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- Herausgeber: Hesperus Press Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Eight-year-old Princess Irene lives a lonely life in a wild, desolate, mountainous kingdom, with only her nursemaid, Lootie, for company. She is protected from the outside world and oblivious to the existence of goblins, hideous creatures that live underground and only come out at night. One day, while out walking, Irene and Lootie get lost. As night falls, strange shadows creep out from under boulders and around corners, closing in on them. Terrified, they try to run but the goblins give chase. It is then they run into Curdie, the brave miner's son who isn't afraid of the goblins and knows how to scare them away. While working late one night in the mines Curdie overhears a diabolical plan the goblins are plotting. The terrible goblin Queen plans to kidnap the princess and force her to marry her son. That way she believes humans will be forced to accept goblins as their rulers. Can they be stopped and the kingdom be saved before it is too late? Before the creation of Middle Earth or Narnia, George MacDonald was inventing wonderful kingdoms and populating them with magical creatures and enchanted beings. This is a must-read for all fantasy aficionados and fans of J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling.
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the princess and the goblin
george macdonald
Contents
foreword
Some consider the Scottish author George MacDonald to be the father of fantasy writing. He certainly inspired many other writers including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one inspiration for my own writing, so that made me wonder which writers stimulated George MacDonald. What influences were in his mind as he sat down to write his story for children, The Princess and the Goblin, a book first published in 1872?
Of course that information is freely available and I discovered there were several major influences on his thinking and writing including German and Scottish authors, Shakespeare, Dante and also religion; he had once been a pastor of the church. Of course, just as I am influenced by the English county, Lancashire, George MacDonald also drew upon the Scottish landscape, particularly its bare mountains, rocks and fast-flowing streams, for inspiration.
As time passes genres are shaped; ideas, ingredients and conventions cascade down through the years; would-be writers read, learn and then go on to create their own fictions. This is the time-honoured method of becoming an author. We certainly draw upon our background, environment and personal experiences but existing fiction also plays an important part. As we read, we learn about plot, characterization and description. We enjoy some books so much that we desperately want to write our own!
From the very beginning of The Princess and the Goblin we are drawn into a convincing and intriguing story that is very enjoyable to read. It is a book that does not talk down to its intended young audience but is designed to make them think. It also reads well out loud, one of my own personal tests of a book’s worth and accessibility.
Folk tales, particularly the ones from my own county, Lancashire, are another of my own inspirations, particularly the creatures that inhabit then – especially boggarts. I can see George MacDonald’s delight in writing about goblins, the scary malevolent creatures in his book which live in the dark far underground.
Those who had caught sight of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing that they lived far away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places.
There is more than a touch of the Morlocks here (who also live in darkness underground and have evolved because of their environment) but we must note that H.G. Wells’ novel The Time Machine was published in 1895, after MacDonald’s book! Originating from the same human stock as those who live above ground beneath the open sky, these goblins have changed and become misshapen in body but have grown in cleverness. They have no love for surface-dwellers and have an ‘ancestral grudge’ particularly against those descended from the king. It seems to me that perhaps Tolkien was inspired by this; caverns and tunnels full of dangerous creatures are very much a part of The Lord of the Rings.
Thus the princess is soon in danger. Confined to the house for three days because of rainy weather, the sun comes out at last and the nurse takes Princess Irene for a walk. The child is happy to be outdoors and very reluctant for the walk to end. Lootie, the nurse, is not firm enough and eventually they go too far up the mountain and realise too late that the sun is setting. They race back home but are overtaken by darkness and the goblin threat.
Enter the hero! His name is Curdie and this twelve-year-old son of Peter the miner comes to the rescue. He is brave and possesses some useful knowledge about goblins. He also works as a miner and has encountered the creatures underground. Not only that, he has a weapon that is very effective against them – verse!
As the author explains, ‘the chief defence against them was verse, for they hated verse of every kind, and some kinds they could not endure at all. I suspect they could not make any themselves and that was why they disliked them so much.’
Thus the goblins cannot stand to hear verse spoken aloud particularly the new ones which Curdie has the wit and skill to improvise. They are a potent weapon and often drive the goblins away.
As goblins reappear on numerous occasions, we learn much more about them. In addition to their general ugliness, the goblins’ feet are peculiar; they have no toes and whereas their skulls are very hard their feet are very soft making them vulnerable. They certainly don’t like it when you stamp on their feet and Curdie is quick to take advantage of this weakness! However, goblins are not so easily defeated and their Queen has shoes made out of granite. She stamps back even harder as the brave young miner learns to his cost and is formidable indeed as we see in George MacDonald’s description of her leading an attack:
Her face streaming with blood, and her eyes flashing green lightning through it, she came on with her mouth open and her teeth grinning like a tiger’s, followed by the king and her bodyguard of the thickest goblins.
