[5] Like most of Loreena McKennitt's albums, The Mask and Mirror is heavily influenced by her travels.

As her introduction to the album, McKennitt wrote: I looked back and forth through the window of 15th century Spain, through the hues of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and was drawn into a fascinating world: history, religion, cross-cultural fertilization....For some medieval minds the mirror was the door through which the soul frees itself by passing.... for others the pursuit of personal refinement was likened to polishing the mirror of the soul.

From the more familiar turf of the west coast of Ireland, through the troubadours of France, crossing over the Pyrenees, and then to the west through Galicia, down through Andalusia and past Gibraltar to Morocco....the Crusades, the pilgrimage to Santiago, Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Sufis from Egypt, One Thousand and One Nights in Arabia, the Celtic imagery of trees, the Gnostic Gospels...who was God?

[citation needed]Accompanying all the selections, as the liner remarks, are some of the entries in a traveler's log that McKennitt kept all throughout her journey.

Loreena McKennitt wrote the lyrics and composed the music for all the songs except as noted.