Shadows

Old Ralph Rinkelmann makes his living by drawing comic sketches, though he nearly lost everything when he tried his hand at tragic poetry. So it is somehow fitting that he, of all people, should be chosen king of the fairies. In this luminous fairy tale, George MacDonald reveals a hidden world of Shadows who spend their existence casting themselves upon walls, shaping themselves into pictures that warn the wicked, inspire struggling artists, and most tenderly, comfort the lonely. A sick boy waits for his mother to return; the Shadows play with him until she comes home. A little girl needs gentle guidance toward her grieving grandfather. The king himself looks upon the Shadows with pity, for they cannot generally raise themselves above the ground. But perhaps it is precisely there, at the lowest point, that they do their most necessary work. MacDonald, whose fairy tales inspired Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, writes with a quiet, radiant faith that the smallest kindnesses cast the longest light.