The Princess and the Goblin | Page 3

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THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN
GEORGE MACDONALD

CONTENTS
1. Why the Princess Has a Story About Her 2. The Princess Loses Herself 3. The Princess and - We Shall See Who 4. What the Nurse Thought of It 5. The Princess Lets Well Alone 6. The Little Miner 7. The Mines 44 8. The Goblins 9. The Hall of the Goblin Palace 10. The Princess's King-Papa 11. The Old Lady's Bedroom 12. A Short Chapter About Curdie 13. The Cobs' Creatures 14. That Night Week 15. Woven and then Spun 16. The Ring 17. Springtime 18. Curdie's Clue 19. Goblin Counsels 20. Irene's Clue 21. The Escape 22. The Old Lady and Curdie 23. Curdie and His Mother 24. Irene Behaves Like a Princess 25. Curdie Comes to Grief 26. The Goblin-Miners 27. The Goblins in the King's House 28. Curdie's Guide 29. Masonwork 30. The King and the Kiss 31. The Subterranean Waters 32. The Last Chapter
CHAPTER 1
Why the Princess Has a Story About Her
There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak.
The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old, I think, but she got older very fast. Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction. The ceiling of her nursery was blue, with stars in it, as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had better mention at once.
These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining with all colours of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full. In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a mountain, or into a ravine.
Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so