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Fernando Soto

Jane Harrison, Themis (416).

Phantastes is one of the most mysterious books George MacDonald wrote and one of the least understood books in the English tradition. Since its publication in 1858, reviewers, readers and researchers have experienced great difficulties understanding the meaning of this complex work. The perceived impediments have been so great that some scholars remain unsure whether Phantastes contains a coherent plot or structure (Reis 87, 89, 93-94; Robb 85, 97; etc.). Other critics appear adamant that it contains neither (Wolff 50; Manlove, Modern 55, 71, 77, 79; England 65, 93, 122). Even those scholars who sense a structure or perceive a plot differ not only regarding the types of structure(s) and/or plot(s) they acknowledge (Docherty 17-22; McGillis "Community" 51-63; Gunther "First Two" 32-42), but in deciding into what, if any, genres or traditions Phantastes belongs (Prickett, "Bildungsroman" 109-23; Docherty 19, 23, 30; McGillis, "Femininity" 31-45; etc.). Therefore, although progress towards an understanding of Phantastes may have occurred, the incremental scholarly strides have been small. Moreover, they have been wholly concerned with what are defined—in the adapted quotation from Fletcher which MacDonald appends to his title—as "new habiliments." In effect, these habiliments have been mistaken for the underlying myths, or, as will subsequently become apparent, for the Goddess herself.

The absence of descriptive persuasive readings, and the lack of agreement on the part of scholars, is not for want of trying. Phantastes is MacDonald's first novel and likely his most read and studied book for adults (Saintsbury 73; Robb 77). In addition, thanks to C.S. Lewis's "discovery" of Phantastes in 1916, and his later hyper-enthusiastic Christianised reading of the book, it continues to attract the attention of numerous readers and researchers. Many of these readers appear to want to experience what the famous literary critic and Christian apologist extracted from the book, get their imagination "baptised," and absorb some of the important spiritual lessons he acquired from his "master" (Lewis 20-21).

Much of the critical work devoted to Phantastes has emerged from a Christian perspective and has centred on the seductive idea that the work ought to be Christian and based on a German Romantic tradition (Greville MacDonald 297-99; Reis 87; Hein, xvi, xix, 55, 59, 73, 77, 80; Saintsbury 38; Prickett, "Bildungsroman" 109-24; etc.). Yet there appears to be little convincing evidence for a Christian reading and no German work or tradition that is easily accused of engendering Phantastes (Robb 79), despite its allusions to various German Romantic texts. Thus, with the proliferation of so many conflicting theories about the book's supposed, meanings, structures, and antecedents, an aura of mystery continues to surround this puzzling "Faerie Romance."

Notwithstanding the confusion surrounding MacDonald's book, it is generally acknowledged that it contains references to things Greek. The name given to the protagonist is Anodos (A n o d o V ), and the significance of this word is generally thought to play a role in the events, actions and plot of the story (Wolff 47; Hein 56; Manlove, Impulse 77; Reis, 87; Docherty 20; Gunther, "First Two" 32; Muirhead 37; etc.). As with other aspects of Phantastes, however, there is little consensus regarding the ultimate significance of the word. Three meanings are provided by scholars: "without a path," "a way back" and "a journey upward." With this choice of very general meanings, and the uncertainty of researchers regarding the nature, aim, and literary antecedents of Phantastes, no scholar appears to have yet grounded the significance of this important Greek word within the story. If a large part of MacDonald's enigmatic story is to be understood, the Greek meanings of this word must be reviewed in their full historical settings and contexts. The ancient meanings and historical uses of the word "anodos," along with the Greek mythology and religion involved with this word, prove central to an understanding of the mysteries within Phantastes.

The word "Phantastes" is also Greek, and its Greek meanings are helpful in understanding the story. It means "one who makes a parade, a boaster" (Liddell & Scott 1593). On the other hand it is closely related to the Greek 1) phantasia, 2) phanai, and 3) phanes. These respectively mean 1) "‘a showy appearance, show, display, parade’"; 2) "solemn ‘torch-processions,’ such as took place in the Bacchic orgies"; 3) "a mystic divinity in the Orphic rites representing the first principle" (Liddell & Scott 1592). All of these meanings will be seen to play crucial roles within Phantastes, while pointing towards the obscure significations of further Greek names such as Isis. The German readings of Phantastes have been so prevalent that the name Isis has been traced only to Novalis and not to its origin in Greco-Egyptian mythology and religion. Isis is the Greek rendition of the Egyptian "Aset" or "Eset," whom the Greeks associated with the Earth-Mother Goddess, with her many names of Demeter, Semele, and so on.

Nancy Willard and Nancy-Lou Patterson argue convincingly for MacDonald's creative use of Greek Earth-Mother and Kore myths in some of his books for children. The Grandmother of the Princess books has been recognised as Isis by Hayward (29-33).The great majority of At the Back of the North Wind relies upon direct and indirect creative allusions and references to obscure and abstract Greek mythology —such as that associated with Homer's epics, with Herodotus's writings on the Hyperboreans, with Boreas the north-wind, and so on (Soto, in press). In Lilith the central character Adam obliquely associates his wife with Gaia and himself with Gaia's husband Uranus (Docherty 371). He is perceived by the protagonist Vane as progressing through a series of metamorphoses, from Raven to Father, reminiscent of the stages of Near-Eastern Mystery rites, where the first and last stages were named respectively "Raven" and "Father" (370-71). In Phantastes too, MacDonald utilises extremely artistic readings of the deeply symbolic Mother and Kore (Greek: "maiden") myths and the religious ideas and spiritual concepts these myths convey.

