The Golden Key and Other Stories is a compilation of four short stories by George MacDonald. The first of the stories, "The Golden Key," is about a boy who lives on the border of Fairyland. He hears a story about a mysterious key that can be found at the end of a rainbow. One day, he sees a rainbow unlike any other and pursues the key at the end in the depths of Fairyland. However, once he find it, he doesn't know what to do with it or what it unlocks. He then begins his quest, along with a girl about his age, to discover what his golden key unlocks.
The next story, "The History of Photogen and Nycteris," tells the story of a witch named Watho and two children she aquires, Photogen and Nycteris. The witch raises the two completely separate from each other. The boy, Photogen, she raises in the sunlight and teaches him to fear the darkness. The girl, Nycteris, she raises in the darkness and keeps her from the sun. This goes on for years, and the two have grown into young adults now. However, one night, Nycteris escapes from her prison of darkness into a moonlit night. She is amazed by the moon, which she mistakes for the sun, and continues to go outside whenever she had the chance (which is always at night because she's been trained to sleep during the daytime hours). One evening, Photogen becomes curious about the night which he fears so much. He is a mighty hunter, able to conquer anything he can see. That evening, he leaves without Watho knowing, and waits for the night. And who also happens to be out that night? Nycteris. The two meet, and Watho's evil plot begins to unravel as the two realize how they have been tricked.
"The Shadows" is about an old man named Ralph Rinkelmann, who is chosen by the fairies to become their king. They choose a human to become their king to switch up their mundane lives for a while, and they choose him because he is old and soon to die (Seriously? These fairies are cruel). During the night after his coronation, Shadows visit him and implore him to learn more about them. The rest of this story is the interactions between the Shadows and King Ralph and the stories the Shadows tell about their lives.
The last story in this collection, "The Gifts of the Child Christ," was indeed most interesting. This story focuses on a family during Christmastime. The family consists of a father, mother, daughter, and a servant. All except for the very young daughter, the family is self-centered and lack the true meaning of Christmas. The maid, Alice, is soon to inherit a fortune from her dead uncle, and her character takes a change for the worse. The father and mother care little about their daughter, Phosy (her name is actually Sophy, but Phosy is her nickname and most used in the story). On the other hand, Phosy does not realize that she is being ill-treated and continually wishes for the Lord to chasten her, because "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth" and she wants God to love her. Then, circumstances start to upset their plans. On Christmas morning, the family and servant Alice come to realize the importance of Christmas because of Phosy. The story does not present the Gospel or get too deep into theology, but it still has spiritual application.
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