The Princess and Curdie: A retelling of George MacDonald's classic story

By Angela Brans and George MacDonald

A dark shadow is looming over the kingdom of Gwentystorm. Even from the remote province where Curdie the miner boy lives, it can be felt. A year and a half has passed since Curdie and Princess Irene saved the kingdom from the plots of the goblins in the tunnels beneath their feet. The king and the young princess departed for the capital with promises of letters and presents, but the months have rolled on in suspicious silence, and the miner boy begins to wonder if he has been forgotten.

Now Irene’s mysterious great-great-grandmother summons Curdie to follow the princess’ footsteps to her castle, to discover what evil has been lurking there. With nothing but a motley horde of creatures to aid them, can the poor miner boy and the young princess confront the machinations of the castle’s twisted occupants? Can they overcome prejudice, treason, and the threat of foreign invasion to save the people of Gwentystorm from destruction?

This is George MacDonald’s classic tale from 1883, retold for modern readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387379569

Book preview

Jacket blurb

A dark shadow is looming over the kingdom of Gwentystorm. Even from the remote province where Curdie the miner boy lives, it can be felt. A year and a half has passed since Curdie and Princess Irene saved the kingdom from the plots of the goblins in the tunnels beneath their feet. The king and the young princess departed for the capital with promises of letters and presents, but the months have rolled on in suspicious silence, and the miner boy begins to wonder if he has been forgotten.

Now Irene’s mysterious great-great-grandmother summons Curdie to follow the princess’ footsteps to her castle, to discover what evil has been lurking there. With nothing but a motley horde of creatures to aid them, can the poor miner boy and the young princess confront the machinations of the castle’s twisted occupants? Can they overcome prejudice, treason, and the threat of foreign invasion to save the people of Gwentystorm from destruction?

This is George MacDonald’s classic tale from 1883, retold for modern readers.

Forward

This second story of Curdie and the princess Irene is of similar imaginative quality to the first, and just as inspiring.  But the 1883 text is in much worse shape.  C. S. Lewis commented that MacDonald’s prose is full of bad pulpit traditions, and that is rarely more clear than in the original form of this book.  Sentence construction is more frequently awkward and harder to understand than in the first story.  The vocabulary is more obscure.  There are long, flowery, useless asides, some of them truly cringe-worthy by modern standards.  It is sadly in need of a thorough edit.

Unfortunately, this story needs help with more than its sentence structure.  In the first story, more than a century before the self-rescuing princess became de rigueur, it is little princess Irene who rescues Curdie.  But in the original form of this story, she is a witless cardboard cutout of a character.  There are also a few frankly unbelievable happenings (even fantasy has rules!), temporal inconsistencies, and other problems which together make me think this story was thrown together much more hastily.

After some discussion, I felt that I could tell the story slightly differently, partially fixing these problems, and still be true to MacDonald’s overall themes and design.  Altering a story while trying to to keep the original theme and feel is a tricky business; there is the danger of making the story more mine, with my agendas, than his.  Nevertheless, I did not think it would make MacDonald turn over in his grave if I gave Irene more awareness and action and independence.  Thus princess Irene now appears more as she was in the first story, just a little older, sadder, and wiser. A few events (mostly in the castle) were altered or shuffled around, and Irene’s expanded role fills some plot holes.

Another common criticism of the original text of this second story is that it feels much more preachy and self-righteously moralizing than the first story.  Preaching in a story by MacDonald might be a good thing; his preaching is one of the major reasons we still read him today.  Some of his novels are valuable chiefly because they are settings for his finest sermons.  But the sermonizing here, especially toward the end, is very far from his best, and interrupts the story.  For the most part I simply dropped it.  I do not think anyone will miss it; it does not contribute anything to the moral development of the characters or the reader.