The Greek word anodos historically described certain sacred phenomena and a significant day of worship in ancient Greek Mystery religions. (Harrison, Prolegomena 120-31, 276-85; Themis xx, 292, 332, 416). As used above by Harrison, the word "Anodos" (hereinafter anodos) signifies the cyclic rising of the Earth Goddess(es)—a process running parallel to the yearly rising of vegetation in the spring. The ancients, it seems, first saw this anodos reflected in the yearly awakening and rising up of vegetation in the spring season after its sleep/death in winter. As time progressed, most of the remaining natural forces in this myth were anthropomorphised into the parallel stories of particular goddesses, gods, and mortals going to and returning from Hades. The relevant names of the main goddesses (Earth- or Mother-), who share a similar identity and experience an anodos, are Gaea (Gaia, Ge), Demeter, Kore (Persephone), Aphrodite, Euridike (Eurydike, Euridice), Semele, Cybele, Pandora, Magna Mater, and so on.

The most well-known death and rebirth myth of ancient Greece is likely that concerned with the Rape of Persephone. In this myth, Hades the god of death and the underworld, kidnaps Demeter's daughter Persephone as she gathers flowers. Hades then proceeds to violently drag "The Maid" to his underground kingdom of shades/ shadows. Demeter, the foremost ancient Greek goddess of vegetation, begins a long search for her lost "offspring," and thus ignores her duties. Nothing grows during this long search and all of earthly and Olympian life is in peril—because humans reap no crops, the gods receive no sacrifices (Kerényi 238). Zeus is called upon to rectify this dangerous situation and order is restored when Hades is commanded to return Persephone to her mother. However, due to the subterranean subterfuge of Persephone being duped into eating some of the food of the underworld, she must return to assume her place as Hades's wife for three to six months of each year. This reflects the fact that Persephone, as the daughter of Demeter, is directly associated with the life and death cycle of the crops. Thus the myth of her yearly "rising" or "ascent" (i.e. the anodos of Kore) mirrors the yearly rebirth of vegetation. In this way, the Greeks came to conceptualise the yearly vegetative cycle of growth, decay, death, and rebirth, and to mythologise it within the Kore/Persephone tale and other similar stories and religious practices.

In the Homeric, male-centred, highly hierarchical era, death was perceived as a shadow-like existence for the majority of people: the Elysian fields were reserved for the very few, the "heroic" testosterone-driven warriors. It is believed that as later Greek generations became agricultural, or as they made contact with civilised, matriarchal peoples, they created or encountered a more egalitarian (Democratic?) conception of the after-life. It seems that, through foreign traditions and myths in addition to their own developing customs and stories, the Greeks created the Kore myth—a myth that reflects the more ancient winter-spring, death-life conceptions. Ancient peoples connected these myths with the future rising of their spirits from the dead matter of their bodies—in a similar fashion as the "dead" seeds planted in the fall sprout in the spring, as the trees put out leaves, and as the Kore rises from the kingdom of death. This mythology, then, represents not only the yearly vegetative cycle of life and death, but also the awakening of the Goddess alongside her "dead" devotees. Thus the word "anodos" describes the yearly rising of vegetation and the seasonal awakening and arising of a whole host of chthonic "vegetative" goddesses, gods, and mortals from the underground kingdom of the dead. In Mystery religions, moreover, this crucial "rising" also came to symbolise the anodos of purified humans after their initiatory death.

MacDonald, like most people interested in ancient Greek history and culture, likely realised that once the ancient Greeks began consciously to desire an after-life partaking of more than a mere shadow-existence they began to fill this spiritual void by taking up and developing the Mystery religions.

Letter from MacDonald to his wife, 1855, in Sadler 87-88.

From the beginning of Phantastes, the reader is reminded of the Greek nature of the book. A search for MacDonald's first direct references to ancient myths related to the rising of the Goddess, or anodos of the Grand Mother (i.e. his "Magna" Mater), starts with a close examination of the quotation from Shelley's "Alastor" which heads chapter 1. Shelley's poem includes references to things Greek and Mystery religions which MacDonald will use in Phantastes. A small sample of related references from "Alastor" might include: "our great Mother"; "Thy shadow"; "the depth / Of thy deep mysteries"; "I have made my bed / In charnels and on coffins"; "unveil'd thy inmost sanctuary"; "lyre"; "sculptured on alabaster"; "marble dæmons"; "mysterious halls with floating shades"; "beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower"; "he eagerly pursues / Beyond the realms of death that fleeting shade"; "Does the dark gate of death / Conduct to thy mysterious paradise"; "a little shallop floating by the shore"; "A restless impulse urged him to embark / And meet lone death on the drear ocean's waste"; "embraces the light beech"; "Birth and the grave [. . .] are not as they were" (177-97).

Furthermore, the name Alastor leads towards other obscure chthonic references:

Before MacDonald's text is reached, the quotation from "Alastor" sets the chthonic tone for the book, as well as alluding to connections which not only link the poem to Phantastes, but to ancient Greek mythology and Mystery religions, particularly those associated with the rape of Persephone.