George MacDonald introduces into his story another theme from the folk and fairy-tale: the commoner meets royalty. At one point, the princess wishes to reward Curdie with a kiss but the nurse forbids it.
‘A princess mustn’t give kisses. It’s not at all proper,’ she declares. After all ‘he’s only a miner boy’.
The blue-eyed, dark-bearded king rides a white horse, is taller than his subjects and lives in a grand palace on a mountain; he is also a good father who loves his daughter very much. But because the princess’s mother is not in good health, and he is also busy with affairs of state (he spends much of the year travelling to the various parts of his kingdom and attending to the needs of his subjects) the king chooses to place Irene in a big house some distance away from his own palace. Of course she has Lootie and many servants to care for her but he locates her in what is goblin territory! For beneath the mountain where she lives is a complex system of caverns, tunnels and mines where these dangerous creatures dwell.
That is a useful narrative device. The first step in building excitement is to place your hero or heroine in danger!
But her father is aware of the risk and mistakenly believes that he can contain it. In order to protect Irene, some of the King’s guards are sent to patrol the garden of the house where she lives. Not content just to create scary goblins MacDonald includes the fearsome household animals kept by them. These creatures are ‘grotesque and misshapen’ and ‘more like a child’s drawings upon his slate than anything natural’.
At night, scores of the ugly animals prowl around the house ‘gambolling on the lawn in the moonlight’ and the threat to the princess steadily grows. One actually leaps through her open window. It is shaped like a cat but with legs as long as those of a horse. She flees in terror into the dark but, guided by a magical light, finds her way back to the safety of the house and into the arms of another protector.
In fact, she discovers that right at the top of a secret staircase dwells her great-grandmother, an archetypal fairy-tale figure. She is an old lady with pigeons (she dines upon their eggs), a spinning-wheel (which she only uses when the moon is shining upon it) and a lamp which can shine through solid walls and never goes out. She also gives the princess a magical ring, a fire-opal.
The thread she uses for her spinning is unusual. It is spiderweb of a very special kind, brought to her from far across the sea by her pigeons. What is she spinning with it? What is she doing at the top of the house unknown to all of its inhabitants but Irene? She is mysterious and magical; sometimes she looks old and at other times much younger; but she is definitely a force for good.
George MacDonald continues to spin the web of his story. Thread is important. Firstly there is the ball of it that Curdie ties to a pickaxe then slowly unravels as he explores the dark caverns and tunnels. When he wishes to return he need only roll the thread back into a ball as he slowly follows it back to the point that he started from. Sometimes when he returns home that ball of thread is ‘in what seemed the most hopeless entanglement’. By morning his mother has always wound it back into ‘a most respectable ball, ready for use the moment he should want it!’ The story has three strong resourceful females: the princess, the magical great-grandmother (who also shares Irene’s name) and Curdie’s helpful mother.
The thread that Princess Irene is given is even better. She ties it to the magic ring and follows it; despite her fear as to where it will lead her, she has faith in her great-grandmother. But Curdie cannot feel the thread at first and doubts the princess. Perhaps this is because he is twelve years old whilst she is only eight, perhaps because she is a girl with too much imagination who likes to tell stories? Later he cannot see the grandmother despite the fact that she is in the room and the princess is speaking to her. In addition to the Goblin threat, this is something else that Curdie needs to overcome.
Just as there are two threads that must be followed, there are two goblin plots: the first threatens the lives of the miners; the second endangers the princess. Curdie investigates and finds himself in great danger and the book goes on to reach an exciting action-filled climax.
This is a children’s classic that stands the test of time; it will be a source of pleasure for all who enjoy a good story and it will fill those who love the fantasy genre with delight. It has been said that the ‘crossover novel’ began with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. I think George MacDonald’s book, which preceded their work, also has that quality; it appeals to children and adults. Or perhaps in the latter case it appeals to the child within us; the imaginative aspect of us that has not forgotten how to wonder.
– Joseph Delaney, 2013
the princess and the goblin
george macdonald
chapter one
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 halfway 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 had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves – of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty’s sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbours. It will now be pretty evident why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by and by.
chapter two
the princess loses herself
I have said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story begins. And this is how it begins.
One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was constantly gathering itself together into raindrops, and pouring down on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn’t have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can’t get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing – the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky ceiling over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can’t, but I don’t think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the princess herself than he could, though – leaning with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she would like, except it were to go out and get thoroughly wet, and catch a particularly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room.
Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of the door, not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never anyone had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and that was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was at the top of it.
Up and up she ran – such a long way it seemed to her! – until she came to the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side. There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors. When she had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a great trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full speed, her little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain – back for the stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought, but she had lost herself long ago. It doesn’t follow that she was lost, because she had lost herself, though.