On the other hand, MacDonald’s treatment of his theme--what it means to be truly human--is, in my opinion, some of his most brilliant work.  My main goal is to restore this to readers who understandably cannot stomach the defects of the story in its original form.  The discussion of true humanity begins with Curdie’s repentance when he has not even been doing anything obviously wrong.  I have done my best to make this vital passage intelligible to someone who is not swimming in nineteenth century Romantic poetic fantasy, while retaining as much as I could of the love of beauty that jerks him out of his sub-human self-absorption.  The theme of true humanity continues through hideous monsters and hideous humans, a city left to its own inclinations, and a regretful final judgment where only the truly human pass through the flames.  This is the fantasy writing that keeps drawing us back to this nineteenth century writer while so many others from his era are best forgotten.

What has gone before

This book is the second volume chronicling the remarkable history of Princess Irene and the miner boy Curdie.

In the first volume, The Princess and the Goblin, the tale was told of Curdie and his father, who were among those miners who dug silver out of the ground for the king.  This king, Conrad of Gwentystorm, was a true and just king, and the silver they found for him was put to the best possible uses.  He did not hoard it in his moldy treasure chests, nor did he spend it on magnificent monuments or palaces for himself, as so many other kings have done.  Some of the silver paid for an army--not an army to conquer others, but an army to defend his own people from those grasping neighboring kingdoms who only wanted to plunder and enslave.  Some paid for honest judges to settle quarrels and teach the people right and wrong.  Still more went to workers who would build roads and bridges and other things useful to the people.  There were, of course, those in Gwentystorm who would take as much silver as they could and pile it up in their houses until it stank to high heaven; but the king was not like them, and when the silver left the king’s hands, it was as clean and refreshing as the spring breezes.

Sadly, the good king’s wife had died shortly after Princess Irene was born.  The baby princess had been sent to grow up in a castle in the mountains, near the kingdom’s main silver mines.  There, she learned all the things a princess must learn: to read and write and to speak and to be polite.  Also, despite the best efforts of her attendants, she learned courage, endurance, faithfulness, and honesty.  Unbeknownst to the attendants, her great-great-grandmother, a truly remarkable woman, had watched over her in secret for years.

At that time, a people called goblins lived in the caves under the mountains.  They bore a long grudge against the people who lived on the surface, especially against the king and his family.  When the princess was nine years old, they attempted to kidnap her,  and came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding.  It was only the ceaseless and daring reconnaissance of the miner boy Curdie, and the thread spun by Irene’s great-great-grandmother, that foiled their plot.

When the king came to take his daughter back with him to the safety of the palace, he had been so pleased with the boy that he asked him to come back with him and enter his service.  But Curdie declined the honor and the opportunity for advancement.  Curdie could not see that he, a thirteen year old boy, could do anything for the king that his other attendants could not do better; and he still needed to be useful to his father and mother, and they to him.  The king was then even more pleased with Curdie, for he thought that the love of a boy who would not abandon his poor father and mother to be made a great man was worth more than a hundred capable servants.

In this, the king’s judgment proved to be correct.

Growing larger and smaller

One night in the late summer, about a year and a half  after the princess had left, Curdie and his father returned from work in the mines to their home on the mountainside.  Curdie promptly left again to wander on the mountain in the long summer twilight, while his parents busied themselves around their humble one-room cottage preparing supper.

I still feel awful, Peter sighed as he pulled his heavy work boots off, that Curdie wouldn’t go with the King.  It seems like there’s no future here but to be a miner.

I know, Peter, his wife Joan replied, looking up from cutting vegetables.  He did look so grand, riding the King’s own horse.

He could have been promoted to a captain soon!  But now he’s stuck here as a lowly miner for the rest of his life.

Oh, Peter, the king said he would come back with the princess again.  Maybe he’ll have another chance--

But he never came back, Joan, Peter said sadly.  It’s been more than a year without even a messenger.  He’s forgotten all about us.  Now that the princess is safe in the palace, there are too many important things happening elsewhere to worry about a bunch of miners.

"Peter, I’m not so sure he would forget.  Remember how the princess never forgot her promise?  And the king backed her up, too.  I’m worried that something is wrong, and they couldn’t keep their word."