Within MacDonald's text there are obscure chthonic references which continue the "mood" and "significance" of Shelley's quotation and poem. Many of his first allusions may be interpreted as referring to Greek Mystery religions:

Everything—from the dark secretary (derived from the Latin secretarium, "a secret place"), "shadows," the strange "reverence," and a "mystery," to the description of the darkness and shadows as "bat-like"—is reminiscent of Mystery religions and Greek myths (Kerényi 247). References such as "the awe which was fast gathering around me as if the dead were drawing near," along with the complex setting —something like a small opening between the upper and lower worlds—foreshadow the first anodos of a Goddess in the story:

The strange "dark" setting and descriptions, the emergence of the "Greek statuette" from the chamber's depths, allusions to a rousing to "life," and the details of her dress allude to many of the well-known ancient chthonic Goddesses. These Earth Goddesses were believed to emerge each spring from dark chambers, though today they quietly reside in museums as marble statues and statuettes. When this figure has become life-size, Anodos's account gives further clues to her identity:

There is much that is helpful in the above descriptions and chastisement. For instance, in a myth associated with the Great/Grand Mother in the form of Cybele, the Goddess embraces her foolish grandson and then hurts him. Here is part of the story of the Mother Goddess Cybele and Attis:

Thus Anodos's Grand-Mother, as Cybele, has previous experience "embracing" and then punishing a foolish grandson/lover. She knows very well that Anodos ought to keep his distance.

Anodos finds only two things in the "chamber" from which the Goddess emerges: a packet of papers and "a little heap of withered rose-leaves" (3). These rose-leaves at the threshold between the under and upper worlds are particularly significant. Roses are one of only two flowers mentioned by Pindar in regard to the rites of the rising of the Goddess Semele (in Harrison, Themis 203, 418).

Following the introduction to his Grand Mother/grandmother, Anodos continues to volunteer useful yet "mysterious" information. For instance, he proceeds to describe "a sensation of twilight, and reedy river banks [. . .] in this deathly room." These references are reminiscent of Hades (Kerényi 245). It is interesting also to note the connection between Anodos's dead mother, the rising grandmother, and the dead yet vigorously sprouting vegetation in his bedroom. Dionysus is probably the only God whose "mother died when [he] was a baby" (7). His Greek name Bakhos means "the shoot," a term used for sprouting vine tendrils (Kerényi 257). In one famous adventure he was kidnapped by pirates. As the abductors would not let the God of wine and vegetation escape, he made the ship in which he was being held begin to sprout ivy and grape vines. Accompanying the outburst of vegetation, wild beasts appeared and terrified or devoured most of the crew. No wild beasts appear before Anodos hurriedly leaves his room, but both ivy and the vine clematis begin to sprout from the wood of his furniture in a very similar fashion to how it sprouted from the wood of the pirate ship (11).

After leaving his room, Anodos—now likely somewhere in Erebus—is ready to proceed towards the underground kingdom of shades; as he has foreshadowed with his numerous statements regarding, death, mysteries, "the dead drawing near," his dead father and mother, and fanciful outbursts, such as: "Perhaps, like a geologist, I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata of the human world, with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears" (2). This last curious description points to more than merely a fanciful metaphor for an imaginative excursion into his father's desk. Phantastes uses the findings of excavations which had unearthed real "fossils"—Manuscripts, statues, pottery and so on. It is an imaginative, yet thorough, literary mythic-religious underground adventure into the very heart of ancient rituals and beliefs.

MacDonald makes sure to convey to the reader that before Anodos experiences the next anodos of the Goddess he must be aiming his steps towards the East (13, 26, 38, etc.). It may be remembered that, for the Greeks, the idea of a resurrection of the soul and the rites associated with the later Mysteries—the cults of Semele/Dionysus, Euridike/Orpheus, Cybele/Attis, Isis/Osiris, etc.—were understood to be Eastern or Oriental in origin and nature.

Anodos crosses the rivulet flowing from his room, reminiscent of the rivers surrounding the underworld, and penetrates deep into a forest:

This Kore recalls Persephone, who could have been described thus just before she was abducted, and also during her anodos when, in her vegetative role, she "brings up" the new plants. But the description surely also refers back to the anodos of the Goddess in chapter 1. For instance, the "thick grating" of tree branches mirrors on a larger scale the "portcullis of small bars of wood laid close together" in the secretary. The "second midnight" and "the maiden coming towards me from its very depths" likewise point to a second anodos. She too warns Anodos of his precarious situation, but then leaves him.

Continuing on his way, Anodos soon "came to a more open part, and by-and-by crossed a wide grassy glade, on which were several circles of brighter green. But even here I was struck by the utter stillness. No bird sang. No insect hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way" (15). Awake in this deathlike "darker" environment, he perceives human sleep from the "other side":

References to Persephone/Kore continue once Anodos meets the maiden's mother. As might be expected, she mirrors Demeter:

In the myth of Persephone, Demeter—after her daughter is taken by Hades—assumes the disguise of an old woman and proceeds to take employment performing the work, such as food preparation, common to old women of that epoch. And she continually asks everyone she meets whether they have seen her daughter (Tripp 196).

The many references to Anodos walking in the kingdom of death continue. The chthonic references to death become increasingly prominent as the story unfolds, while Anodos continues to travel East. After he leaves the old woman/Demeter he first begins to sense directly the "shade-like" entities, so common to the ancient accounts of Hades:

This is very similar to the descriptions of the shades met by some of those who have travelled to Hades and back, or who knew someone returned from the kingdom of the dead: (the list includes Heracles, Odysseus, Orpheus, Aeneas, etc.).

