winged aëranth (air-flower) that used to be the fish, who leads her to the mountain. There she meets the Old Man of the Sea. He cannot tell her the way to the land from which the shadows fall and send her to his brother the Old Man of the Earth. He also does not know and sends her to the Old Man of the Fire. Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down. "That is the way," he said. "But there are no stairs." "You must throw yourself in. There is no other way." She throws herself in and at the end of the hole, finds the Old Man of the Fire. This Old Man turns out to be youngest of all, a wise child arranging colored spheres in a significant way. After giving her protection from the fiery path, he sends her out following a snake, which will lead her to that land. Mossy also finds the Man of the Sea, rightly recognizing him as death, and he gains the power to walk across the sea. After climbing a precipice, he enters a chamber where the colors of the rainbow appear as columns of light. Tangle is waiting for him. She shows him another door that his key unlocks, opening onto a glowing stairway to the land they were searching for, from which the shadows fall. As they start to climb, the story ends. Interpretation Many of the central symbols of "The Golden Key" revolve around death and the hope of an afterlife. MacDonald draws on Christian, classical, and Norse mythology. Bifrost is a rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (Earth) and Asgard, the realm of the gods. This bridge connects to divine. Editions An edition was published in 1967 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and an Afterword by W. H. Auden. A 2016 edition produced by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers was illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. References External links The Golden Key - full text Scottish fairy tales 1867 short stories Children's short stories Short stories by George MacDonald