At the Back of the North Wind
George Macdonald, Colleen Browning
Hardcover
(Junior Deluxe Editions, Jan. 1, 1956)
. Diamond is a coachman’s son, named after his father’s favorite horse, and he sleeps in a loft above the stables, where the hay is warm but the wind blows keenly. One night, he is visited by a beautiful lady whose black hair fills the room: the North Wind herself. Sweeping Diamond up in her hair, she takes him to a series of marvelous destinations, from a cathedral where the Apostles come alive, to a country at the back of the North Wind. As they travel across the skies, North Wind reveals her awesome force and her power to destroy as well as mend, yet Diamond never loses his faith in her. Through his journeys he grows in patience and goodness, helping his mother and father, and others around them, through illness and poverty – until North Wind’s final plans for them are revealed. His touching and powerful fable, with its spiritual learning lightly worn, continues to work its magic on readers young and old.