Hmm, Peter said.  Maybe.  I’ve also been wondering whether something is amiss there in the palace.  We’re shipping more ore to the capital than ever before, but they keep saying we need to increase our quotas.  I’ve never seen them keep demanding more.  I always used to say the king was fair and reasonable.  But I guess we’d never know from here.  Peter shook his head, dismissing that line of thought.  Joan, to tell you the truth, I’m more worried about Curdie.  He didn’t take his chance, and now he’s less than he could be.

How so, Peter?  He isn’t doing anything wrong.  She lay down her knife and turned around.

Well, no, he seems as… mostly as he’s always been.  But--I don’t know, Joan, something must be wrong.  He’s lost something.

She stared into the cooking fire, just standing there and thinking.  I’ve noticed that he doesn’t pay as much attention anymore to the birds and grass, she said slowly.

Doesn’t pay as much attention to you, either, Peter said.  Remember how he always used to pull your chair out for you?  He hasn’t done that for a while, and I’ll bet he’s not even aware that he’s forgetting.  And he used to help as much as he could around the house, but now he’s run off without even asking.

Oh pshaw, I don’t care about the chair, Joan said.  And really, there’s not much to do for supper.

I don’t care about the chair or the supper preparations either, but I do care about Curdie and what it shows about him.  He’s just not aware--oh, Joan, I don’t know how to say it.  It’s like his world has shrunken down to himself.

I hate to say it, Peter, but the rest of the miners are not really the best help to turn a boy in a good direction.

Peter rumbled his agreement as he lay the humble wooden plates they had on the table.  Take old Tom, now.  Fastest miner we’ve got, but his head has nothing in it but rocks and ore.  Doesn’t believe in anything but his dinner, and only believes in that when it’s between his teeth.  He is so worried about being taken in by something, that he can’t take anything new in--he can’t learn anything new.  I remember when the foreman told him the goblins were going to flood the mine.  He just laughed and laughed, and said all that work was a waste of time.  He won’t use any imagination, so he can’t see the truth of anything beyond his eyes.  And I’m afraid Curdie’s moving in that direction.

Peter, it was Curdie who had the imagination to realize the cobs might be up to something!  And it was Curdie who spent night after night exploring to find the truth of it!

That was then.  I’m not so sure he would now.  I heard him say--I think it was just last week--that he thinks Irene must have imagined her grandmother, because children sometimes can’t tell dreams from reality.

Really?

He doesn’t even explore much in the mine anymore.  Lately I’ve walked through more of the goblin tunnels in my spare time than he has.

Curdie did believe the princess.  And my story, too.

He did, after it got banged into him, Peter said.  I wonder if he still believes it.  Or if he thinks it was just a dream that he’s grown out of.  Joan, he’s certainly growing up, but his mind seems like it’s not growing with his body.

Trespassing

The subject of their conversation was wandering on the mountain trails in the twilight with a bow he had made for himself.  He had a fair eye for archery, and many rocks and trees near his home bore the marks of his arrows.

Curdie had taken to wandering above ground after the king and Princess Irene had left.  After their departure, it felt like gloom had fallen upon the mountain, and he did not whistle for weeks afterwards.  He had no reason to make rhymes, no reason to explore the tunnels--no reason to be anything more than be a miner.  So he had thrown himself into the work again, and soon had forgotten all about the princess and his gloom as the year went by.  More recently he had begun to take interest in the world around him again, but now more as a thing to be subjugated than explored.  His latest obsession with archery was an example of that.

He strode up and down the hills, shooting arrows at whatever caught his eye.  Suddenly there was a flash of brightness, as a snow-white pigeon alighted on a rock.  Curdie’s lip twisted upward, remembering how the princess Irene had brought him up into a tall tower full of pigeons.  She had said her great-great-grandmother took care of those pigeons, and ate their eggs!  What a ridiculous fantasy.  There was no great-great-grandmother in