The Princess and the Goblin

Curdie hears the goblins walk off and starts uncovering stones until he has a hole big enough to crawl through. He finds the goblins’ home quite empty and decides to follow them to see what they are planning. The passages are covered in stalactites that glitter, and Curdie notices that the goblins seem to have pets. He eventually follows Helfer and his father to a large cavern—the palace itself. The roof is extremely high, and the walls are decorated with torches. Countless goblins are inside, and the king sits on a throne “hollowed out of a huge block of green copper ore” (52).

One of the king’s courtiers stands up to announce the plan to take revenge upon the surface people, who they feel have degraded the goblins and taken their land. Glump, the father whom Curdie followed, stands up to tell the king that he is concerned about how close the miners are getting. He adds that there is a gulf underground that will “add considerably to the otherwise immense forces at His Majesty’s disposal” (53). Glump insists they must act quickly but is told that they will only do so if another, subtler plan falls through.

Curdie concludes that the goblins will likely not reveal the details of their plans and decides to retreat before he reveals himself. When he is finally back at the mine, Curdie sits down to think. He reasons that the goblins are planning to flood the mines and, knowing now that the goblins’ caverns are higher on the mountain than the mines, he realizes that this is something they could easily achieve. Curdie is still unsure what the goblins’ preferred plan is, but he knows that he must find a way to block the passage that leads to the gulf. After placing a few stones over the hole he came through, he decides to go home and rest. He tells his father everything, and they agree to halt work on that vein of ore.

The sun shines for days. Irene cannot forget the goblins because of Lootie’s panicky behavior, which continues long after their encounter with Curdie. Irene also thinks of Curdie, wondering when she will get to fulfill her promise.

One afternoon, Irene is playing in the garden and hears a bugle sound that she associates with her father’s voice; she knows he is coming to visit her. The king comes riding in on a white horse, accompanied by several knights, and Irene is elated. It has been some time since the king visited, and he picks her up and puts her on his horse, hugging her tightly: “[T]he two together were like a cloud with streaks of the sun woven through it” (58). They go into the great hall and sit down to eat, and Irene asks her father about Grandmother. He stares at Irene, confused, but answers that he has not seen Grandmother. Irene again wonders if it was all just a dream.

Just then, a white pigeon flies over and lands on Irene’s head. The king insists that he cannot visit Grandmother because he has not been invited, so he and Irene instead take a walk through the garden. He asks her about the day she came home late, though the narrator is not sure how the king found out about this. The king then goes inside to speak to Lootie, who cries in response. He leaves that evening but orders three guards to remain and watch over the farmhouse.

The autumn passes without anything eventful taking place, and by winter, Irene is again bored. She continues to think of Grandmother. One day, Irene pierces her finger while playing with some antique ornaments. It becomes swollen, and a doctor treats her and sends her to bed early. She cannot rest well, soon waking to find her finger more painful than before. She decides she will go talk to one of the guards, but on her way, she notices moonlight shining in from a room somewhere above. She rushes to see if it is Grandmother, reasoning, “If she is a dream. […] then I am the likelier to find her, if I am dreaming” (65). She reaches the door and hears the hum of the spinning wheel. Grandmother invites her inside, and Irene notices that her hair is the same color as the moonlight. Grandmother explains that she did not want Lootie to find her, so she remained unseen for a time; she knows that Lootie would not believe her existence even if she saw her.

Grandmother reveals that she is spinning a thread for Irene, made from strong yet delicate spider webs that her pigeons have gathered for her. Grandmother takes Irene to her bedroom and treats her wound with an ointment and bandage. Inside the room hangs a large moon-like light that the pigeons use to find their way back. It also provides the magic that makes Grandmother’s bed soft and her room beautiful. Grandmother invites Irene to sleep beside her, and Irene obliges gladly. Before falling asleep, Grandmother tells Irene that she must come back to visit her next Friday night, or she may not be able to find her again. Irene wakes the next day in her own bed, and although the bandage is gone, her finger is healed.

