show you how you can go. He led her from the cave, and following him through an other archway, she found herself in a vast desert of sand and rock. The sky of it was of rock, lowering over them like solid thunderclouds; and the whole place was so hot that she saw, in bright rivulets, the yellow gold and white silver and red copper trickling molten from the rocks.

But the heat never came near her. When they had gone some distance, the child turned up a great stone, and took something like an egg from under it. He next drew a long curved line in the sand with his finger, and laid the egg in it. He then spoke something Tangle could not understand. The egg broke, a small snake came out, and, lying in the line in the sand, grew and grew till he filled it.

The moment he was thus full-grown, he began to glide away, undulating like a sea-wave. Tangle followed the serpent. But she could not go far with out looking back at the marvellous Child. He stood alone in the midst of the glowing desert, beside a fountain of red flame that had burst forth at his feet, his naked whiteness glimmering a pale rosy red in the torrid fire. There he stood, looking after her, till, from the lengthening distance, she could see him no more. The serpent went straight on, turning neither to the right nor left.

Meantime Mossy had got out of the lake of shadows and, following his mournful, lonely way, had reached the seashore. It was a dark, stormy evening. The sun had set. The wind was blowing from the sea. The waves had surrounded the rock within which lay the Old Man's house. A deep water rolled between it and the shore, upon which a majestic figure was walking alone. The night is stormy: The waves flew from before the footsteps of the Old Man of the Sea, and Mossy followed upon dry sand.

Now Mossy was an old man by this time. He looked much older than the Old Man of the Sea, and his feet were very weary.

The Golden Key (1867)

After looking at him for a moment, the Old Man took him by the hand and led him into his inner cave. There he helped him to undress, and laid him in the bath. And he saw that one of his hands Mossy did not open. And I know the way you have to go.

The Golden Key

But meantime, one thing is certain. But I don't know why I keep it. I never could find the keyhole. And I have lived a good while, I believe," said Mossy, sadly. I know my feet ache. He rose and looked at himself in the water, and there was not a grey hair on his head or a wrinkle on his skin. They returned to the outer cave, and sat and talked together for a long time. At length the Old Man of the Sea rose, and said to Mossy, He led him up the stair again, and opened another door. They stood on the level of the raging sea, looking towards the east. Across the waste of waters, against the bosom of a fierce black cloud, stood the foot of a rainbow, glowing in the dark.

His feet made no holes in the water. He fought the wind, and climbed the waves, and went on towards the rainbow. The storm died away. A lovely day and a lovelier night followed. A cool wind blew over the wide plain of the quiet ocean.

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And still Mossy journeyed eastward. But the rainbow had vanished with the storm. Day after day he held on, and he thought he had no guide. He did not see how a shining fish under the waters directed his steps. He crossed the sea, and came to a great precipice of rock, up which he could discover but one path. Nor did this lead him farther than half-way up the rock, where it ended on a platform.

Here he stood and pondered. It was a rough path, not very plain, yet certainly a path. It was smooth as glass. But as his eyes kept roving hopelessly over it, something glittered, and he caught sight of a row of small sapphires. They bordered a little hole in the rock. He tried the key.

A great clang and clash, as of iron bolts on huge brazen caldrons, echoed thunderously within. He drew out the key. The rock in front of him began to fall. He retreated from it as far as the breadth of the platform would allow.

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