Re-issue of the Shorter
Stories of Fiona Macleod
rearranged, with
additional
tales
COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED
STATES: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Volume one
Spiritual Tales
BY
Fiona Macleod
PATRICK GEDDES & COLLEAGUES
THE OUTLOOK TOWER·CASTLEHILL·EDINBURGH
To LILAVAN
... For I have seen
In lonely places, and in lonelier hours,
Beyond the involving veils of day and night
Circumfluent o’er the shadowy drift of years,
My vision of the rainbow-aureoled face
Of her whom men name Beauty: proud, austere,
Inviolate, immortal, undismayed
By the swift-eddying dust of wandering Time—
Dim vision of the flawless, perfect Face,
Divinely fugitive, that haunts the world
And lifts man’s spiral thought to lovelier dreams.
SPIRITUAL TALES
“I like to think that these spiritual chroniclesmight as well, in substance, have been told athousand years ago or be written a thousandyears hence. That Fisher still haunts the invisibleshadowy stream of human tears; thosemystic Spinners still ply their triple shuttles, andthe fair Weaver of Hope now as of yore and forever sends his rainbows adrift across the heartsand through the minds of men.... These tales,let me add, are not legendary mysteries butlegendary moralities. They are reflections fromthe mirror that is often obscured but is neverdimmed. There is no mystery in them, oranywhere; except the eternal mystery of beauty.”(From the Prologue toThe Washer of the Ford.)