Fairy Land


"Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such bewildering loveliness, that I felt as if I were entering Fairy Land for the first time, and some loving hand were waiting to cool my head, and a loving word to warm my heart. Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The color floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom. 
"Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content. Content! - Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! Yea, I would cease to be, if that would bring me one word of love from the one mouth. The twilight sang around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not slept for months. I didn't wake till late in the morning; when, refreshed in body and mind, I rouse as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, and then dies itself in the new morrow. Again I followed the stream; now climbing a steep rocky bank that hemmed it in; now wading through long grasses and wild flowers in its path; now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowded down to the very lip of the water." 
-Phantastes page 232 in The George MacDonald Treasury

 In my notes, I wrote something about possibly the Fairy-Land symbolizing Heaven. I think this is a good possibility, though it doesn't seem like it. Anodos learns so much in Fairy Land and he dies there as well. So I can't help but wonder if maybe it's not Heaven but a different version of Earth, with magic, where people travel to in order to become more of a person. It did annoy me that throughout the book, he just seemed to be wandering aimlessly. I guess this could symbolize life, because we all appear to be wandering aimlessly until we find a cause in order to follow a specific path. I think this is really important to the understanding of the story overall.

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