In chapter 5, before the anodos of the Marble lady and after the episode with a possible Aenean "golden bough"—"the splendid flower of a parasite" (51)—Anodos first begins to see and describe the shades whose presence he had previously intuited. "Now and then, too, a dim human figure would appear and disappear, at some distance, amongst the trees, moving like a sleep-walker. But no one ever came near me" (51). In this instance Anodos appears to be unaware that the shades must be attracted and revived with libations if they are to come near and communicate with the living (Homer 168-69). But he eats of the Fairy food (something very significant in Hades) and, like Persephone, becomes a type of denizen of the underworld. With this new status, he is now more clearly aware of his surroundings:

Thus it appears that not only did the food have an impact upon Anodos's senses, but also that the "sleep walkers," very much like the shades inhabiting Hades, were human forms after all.

With all of this information in mind, let us begin to examine directly the third anodos of the Goddess. The setting is described at some length in chapter 5:

Most of this description is of great importance in regard to the rites of the Goddess. All these "disparate" things (snakes, hills, caves, lush vegetation, a well, the elixir of life, Greek myths, plus possibly the pigs of chapter 7) play crucial roles in the Mystery rites which culminated in the anodos of the Goddess. Here are two instances of such rites which may shed further light on MacDonald's account:

Harrison also includes some insights regarding the Greek word translated as "chasm" (i.e. megra, m e g a r a , m a g a r o n ) in the above passage, and information regarding a sacred well and a type of bas-relief:

The above accounts of the setting for the anodos by MacDonald and Harrison (via other easily available sources such as Apollodorus) are much too similar to be unrelated. Furthermore, since MacDonald studied Greek, he could make full use of the meanings of the word megara: cave, palace or temple. Every anodos of the Goddess recounted in Phantastes occurs in or near a cave, palace or temple. It is difficult to know whether MacDonald accessed the ancient objects available to Harrison and other scholars, but in his studies he must have read accounts of the Mysteries in question. From his reading of fairy tales he would also have known that in such tales a well is often the gate to the underworld and specifically to the domain of the Earth Mother (Neumann 48). As mentioned above, much of Harrison's information and most literary references regarding the anodos of the Goddess were available to anyone who could read Greek and German, and was interested in ancient Greek mythology, religion and culture.

Anodos interprets the bas-relief within the cave in terms of the myth of Pygmalion, conveying to the reader that Greek/Middle Eastern mythology is close at hand. He also continues to ground the episode in further relevant Greek myths. As Anodos is attempting to find a method to awaken the Marble lady, herself reminiscent of the Greek statuette of chapter 1, he appears able to recall a great number of similar "historical" events: "Numberless histories passed through my mind of change of substance from enchantment and other causes, and of imprisonments such as this before me" (57). After mentioning several "histories" which appear to have some aspects in common with the situation confronting him, Anodos dismisses the story of Pygmalion and settles on exactly the right Greek myth. The myth of Orpheus and Euridike, however, does not, at first, appear to have as much in common with awakening a marble lady. Anodos, after attempting to kiss the rock, begins to perceive his predicament through the myth of Orpheus: "I bethought me of Orpheus, and the following stones;—that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now" (57). This reading of the situation appears to occur for all the wrong reasons. In the Orpheus myth it is charmed stones and trees that follow the poet. The tradition does not mention these stones and trees holding people or awakening into people. Furthermore, Anodos does not at this time possess a lyre, and soon admits that he had never been gifted with the power of song.

Anodos, however, does not appear to disclose everything he knows regarding the myth of Orpheus: he merely implies that his choice of reading his situation through this myth is grounded in other obscure parts of the ancient story. This becomes apparent when he claims that the Marble lady, unlike Galatea and the rocks and trees, is "dead" (in a "pale coffin"); considers the cave an "antenatal tomb" just as the ancients did (Neumann 45); and proceeds from talking about the rocks and trees following Orpheus to much more relevant myths concerning Orpheus's voyage to Hades to rescue his dead wife. These other myths are alluded to when Anodos, in the dark cave with the entrapped Marble lady, considers: "Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace the loveliness of rest?" (57).

With this Orphic understanding of his situation, Anodos breaks into songs: songs which continue to give references to the "death of dreams," "primal death," and so on. The first stanza of the third song is particularly important because it provides a clue regarding the previously mentioned myths associated with death—those related to Persephone:

This stanza recalls many chthonic references of importance to the Kore myths. For example, Persephone is often described as "Death" or Queen of Death" and it may be recalled that while Demeter searched for her daughter, all vegetative and animal life began to die, while the Olympians feared for their own lives in the "upper sky."

Another method of interpreting the remaining supposedly incongruous pieces of information presented by MacDonald is to review where the Demeter/Persephone myths/rites crossed paths with, and were influenced by, the more patriarchal myths of Orpheus and Euridike. The latter myth keeps, in a general way to the following:

Superficially this myth recalls Anodos's interesting comments: about the snakes which he did not "think they were all harmless," "bringing up" a woman from the dead by singing, and so on. However, as the evolution and merging of the Mystery religions of Persephone and the Orpheus myths are considered further, many other links may be established between them and MacDonald's complex book.