She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was too eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw herself on the floor, and burst into a wailing cry broken by sobs.
She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the dust from her frock. Oh, what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes with her hands, for princesses don’t always have their handkerchiefs in their pockets, any more than some other little girls I know of. Next, like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to work to find her way back: she would walk through the passages, and look in every direction for the stair. This she did, but without success. She went over the same ground again and again without knowing it, for the passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way: instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was, however, she could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair could lead. It was very narrow, and so steep that she went on like a four-legged creature on her hands and feet.
chapter three
the princess and – we shall see who
When she came to the top, she found herself in a little square place, with three doors, two opposite each other, and one opposite the top of the stair. She stood for a moment, without an idea in her little head what to do next. But as she stood, she began to hear a curious humming sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there – then to another. When she laid her ear against the third door, there could be no doubt where it came from: it must be from something in that room. What could it be? She was rather afraid, but her curiosity was stronger than her fear, and she opened the door very gently and peeped in. What do you think she saw? A very old lady who sat spinning.
Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back. That is not much like an old lady – is it? Ah! but it was white almost as snow. And although her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so wise that you could not have helped seeing she must be old. The princess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old indeed – quite fifty, she said to herself. But she was rather older than that, as you shall hear.
While the princess stared bewildered, with her head just inside the door, the old lady lifted hers, and said, in a sweet, but old and rather shaky voice, which mingled very pleasantly with the continued hum of her wheel:
‘Come in, my dear; come in. I am glad to see you.’
That the princess was a real princess you might see now quite plainly; for she didn’t hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses but were only rather vulgar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her.
‘Come to me, my dear,’ said the old lady.
And again the princess did as she was told. She approached the old lady – rather slowly, I confess – but did not stop until she stood by her side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted stars in them.
‘Why, what have you been doing with your eyes, child?’ asked the old lady.
‘Crying,’ answered the princess.
‘Why, child?’
‘Because I couldn’t find my way down again.’
‘But you could find your way up.’
‘Not at first – not for a long time.’
‘But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra. Hadn’t you a handkerchief to wipe your eyes with?’
‘No.’
‘Then why didn’t you come to me to wipe them for you?’
‘Please, I didn’t know you were here. I will next time.’
‘There’s a good child!’ said the old lady.
Then she stopped her wheel, and rose, and, going out of the room, returned with a little silver basin and a soft white towel, with which she washed and wiped the bright little face. And the princess thought her hands were so smooth and nice!
When she carried away the basin and towel, the little princess wondered to see how straight and tall she was, for, although she was so old, she didn’t stoop a bit. She was dressed in black velvet with thick white heavy-looking lace about it; and on the black dress her hair shone like silver. There was hardly any more furniture in the room than there might have been in that of the poorest old woman who made her bread by her spinning. There was no carpet on the floor – no table anywhere – nothing but the spinning-wheel and the chair beside it. When she came back, she sat down and without a word began her spinning once more, while Irene, who had never seen a spinning-wheel, stood by her side and looked on. When the old lady had got her thread fairly going again, she said to the princess, but without looking at her:
‘Do you know my name, child?’
‘No, I don’t know it,’ answered the princess.
‘My name is Irene.’
‘That’s my name!’ cried the princess.
‘I know that. I let you have mine. I haven’t got your name. You’ve got mine.’
‘How can that be?’ asked the princess, bewildered. ‘I’ve always had my name.’
‘Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any objection to your having it; and, of course, I hadn’t. I let you have it with pleasure.’
‘It was very kind of you to give me your name – and such a pretty one,’ said the princess.
‘Oh, not so very kind!’ said the old lady. ‘A name is one of those things one can give away and keep all the same. I have a good many such things. Wouldn’t you like to know who I am, child?’
‘Yes, that I should – very much.’
‘I’m your great-great-grandmother,’ said the lady.
‘What’s that?’ asked the princess.
‘I’m your father’s mother’s father’s mother.’
‘Oh, dear! I can’t understand that,’ said the princess.
‘I dare say not. I didn’t expect you would. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t say it.’
‘Oh, no!’ answered the princess.
‘I will explain it all to you when you are older,’ the lady went on. ‘But you will be able to understand this much now: I came here to take care of you.’
‘Is it long since you came? Was it yesterday? Or was it today, because it was so wet that I couldn’t get out?’
‘I’ve been here ever since you came yourself.’
‘What a long time!’ said the princess. ‘I don’t remember it at all.’
‘No. I suppose not.’
‘But I never saw you before.’
‘No. But you shall see me again.’
‘Do you live in this room always?’
‘I don’t sleep in it. I sleep on the opposite side of the landing. I sit here most of the day.’
