Magic that Lingers

We've finally gotten our internet problems corrected. What a relief! I had no idea how dependent I'd gotten on being connected.....I'm not really sure if I'm comfortable with that idea!

Ed and I are going to be the King and Queen of a Christmas Festival at a local ranch this year. We’ll be wearing our Ren Faire costumes and presiding over a grand banquet with traditional entertainment: acrobats, a sorcerer (magician), musicians. I’ll be singing a few songs, and we’ll be acting out a sweet little tale of a child stolen away years before and found, of course, at the end of the banquet. We’ve already got five groups scheduled, with deposits. Yes, we’re getting paid to have fun – a win/win.

In preparation for these little theatrical dinners, I’m looking for pictures to turn into “stained glass” windows to transform the dining hall into a Grand Hall from the past. The story of our child stolen by the Wise Woman to teach a lesson to the ungrateful King (my always-appreciative Ed – such a funny role for him to play...Mr Grumpy-pants) – anyway…this story reminded me of George MacDonald’s very similar story of the Lost Princess. I took my copy to bed with me last night to see if there might be illustrations in it that I could use for the windows, and stayed up ‘til 2 reading the story again.

I’d forgotten just how magical a story could be. Not the magic that the characters might perform—the magic that happens in the reader when reading it. George MacDonald wrote several stories with this kind of magic: The Lost Princess, of course, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Curdie, Sir Gibbie….oh my…the list goes on and on.

There are books about heroes that make you admire the hero (like The Scarlet Pimpernel), there are heroic tales that fire the imagination and stir grand emotions (like Lord of the Rings), and there are books about heroes that make you want to emulate them (like Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl – what? Polly wasn’t a hero, you say? Au contraire, I reply. Anyone who faces near-poverty with consistent cheerfulness, gratitude, and humor IS a Hero in my mind). Ahem….

Then, there are those rare books, seemingly simple stories—usually written for children—that you close reluctantly at the end, with a sigh and unfocused eyes, very aware of the slow withdrawal of that magic which has been so entrancing. And then finding that a bit of that magic has remained and calls your thought back to the truth in the story, again and again. This is the magic that George MacDonald spins so masterfully.

C. S. Lewis learned the magic from MacDonald and spun it out skillfully, too. It was from Lewis that I learned about MacDonald, and it is the two of them whom I want to emulate in my writing--not their plots or characters or style, but the sense of having glimpsed something better, wholesome, desirable...magical.