One of the methods by which those concerned with securing a happy afterlife interpreted the Orpheus and Euridike myth was by mixing the story of these lovers with the Persephone/Kore spring myths. It was in matriarchal-like times in the region surrounding the North Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean that the cults of the Earth Mother were celebrated. As more patriarchal groups began to conquer this area, many of the Goddess cults had to make room for male divinities and heroes. At first these were tolerated so long as they played a minor role—such as that of the baby or child. Harrison succinctly outlines this process and final outcome, as she reviews the anodos of two related Earth divinities:

This appears to be akin to the concepts MacDonald utilised when he has Anodos recall the history of the anodos of Eurydike, facilitated by Orpheus. This third rising/ awakening in Phantastes of the Greek-statue-like lady, reviewed in the light of the mythological knowledge provided by Harrison and others, leaves little doubt that MacDonald studied and was heavily influenced by these myths/rites. Furthermore, the evolutionary sequence noted by Harrison may explain the first unaided risings of the Goddess in chapters 1 and 2, Anodos helping her in chapter 5, and the role of the mothering figures found throughout the book. The above information also helps to explain why Anodos continually fluctuates between the baby/child and prospective lover in Phantastes.

The similarities between the recorded rites of the ancient Greeks and MacDonald's Faerie Romance do not stop at the above general aspects of the two. Many of the individual peculiarities of Anodos's adventures with his Marble lady can be explained. The references to the small hill, the cave resembling an "antenatal tomb," the "incrusting" whitish alabaster surrounding the lady, and so on may be further illumined by reviewing a passage by Harrison regarding two "familiar ‘Anodos’ vases":

The actual anodos of the marble lady in chapter 5 results in a "slightly crashing sound" and she is described as "veiled in [. . .] whiteness" and able to glide and gleam. This recalls the religious experiences of the neophytes as described by Harrison.

These verbal and graphic descriptions may account for the majority of the connections between the Greek myths and the "risings" of the Goddess in Phantastes. And the references to the Euridike myths recall the quotation which heads section 2 and will continue to play a crucial role in subsequent exploration of the book. It sums up much of the mythology and mirrors an important linear and historical structure.

After the third anodos of the Goddess, chapter 6 shows Anodos much more aware of his mythic vegetative role and his close connection to Mother Earth:

If we continue to unearth the mythology of another Mother Goddess, Cybele, we discover further similarities between ancient myth and the narrative of Phantastes. The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology begins its entry on Cybele (under the heading of "Divinities of the Earth") with: "Etymologically Cybele was the goddess of caverns. She personified the earth in its primitive and savage state" (173). It was in this more primitive state, namely as a rock, that Zeus attempted to rape the Goddess (Monaghan 84). This has much in common with Pygmalion attempting to mate with his statue (Monaghan 130). Anodos's similar phallocentric response to the Goddesses he encounters is all too evident.

Before the next anodos of the Goddess occurs in Phantastes, it seems that MacDonald makes sure to convey that his protagonist continues to move east, towards the Orient. Anodos states that: "I took my way I knew not wither, but still towards the sunrise" (78). Towards evening he comes across the farm with the pigs where he again meets a "matronly woman" who again reminds us of the Kore/Orpheus myths involved when she responds in a "motherly" fashion to an Attis-like Anodos as "my poor boy." Anodos then tells the practically minded pig farmer (an Euboleus figure?) that he is travelling eastward. The farmer claims ignorance regarding what lies to the east (86) but offers materialistic "good counsel"—Euboleus means "good counsel" in Greek (Graves 391).

Anodos journeys on into "a desert region of dry sand and glittering rocks" (110) —perhaps recalling the desert regions east and south east of Greece. He changes to a more southerly direction when he comes across a spring in the desert, reminiscent of the basin and rivulet which first led him into Fairy Land:

Along this southerly direction, the stream joins others to create "a paradise" in the desert (111); with myriads of roses in bloom. The "paradise" and "roses" allusions seem to suggest that Anodos is now in a region under Persian influence. Here he once again begins to awaken to his close relationship with the Goddess, under all of her forms and names:

He finds a boat by the stream and lets it carry him down-river. At first he falls "asleep in this cradle, in which mother Nature was rocking her weary child" (114). When he reawakes, he begins to see his journey not only in terms of a fanciful mythological trip, but also as a religious journey, very much as the ancients refer to this type of "voyage" into the soul:

Anodos arrives at the palace (the Megaron?) and once there he begins to experience events very similar to those surrounding the three previous ascents of the Goddess. He once again perceives shade-like beings all around him (in the air and water), he intuits that a "Queen of Fairy Land" is nearby, and once again discovers caves covered with vegetation—"sea-weeds of all hues" (127).

Important in the palace episode are the numerous allusions to the seasons, and more specifically to the change from winter to spring. Most of chapter 12 is devoted to this crucial motif and the poem by G.E.M. heading this chapter deals directly with this change of season, anthropomorphising the character of Spring.

This is but one of many references to the shift in season, the personification of the seasons, awakening from primal sleep, and so on, before the central story of Cosmo is narrated in chapter 13. By immersing himself fully in the books he reads—particularly the first one which he attempts to relate about the Winter-Spring—Anodos, with good reason, trusts he has: "carried away in my soul some of the exhalations of their undying leaves" (179).

The story of Cosmo which he reads (another Greek name with connotative meanings) also has many references to things Greek and Oriental, and to some related experiences of Anodos in Fairy Land. In this story there is a maiden named Hohenweiss (approximately Highwhite in English) who is magically imprisoned and who at times seems "more like marble than a living woman." Cosmo feels he must free her, but in doing so loses her. The villain is named Steinwald ("Stone Forest"), suggesting a subterranean figure like Hades, particularly as Anodos subsequently descends to a stone forest.

