This chapter examines George MacDonald’s lifelong, multifaceted engagement with the fairy tale, arguing that he utilised the genre as a uniquely ‘liminal’ form capable of mediating spiritual truth. The chapter first establishes liminality – the ambiguous, transitional state in a rite of passage – as its primary analytical framework. It then explores the surprising, liminal places fairy tales occupied in MacDonald’s life: as medicine for the dying, as unorthodox lectures, and as a preparation for the message of Christ. Situating MacDonald’s work within the Victorian debate between didactic moralists like George Cruikshank and whimsical aesthetes like Lewis Carroll, the chapter argues MacDonald forged a third path, as articulated in his seminal essay ‘The Fantastic Imagination’. This theoretical foundation is then used to analyse MacDonald’s fairy tales (such as ‘The Golden Key’ and ‘The Light Princess’) as intentionally crafted liminal entities. His fairy tales are not vehicles for simple morals but literary rites of passage, designed to strip characters and readers of commonplace certainties and guide them across thresholds into deeper spiritual and psychological awareness.