Women in Phantastes

    While reading George MacDonald's Phantastes the thing that stuck out to me as the most interesting was his depiction of women.  Throughout the story women served not only as guiding lights and comforting mothers but also as beautiful dangers to distract Anodos along his journey through Fairy Land. (I also found it intriguing that there were so many more female characters than male even though they have minor roles comparatively.)
     Take for instance the Maiden of the Alder tree that is eventually described as "...A strange horrible object. it looked like an open coffin set up on one end; only that the part for the head and neck was defined for the head and shoulder part...as if made from decaying bark torn from a tree." and her counterpart in the lady of the beech tree which he said had "a very lovely face" and,"above the human scale but not greatly." As we mentioned in class women were often placed on pedestals and treated as near perfect angels, however I'm curious as to how this view of women during that time period factors into the "darker" ladies in MacDonald's writings.