Eternal Longings of the Human Soul

George MacDonald, Fairytales, and the Language of Desire

"At the back of the North Wind"Arthur Hughes and Frank C. Papé

I am always hearing. . . the sound of a far off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear, is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it.’

—George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

At the Back of the North Wind tells the story of Diamond, a young boy who meets the North Wind one fateful night. He has lovely adventures with her, learns many lessons, and eventually travels to a beautiful and mysterious land known as “The Back of the North Wind.” He comes back from this place transformed.

A Crescendo of Longing

This book is deceiving in its simplicity. After completing the first three chapters, I looked with skepticism at the remaining 300 pages. How on earth was George MacDonald going to make a story about a little boy who gets carried by the wind last so long? I wondered. However, as the story continued, I began to see that the tale was much greater than its individual parts. There was a theme running throughout all of Diamond’s adventures. It grew with each passing event. It was the theme of desire, of longing, of transformation. When I realized this, I began to see the thread of gold that was woven throughout the tapestry of the story.

You see, when Diamond first meets North Wind, he is a silly little boy. He has his own ideas about life, and it takes North Wind a while to show him how limited his views are. She teaches him to put on a different mindset. This begins when she tells him that he must never be afraid of her, even if she appears in a form that seems ugly or bad. This is a fundamental point and comes back into play later in the story.

She also teaches him to long for things he never knew he could long for. He flies through the air and sees wonders that most of us only dream of beholding. As he keeps an eye out for her, Diamond learns to pay attention to the natural world. He notices how the trees catch the sunlight. He contemplates the “prayer” of a flower. He hears her voice in the rustle of the grass. These moments awaken Diamond’s heart and help him harken to the language of his desires.

Through his conversations with North Wind, Diamond eventually learns about a place called “The Back of the North Wind.” He longs to see it and asks North Wind to take him there. She does, and he stays for a while. Here the story takes on a new quality. Before this, Diamond’s adventures all seemed isolated. Each one was delightful in itself, but there was not much of a connecting line, or so it seemed. Looking back on them, I think MacDonald was whetting the reader’s appetite so that we too could learn to desire beautiful things as Diamond was, all in preparation for the greatest desire the story has to tell us about.

Diamond’s visit to The Back of the North Wind changes him.

He felt so still and quiet and patient and contented, that, as far as the mere feeling went, it was something better than mere happiness. Nothing went wrong at the back of the north wind. Neither was anything quite right, he thought. Only everything was going to be right some day. (MacDonald, 151)

He takes this perspective back with him when he returns. He has been transformed, and everyone who knows him can see it. It is a transformation of the whole person, mind, body, and spirit, a new way of living that renders everything beautiful, sacred, peaceful, happy, and true. When asked if he would ever want to go back, he responds, “No; I don’t think I have ever left it; I feel it here, somewhere.”¹

Even though Diamond comes back much happier and more peaceful than before, there is one problem. He does not see North Wind again for a long time. Her absence only increases his love and desire. His longing builds until it almost turns to melancholy (or it would be, if it weren’t so sweet). When he finally sees her again, Diamond puts to her the question that has been haunting him for years. “I can’t help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all. Do tell me that you are my own real beautiful North Wind”²

Is It Real?

This is the question that we all must ask ourselves. When we desire to the point of pain, when beauty and love break our hearts with their sweetness, we have to ask: “Are you real, O desires of my heart? If so, what do you point to? What reality could be great enough to satisfy such an ache?” North Wind’s response to Diamond is her response for us all: “If I were only a dream, you would not have been able to love me so.”³ When he presses her further, she declares: “I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not a dream.”⁴ The narrator echoes this, telling Diamond, “There is one thing you may be sure of, that there is a still better love than that of the wonderful being you call North Wind.”⁵

After I closed the book, I sat staring into the darkness of my room for a little while. Tears came unbidden to my eyes as I reflected on the final chapters of the story. My heart had been cracked open and was overflowing with an ache that I couldn’t explain. How could a fictional story mean so much? I wondered.

That’s when I realized: This book is real. Its message is for me, just as much as it is for Diamond. What if my resistance to it, my temptation to treat it as “just a story,” is nothing more than the same attitude that kept everyone from understanding Diamond’s transformation when he returned from The Back of the North Wind? In the words of North Wind, if the desires evoked by these stories are not true it is only because the truth is so much greater and more lovely. If they were not real, we would never be able to love them so much.

The Language of Desires

Fairytales speak to us using a special language: the language of our desires. The facts of the plot might not be “real” in a narrow sense, but the things they convey certainly are. I think there is a reason that, after I read this book, I had myself a good little cry. I was moved to tears because Diamond’s longing had grown so real that it spilled over the pages and into my heart. I could relate exactly to what he was feeling. I too have gone out in nature just to look at the stars and felt that queer little ache that tells me there is more to life than what I now see.

Who are we to say these stories aren’t true, if they remind us of the deepest desires we have? Haven’t we all dreamed a dream that was so lovely it hurt? And when we woke up, didn’t we wish we could go on dreaming it? Will we really be so bold as to claim there is no truth in these desires? Does a flower yearn for water in vain? The narrator of the story reminds Diamond (and us) that even if these are all only dreams, they could not have come to us by chance.⁶

Maybe the line between fiction and reality is not so stark as we like to think. Maybe a fairytale does speak the truth, but just in a different language. It speaks to us through the language of our desires, that lovely and lofty communication that bypasses our skepticism and cuts straight to our hearts.

---

Maddie Dobrowski is an author, classical educator, and lifelong reader. Her book, “The Lord of the Rings and Catholicism,” was published last year and is available here.

1. George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 152.

2. MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 481.

3. MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 483

4. MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 480.

5. MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 500.

6. MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, 500.