The relatively gender-neutral nature of the Cosmo story suggests that Anodos here is somewhere midway between Greece and the highly patriarchal land of Egypt. It may be surmised that he is not far enough south yet to begin to use the name Isis for the Goddess. He must first ease into the Egyptian tradition by experiencing more Orphic-like, Middle Eastern cult practices through his doppelganger, Cosmo. The bloody death of Cosmo is similar to the common death of the Earth Goddess's male consorts (masculine personifications of the annual vegetation), Adonis, Tammuz, Createan Zeus, Anceus of Acadia, Carmanor of Lydia, Osiris, and the already mentioned Attis, were all young male consorts of the Goddesses who die bloody deaths at the end of the vegetative cycle (Graves 72-73). The similarity is emphasised by the moon being "near its zenith" when Cosmo dies, shining on his "wan face, which smiled on in the spectral moonbeams." It was at the hands of the Moon, in the guise of a sow or wild boar with crescent-shaped tusks, that the male consorts of the Goddesses usually met their end. Most of these gods are closely related to, if not interchangeable with, each other, exactly like the Goddesses. Pygmalion may be Adonis (Kerényi 75), Osiris is Dionysus/Bacchus (Herodotus 145),Osiris is Hades (Larousse 16), and so on.

This more patriarchal turn, away from a central Mother Goddess, mirrored in Phantastes, once again recalls the numerous connections between Orpheus and Osiris, particularly singing and the playing of instruments that charm ( Larousse 16). As well, it must not be forgotten that the Greeks associated their Demeter with the Egyptian Isis, though their mythologies differ greatly, particularly in regard to gender dynamics (Larousse 17).

In the marble palace, Anodos continues to explore some of the Orphic/Osirian aspects of himself and his surroundings. He appears to view himself as though possessed by some musical spirit such as that of Orpheus/Osiris:

Even after he finds a hall with "an innumerable assembly of white marble statues," and claims he "hoarded the expectation of entering, as of a great joy," he is too distracted by his Orphic/Osirian role to follow this up: "Next night I walked, as on the preceding, through the hall. My mind was filled with pictures and songs, and therewith so much absorbed, that I did not for some time think of looking within the curtain I had last night lifted" (184). It is with reference to this group of statues that Anodos conveys to the reader that some of them are thousands of years old and, like the best of the ancient statues, consist of marble (185).

Close contact with these statues gives rise to Anodos's important prophetic dream. This dream is crucial not only because it supplies him with information which he will use in the fourth anodos of the Goddess, but also because he once again gives a very Orphic account of his role in the previous anodos of the Goddess. Here is how he has come to view the episode in the marble cave. The passage also gives clues to the dancing, central to the rites of the Goddess:

The above is a more patriarchal account of events than his previous concept of the "antenatal tomb." In the vain-pride of his masculinity (his phantastes) Anodos reduces the marble lady to the status of a corpse or a child. It is possibly the self-deception of this phantastes which causes his view of the lady in the dream to be obscured by a (his?) shadow. This patriarchal dream signals that the myth and story will soon become much more male-oriented and "Egyptian." In chapter 15, where the next anodos of the Goddess will occur, Anodos fuses the Greek/Eastern Orphic with the Egyptian Osirian. The chapter begins with: "And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed she was present unseen?" (191). The Marble lady's associations with Persephone are now temporally as well as geographically left behind. By the time the Orpheus myth gained popularity, Persephone appears to have been relegated to a constant residence within the realm of Hades, away from her previous vegetative role (Tripp 463-64).

Following this reference to the Egyptian Isis, Anodos, just as his dream had foretold, finds the concealed Marble lady. But again there are signs of her demotion (and her sacredness), while at the same time Anodos's masculine role is inflated:

As Anodos, partly due to the life-bringing success of his singing, becomes more aware of his Orphic/Osirian role, naturally he must acquire the lyric instrument of the ancient enchanters to compliment this:

Having acquired both voice and harp, Anodos appears to be ready to lift the veil of Isis and deal with the mystery of the Goddess. His song once again acknowledges that the Goddess is related to a "life-spring," and he appears well aware how this energy "[p]ulses upward" (194). In this song he claims that what may really be at stake in regards to this "woman" is to "lift a holy mystery." However, though he acknowledges the anodos-nature of the event—"Tis the woman, resting, rising / Upward to sublimity" and "Some great vision upward rises"—she is, nevertheless, seen as a mere "woman" on this and subsequent occasions. Isis is described as a "queen" yet Anodos appears to represent himself as her "builder," while alluding to his perishing. Anodos/Orpheus/ Osiris's songs "uncover" the statue, however, and once again his masculine obsession to possess gets the better of him as he again attempts to physically embrace the "queen." This selfish (and patriarchal) action ruins his opportunity to spiritually embrace Isis and ends the fourth anodos of the Goddess —the second where she is helped by a singing male figure.

Chapter 16 opens with a quotation from Schiller which once again gounds the narrative in Greek mythology, directly recalling the anodos of Persephone:

These references to the Styx, Ceres/Demeter, her daughter, and Orcus/Hades appear to imply that the nature of the myth at the centre of the story has not changed. This is particularly the case when we consider that the Greeks identified Osiris with their Hades and Isis with Demeter/Kore (Larousse 16-17). The myth remains the same, though it is reviewed in Phantastes through several different traditions, topographies, epochs, and peoples.

MacDonald then begins to analyse the death-rebirth myths in question from a creative Oriental-Egyptian, and much more patriarchal, dimension. This shift became apparent when Anodos forwent his singing role and tried to lift the Marble lady from her pedestal, much as Cosmo had tried to force Princess Hohenweiss to come to him against her wishes. And, in similar fashion, the Marble lady comes to life, is shocked by his selfishness, and springs away from him. He follows her through a rough wooden door onto a waste windy hill and, as in the Persephone myth, he guesses that she has fallen down "a great hole in the earth"(203).

