The Princess and the Goblin: A Retelling of George MacDonald's Classic Story

By Angela Brans and George MacDonald

Deep inside the mountain, goblins are plotting to destroy the surface-dwelling humans. They carry a long grudge against the king’s family, and against the miners who serve the king. A poor young miner boy is the only one who suspects that anything is amiss, but no one believes him. Seeking proof, he sneaks into the underground goblin labyrinth night after night, carefully trailing the goblin sappers while trying to remain unnoticed.

Meanwhile, above ground, the carefully sheltered eight year old Princess Irene is blissfully ignorant of the danger below her—until her mysterious great-great-grandmother sends her, without the knowledge of her attendants, to rescue the poor miner boy.

This is George MacDonald’s classic tale of the faith and courage of a poor miner boy and a young princess, retold for the enjoyment of modern readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387379613

Book preview

The Princess and the Goblin

Original author: George MacDonald

Adapted by Christian G. Peregrine

Edited by  Emma Leigh McKinney

Cover Art by Angela Brans

ISBN 978-1-387-37961-3

Jacket blurb

Forward

The Princess and the Goblin

The princess loses herself

The princess and—we shall see whom

What the nurse thought

Out on the mountain

In the mines

Mining for information

The goblin palace

The princess’s king-papa

The old lady’s room

The goblins and their creatures

A week later

Woven and spun

The ring

Curdie loses himself

Curdie lost

Irene follows a thread

Out of the mountain

Not being believed

Curdie and his mother

Irene acts like a true princess

Curdie is captured—above ground

Noises at night

Curdie leaves his mark

Curdie’s guide

The floodgates of heaven

The king and the kiss

The fountains of the deep

Epilogue

Afterward

Jacket blurb

Deep inside the mountain, goblins are plotting to destroy the surface-dwelling humans.  They carry a long grudge against the king’s family, and against the miners who serve the king.  A poor young miner boy is the only one who suspects that anything is amiss, but no one believes him.  Seeking proof, he sneaks into the underground goblin labyrinth night after night, carefully trailing the goblin sappers while trying to remain unnoticed.

Meanwhile, above ground, the carefully sheltered eight year old Princess Irene is blissfully ignorant of the danger below her—until her mysterious great-great-grandmother sends her, without the knowledge of her attendants, to rescue the poor miner boy.

This is George MacDonald’s classic tale of the faith and courage of a poor miner boy and a young princess, retold for the enjoyment of modern readers.

Forward

George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin delighted readers when it was first published in 1872 and has continued to be loved up to the present day.  Again and again I find all sorts of people in the oddest places who mention this work.  I wanted my children to experience it too.

When I tried to read the original to them in the full splendor of its Victorian English, I found that it was unnecessarily difficult.  I was forced to substitute modern words that they knew for archaic or unnecessarily obscure words that MacDonald used.  There were also many awkward and verbose expressions that would never sneak past an editor today.  Whole sentences and paragraphs could be cut without loss.  Many sentences ought to have been reworded to make the sense clear and concise.  MacDonald was never more than a mediocre wordsmith who occasionally stumbled on a very apt turn of phrase.  The strength of his writing is not in the words themselves, but in the images and ideas.

On-the-fly editing is difficult to do well while reading out loud.  My frustration boiled over when I tried to read the second volume, The Princess and Curdie.  That book is in even worse shape than this one, and I tried to find someone who had properly edited it.  Others have retold MacDonald’s novels for modern readers, but apparently no one has done this for his fairy tales—a sad loss.  So I did it for both volumes; here is the first.  You are of course welcome to compare it to the original, which can be downloaded for free at the Project Gutenberg web site (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/708), or from any of a hundred other purveyors of e-books on the web.

In a retelling of MacDonald’s stories, it is not just the words that need reworking.  We write stories differently than we did a century and a half ago.  We prefer direct speech to indirect.  We prefer to discover things through dialogue than through a narrator’s aside.  When there must be narration, we prefer that it read as the thoughts of a viewpoint character, rather than the omniscient narrator that was common in older literature.  We are less tolerant of flowery meandering.  We are more sensitive about stereotypes and slurs in race or gender; some everyday expressions of that era are innocent no longer.  And we are less apt to catch the subtle allusions to biblical pictures and phrases that MacDonald occasionally drops in the text.

All these can be fixed easily enough without sacrificing anything of value.  I hope that the story, retold for modern preferences, can continue to be enjoyed by both young and old.

The Princess and the Goblin

The princess loses herself

Lootie, what’s a goblin? eight year old Princess Irene asked her nurse Lootie.

Lootie had been bent over picking up toys, but at the word goblin, she froze.  Then she drew herself up slowly.  Where… did you hear… that word? she said, ferociously biting out each phrase.

Irene was taken aback.  Lootie had never talked to her like that before.  I— Irene faltered.  I—I overheard someone.

Who said that? the nurse demanded again.

I—I don’t know.  That was, strictly speaking, true—Irene knew that a princess must not lie.  Irene probably could have guessed who said it but suddenly felt unwilling.