Curdie continues working nights in the mine, partly to keep track of the goblins and partly to earn the money for his mother’s coat. Curdie’s mother works hard to bring what comfort she can to the household, and Curdie has no qualms about helping his mother in return. Curdie devises a system to explore the goblins’ territory at night, tying a ball of yarn to an axe so he can trace his way back. Each morning, his mother winds it back up for him, noting, “I follow the thread, just as you do in the mine” (73). One night, he discovers some goblins hard at work but cannot figure out on what.

The guards at the farmhouse start seeing creatures at night that are “so grotesque and misshapen as to be more like a child’s drawings upon his slate than anything natural” (75). One guard reports seeing a dog-like creature with a massive head. Over time, each guard sees some sort of hideous creature, confirming that they are not just seeing things. At one point they even see a group of various creatures howling and yelping in the moonlight. These creatures, the author explains, are the goblins’ pets, which they took from the light world generations before. They begin appearing after the goblins’ work exposes a new channel that leads out to the farmhouse. Each creature is different and each seems to have developed into something that only slightly resembles its original form. Perhaps most disturbing of all, the animals have become humanlike: “[W]hile their owners had sunk towards them, they had risen towards their owners” (77).

Irene spends the week deep in thought, wondering if her grandmother is real. Friday night arrives, and when Lootie leaves for a few minutes, a goblin creature jumps into Irene’s room. It is like a cat but has extremely long legs, and it frightens Irene. She runs out of the house and up the mountain, fearing it’s pursuing her. The creature does not chase Irene, but she is too scared to look behind her and check. Finally, she grows tired and stops, and she finds there is nothing chasing her. As she realizes she is lost in the dark, a large moon appears and hovers above her. Irene follows the light toward home, and it vanishes when she sees the light of the farmhouse. Lootie begins searching for Irene, but Irene enters the house and heads straight up the tower to her grandmother.

Irene finds herself in pure darkness, hearing only her grandmother’s voice. She follows it to the bedroom and finds Grandmother there: “[T]he soft light made her feel as if she were going into the heart of the milkiest pearl” (84). A fire of burning roses is lit to warm Irene, and Grandmother’s hair is now a blonde color. An illustration shows Irene gazing upon Grandmother, who wears a sparkling crown, has hair past her heels, and seems to shimmer in the darkness. Irene fears hugging her grandmother because she is covered in mud, but Grandmother insists. Now covered in mud herself, Grandmother takes one of the burning roses, waves it over herself, and the stains disappear. Irene realizes she feels no fear while she is with Grandmother, who then presents her with a precious gift. It is the ball of thread that Grandmother has been spinning, “something like spun glass” (89). Grandmother takes the ball of thread and a fire-opal ring and melds them together. She then throws the ball briefly into the fire before placing it in a drawer. She explains to Irene that the thread is attached to both the ring and the ball. The thread is so fine that Irene cannot see it, but she can feel it tugging.

Grandmother tells Irene that she can put the ring under her pillow whenever she encounters danger and that if she follows the thread, it will lead Irene to her. Grandmother takes Irene back down to her room, and on the way, Irene insists that Grandmother is not old. Grandmother explains that “the right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs” (92); it is nothing like what most people seem to think. Grandmother admits that she still sometimes feels afraid, as she did when Irene began to doubt Grandmother’s reality. Irene apologizes profusely and then falls asleep in Grandmother’s arms, waking in her own chair hours later.

Lootie finds Irene and lectures her for disappearing. Irene explains the encounter with the goblin cat but refrains from mentioning Grandmother. The guards hear about the goblin cat and know the story is true, so they decide they will lock all of the doors at night from now on. The next morning, Lootie comments that Irene’s ring is glowing like fire. Grandmother previously instructed Irene to ask Lootie where she got the ring (in order to trick Lootie into thinking she always had it). When Irene asks, Lootie reasons that it must have been a gif from Irene’s mother. Irene realizes her grandmother’s trick worked perfectly.