When Anodos can more clearly see this hole he describes it as a "chasm" (reminiscent of the megara mentioned earlier)—perhaps one of the accepted ancient gateways to Hades. He decides that he will descend into the chasm, in the same way that he had made the steep descent to the marble cave. Part of this journey he describes as "through an underground country, in which the sky was of rock, and instead of trees and flowers there were only fantastic rocks and stones" (205-06). This is a direct reference to the Steinwald of the Cosmo story and seems to be there to remind the reader of the similarity of the two narratives. It not only points to past events in the story, however, but also gives clues regarding the present state of the Mystery rites in the narrative, and what is to come in the rest of the book. The underground realm is lit by "sad, sepulchral illumination." Here goblins, as they fight, create in Anodos's mind the image of "pyramids of intertwined snakes." Yet again MacDonald has chasms, snakes, sepulchres and now an allusion to Egypt in the "pyramids."

Chapter 18 begins with a Jean Paul (Richter) quote which has men, not a Goddess, awakening. Anodos claims for himself a type of Osirian identity as his thought becomes absurdly patriarchal, male-centred, egocentric and phantastes-like:

While in this lower realm of Hades, Anodos has learned from Persephone's fate and is careful not to take any action which would guarantee his remaining, or perpetually returning. Furthermore, it is his own death that becomes more and more prominent for him in his new role of Osiris.

Struggling out of this realm, Anodos finds himself by a desolate shore. He is still in an infernal region. "Sign of life was nowhere visible. I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human embodiment of the nature around me" (217-18). Ultimately he decides to commit a type of suicide and plunges into the "wintry sea." The result is an inversion of the usual sort of suicide which traditionally takes a person direct to hell. His plunge terminates his winter/death role (i.e. his "human embodiment of the nature around me") as an empty boat "rescues" him and brings him, draped in a pall, to the home of the next Mother figure in the story. His anodos leaves winter far behind and he finds himself "sailing fast upon a summer sea."

In chapter 19 Anodos reaches the Goddess's "island."

MacDonald's description of this island is reminiscent of Spenser's description of the Garden of Adonis (FQ 3.6.29-49; Docherty 59). Adonis was another of the Goddess's Eastern/Middle-Eastern consorts (Whitney 3923). The Gumcistus, originally from Arabia and Egypt, is the tree which was central to the myth and worship of Adonis, another God of Vegetation. He was born from this tree, which had once been a woman, Smyrna (Apollodorus 131), better known to Dante as "wretched Mirrha" (140). When the beautiful child was born, Aphrodite hid him in a chest and entrusted the chest to the care of Persephone, who opened the chest and fell in love with Adonis. This led to her demand that he spend each winter with her.

It is difficult to imagine this Grand Mother as marble, yet she can stand "as still as a statue" with a "face as white as death" (236). And her cottage with its twice-mentioned "pyramidal roof" is decidedly "Egyptian." Here Anodos's role of lover is once more reduced to that of a child. She goes so far as to spoon-feed him. However, MacDonald may have known that this regression does not necessarily refer to childishness on the part of Anodos:

The Mother then sings him the ballad of Sir Aglovaile where again there are references to dead men waking and other chthonic motifs. During the song, Anodos, as previously, interprets his position from a Greek mythological perspective concerned with death: "While she sung I was in Elysium, with the sense of a rich soul upholding, embracing, and overhanging mine, full of all plenty and bounty" (235). Thus, by this part of the story, the roles have been reversed to the point where Anodos is the entity who must face "death," and who needs to be rescued and sung to by a female. Venturing "out" from the cottage, Anodos has a vision of his Marble lady, but she is now "altogether of the daughters of men" (240), and is wedded to a knight. After all these role-reversals, and the male subjugation of the Goddesses, it perhaps comes as no surprise that Anodos regards this discovery as his own anodos/rising: "I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved her before" (245).

The role of the Eastern Bacchus (like that of Adonis and Orpheus) as a bridge between Greek and Egyptian mythology ought not to be overlooked. The Marble lady (now Isis) compares Anodos to the moon and her husband, the knight, to the sun. "He woke me from worse than death [. . .] But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my night; thou art the sun of my day, O beloved" (242).

Lempriere's write-up on Bacchus includes not only a reference to the close relationship between Bacchus and the sun (as Apollo and Osiris), but also states that this god was sometimes depicted with horns—a sign of the Moon—, and he was the son of Persephone or the Moon. Lempriere further claims that the worship of Bacchus is derived from the worship of Osiris and was introduced into Greece by Orpheus (109). The knight, as the "true" Osiris, would of course mate with Isis, the Marble lady. Furthermore, as a Sun-god, he would be likely to be red in the evening and bright at the noonday. That such connections are present between the knight and the sun is easily ascertainable from the parts of the book where he appears. This is most obvious, in indirect fashion, in chapter 3 where Anodos reads the following as the sun is setting:

Thus it seems that the knight of the soiled armour is related, in MacDonald's mind, to Sir Percivale, Osiris and the sun, while Anodos has affinities with the moon and Sir Galahad.