Earlier that day, it had been cold and rainy.  So rather than running through the meadows on the mountainside as she wanted to, Princess Irene had been careening madly through the hallways of the manor house where she lived.  She was at least one full hallway ahead of her nurse, but she stopped suddenly when she reached the entrance to the scullery, because she knew she was not supposed to enter the scullery or the kitchen alone.  (A scullery is a room in a large house or castle where food is cleaned up, dishes washed, etc.)

As she stood there catching her breath, she heard loud voices inside.  Well, whatever you do, someone in the scullery was saying, don’t say that around the princess!

About those goblins we saw outside last night? someone else replied.

Yes, about the goblins! the first voice said.  Don’t you know that….  The voice dropped lower, and Irene could not hear anymore.

That had been an hour ago, and the tantalizing questions it had raised in Irene’s little head had been driven away by the chase and other games she played with her nurse.  But then the games ended, and Irene soon became bored with her toys (even though they were the most amazing, almost-magical toys in the kingdom).  As she sat there staring listlessly across the room, hands folded in her lap, the memory had come back into her head, and she had asked about it.  But she had not expected that response from her nurse.  Now Lootie was still looking at her sharply, clearly expecting more of a reply.

I don’t know whom I heard, Irene repeated, softly and very properly.

The nurse continued to stare hard at her for a moment.  Finally she shrugged and said, It’s just a nonsense word.  You must have misheard.

Irene was certain it was not a nonsense word at all.  Nonsense words had never produced that sort of reaction from Lootie.  Lootie must be—well, it couldn’t be lying, because adults said never to lie, but it must be something very like lying.  Anyway, she was obviously not going to learn more from her nurse right now.

Irene sat there, just staring out the window at the rain, for a few minutes more.  Then, she asked (more out of habit than anything else), Lootie, I don’t understand why my king-papa sent me away to live here on this mountain.  I want to see him.

Lootie gave the same reply she gave every time: Your father thought you would be safer here.

Irene had been living at this manor house on the mountain, far from the capital, as long as she could remember.  After her mother had died, her nurse Ludmilla (whom the toddler Irene had called Lootie because that was all she could say back then) had brought her here from the distant capital.  In the last seven years, her father, King Conrad of Gwentystorm, visited when he could, which unfortunately was not often.

Still staring out the window at the sheets of rain, Irene said, I don’t want to be safe.  I’m bored.  I want to go outside in the rain.

No, princess, Lootie said in a tired voice, still tidying up.

How about after the rain clears, tonight? Irene asked.  I want to see the stars.

The nurse looked up again, mouth open and a shocked expression on her face.  Finally she managed to get out,  "Oh no, princess.  We must never do that."

Indeed, that had been the rule since before Irene could remember: she was never allowed to go outside at night, or even in the evening.  Since it had always been that way, she had just assumed that all children were inside at night, or unknown horrible things happened.  But then, a week ago, she had read a story about a child who was sleeping under the stars.  And Irene also remembered that the servants who had been talking about goblins, whatever they were, had also been talking about going outside at night.

Why did he say we must not?  Irene persisted.

I don’t know, Lootie answered.  But it was in that tone of voice adults sometimes use that suggests they know very well but do not want to tell you.

Irene humphed and returned to her brooding.

A moment later, Lootie left the room on some errand or other.  When you are bored, any change is pleasant.  Lootie’s absence woke the princess up a little, and she looked around.

There was a door at the other end of the nursery which no one ever used.  Irene knew that it opened onto a stairway that led up.  Several times she had opened the door and started to go up, but Lootie had called her back before she had gone up six steps.  Adults never wanted you to go anywhere interesting, even if you were a princess.  Or maybe especially if you were a princess; Irene was not sure about that.

Irene glanced at the door Lootie had just vanished through, then stood up. Maybe I can’t find out about the goblins today, but I’m going to learn something new.  She yanked the forbidden door open, ran through, and carefully closed it.  Then she ran all the way up the stairs to a landing.  The stairway turned around, and she ran up a second flight of stairs.  Then a third.  At the top of the stairs, there was a long passage in front of her, full of closed doors.

This was a part of the house she had never been in.  It was a huge old house that her father had sent her to live in, half castle and half farmhouse, and Irene had only been allowed to see a small part of it. 

There was dust everywhere. Clearly the servants had not been up here in a long time.  She did not try to open any of the doors, but ran on to see where the passage led.  The passage turned, and there were more doors, and then it turned again—and there were still more doors.

The thought of what might be behind all those doors began to frighten her—only a little, because she was already eight years old.  But when you know the adults do not really want you to be where you are, it always makes you a little nervous.  And the rain made such a loud trampling noise on the roof. 

Irene hesitated.  Her curiosity was somewhat sated, and Lootie would be cross at her for running away without telling anyone where she was going.  So she started to run back.  She turned a corner, then another corner—and could not find the stairs down!  She ran this way and that.  There were halls and doors everywhere, but no stairway!  Her heart beat as fast as her little feet ran, and she felt a lump in her throat.  Back and forth, back and forth she ran—but the stairway was nowhere to be found!

Tears started to come into her eyes.  But she was as brave as could be expected of a princess of her age.  She brushed the dust off her frock and wiped her eyes with her hands (for a princess does not always have a handkerchief with her).  Next, like a true princess, she got herself under control and decided to work her way back.  She would walk through all the