Assisted and informed by an "Egyptian-like" understanding of his new-found love for Isis and by a hieroglyph-like cipher to help him find his way, Anodos—in the pyramidal-roofed cottage—once again descends into the realm of the dead. Here he comes into contact with his ancestors. An unseen kiss which he receives (247) may be given by the "grandmother" of chapter 1. She can now kiss Anodos, given that much of her power has dissipated by this point in the story, while Anodos's has increased.

After the last of his four dream-journeys from the cottage, Anodos describes how: "I awoke to consciousness, lying on the floor of the cottage, with my head in the lap of the woman, who was weeping over me and stroking my hair with both hands, talking to me as a mother might talk to a sick and sleeping, or a dead child" (249). Once awake, Anodos seems to be aware that she is performing some type of earth ritual when "she bathed my head and face and hands in an icy cold, colourless liquid, which smelt of damp earth." This is possibly a rite of embalming, as Isis introduced embalming into Egypt (Larousse 18-19).

Following these "rites of passage," the Great Mother, in prime classical fashion, explains to him that he must leave, and tells him to do "something worth doing" (251). This command is exactly the one usually given to the heroes by their patron Goddess, sometime during the change from matriarchy to patriarchy:

Again, the mythological command and historical progression is mirrored almost to the letter in Phantastes.

The next two chapters narrate Anodos's adventures with his soon-to-be-slain "brothers." The episode, like many others, is much too complex to be analysed fully here. Nevertheless, some references relevant for this paper may be examined. For instance, MacDonald likely borrows from a story in Spencer (FQ 4.2.41-4.3.34) involving four Greek characters and their meaningful connoting names: Agape (Love) and her three sons Priamond (One Strength), Diamond (Two Strengths) and Triamond (Three Strengths). It may be in Spenser's joining of the Faerie realm and Greek myths that MacDonald found a bridge between his own conception of Fairy Land and Greek mythology. This tale includes the somewhat strange preparation for the fight against the giants in which Anodos-Bacchus-Orpheus once again plays a lyre and sings to his brothers prior to their deaths:

MacDonald, like Spenser, places the strength of the newly-killed brothers in the breast of the surviving brother. This leads directly, by way of triple-pride (phantastes) on Anodos's part regarding his victory over the giants, to his imprisonment in a dark tower. It is by a reversal, the song of a female entity, that he is able to escape from this prison of his pride. Her song is described by Anodos as "like an incarnation of Nature" (283). She is comparable to the Egyptian Isis rescuing Osiris from the kingdom of the dead, unlike the situation in the Greek myths where the male rescues the female.

After these adventures, Anodos joins the knight who has become the mate of the Marble lady. It is with this knight that he experiences one of the most Egyptian of his adventures where they enter a yew-tree-enclosed compound where some type of human sacrifice is taking place. Before we proceed, however, further connections between the Egyptian Osiris and Bacchus ought to be made explicit:

The mysterious ceremony witnessed by Anodos and the knight appears to be under the guidance of an Egyptian-like warrior-priest class:

Anodos and his two "brothers" dressed in similar "clean garments" for their deadly and "solemn festivity" (268). The way Anodos strangles a wolf at this ceremony and is likely hacked to death also mirrors how the giant had been struck by the older brother's battle-axe and had in turn strangled this brother before dying from his wound. This giant and Anodos both strangle their foes, and with both of them their grasps cannot be loosened even after they die. Osiris, in his myth, is hacked to death by the giant Set/Typhon, while Bacchus is also cut to pieces by giants—the Titans (Lempriere 468-69; 108-09). Thus it appears that the Bacchus/Osiris connection used by MacDonald lends many of its disparate narrative contingencies to Phantastes.

The rites leading to Anodos killing the wolf and his own subsequent death also correspond very closely to the Egyptian mythology surrounding Osiris and his counterpart Upuaut, a wolf-god and a god of the underworld. For instance, during one of Osiris's many incarnations, he came back to life inside a pillar made from the trunk of a tree (Larousse 17), likely giving rise to the priests in Phantastes pushing the youths into the hollow tree-idol during their ritual. The tree in which Osiris was trapped was a manna-exuding Tamarisk (Monaghan 177) and the other source of manna is a type of Ash - Fraxinus ornus (Grieve 67-69). This may explain Anodos's encounter with the Ash which "has a hole in his heart [. . .] and he is always trying to fill it up" (46).

MacDonald was very interested in and knowledgeable about Greek mythology. He likely agreed with Goethe's insight that: " Of all peoples the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life best." Phantastes is one of the books in which he used some obscure aspects of the evolution of different forms of the Mother/Kore and Isis/Osiris myths to deal with two recurring and important themes at the forefront of his thoughts: "good death" and rebirth. "[S]tudying literature and the history of religious development," MacDonald was able to probe some deeply buried beliefs and concepts, beginning with the Greek myths of the awakening of life in the spring after its winter "death." We may never know what he exactly hoped to achieve with Phantastes, but we can now see that its enigmatic rituals are closely related to the old pagan mysteries.

Having now these other possible religious and literary sources at hand for an understanding of Phantastes, the reader may more confidently choose which theories fit this adult fairy tale. It is obvious from many of MacDonald's works that he was extremely interested in spiritual and actual death and rebirth. In Phantastes his protagonist explores several related ancient conceptions associated with this old and important question. However, that the answers to these age-old questions concur with the Ulster Protestantism of C. S. Lewis is unlikely. MacDonald is tracing the idea of death and rebirth primarily from a Classical perspective in Phantastes and primarily from a Judaeo-Christian perspective in its "sequel" Lilith. The "message" which Lewis—in the famous preface to his MacDonald anthol