# The Princess and the Goblin

The Princess and the Goblin is a children's fantasy novel by George MacDonald. It was published in 1872 by Strahan & Co., with black-and-white illustrations by Arthur Hughes. Strahan had published the story and illustrations as a serial in the monthly magazine Good Words for the Young, beginning November 1870.
Anne Thaxter Eaton writes in A Critical History of Children's Literature that The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel "quietly suggest in every incident ideas of courage and honor." Jeffrey Holdaway, in the New Zealand Art Monthly, said that both books start out as "normal fairytales, but slowly become stranger", and that they contain layers of symbolism similar to that of Lewis Carroll's work.

## Summary

Eight-year-old Princess Irene lives a lonely life in a castle in a desolate, mountainous kingdom, with only her nursemaid for company. Her father, the king, is normally absent, and her mother is dead. Unknown to her, the nearby mines are inhabited by a race of goblins, long banished from the kingdom and anxious to take revenge on their human neighbours. One rainy day, the princess explores the castle and discovers a mysterious lady who identifies herself as Irene's namesake and great-great-grandmother. The next day, Princess Irene heads outside but is chased by goblins and rescued by a young miner, Curdie.
At work in the mines, Curdie overhears the goblins talking and learns their weakness: they have very soft, vulnerable feet. He also hears that the goblins intend to flood the mine. Irene is about to see her great-great-grandmother again, but is frightened by a cat and escapes up the mountain; the light from her great-great-grandmother's tower leads her home. Her great-great-grandmother gives Irene a ring attached to an invisible thread, which connects her constantly to home.
When Curdie explores the goblins' domain, he is discovered by the goblins and stamps on their feet with great success; when he tries to stamp on the Queen's feet she is uninjured due to her stone shoes. The goblins imprison Curdie and Irene's magic thread leads her to his rescue. Curdie steals one of the goblin queen's stone shoes. Irene takes Curdie to see her great-great-grandmother but she is visible only to Irene. Curdie learns that the goblins are digging a tunnel in the mines toward the king's palace, where they plan to abduct the Princess and marry her to goblin prince Harelip. Curdie warns the palace guards about this, but is imprisoned instead and contracts a fever through a wound in his leg, until Irene's great-great-grandmother heals the wound.
The goblins come to abduct the princess, but Curdie escapes from his prison and stamps on the goblins' feet. He follows the magic thread to Irene's refuge at his own house, and restores her to the king. When the goblins flood the mines, the water enters the palace, and Curdie warns the others; the goblins drown. The king asks him to serve as a bodyguard; but Curdie refuses, saying he cannot leave his mother and father. Instead he accepts a new red petticoat for his mother.

## Publication history

The Princess and the Goblin was first serialised in the children’s periodical Good Words for the Young, where it appeared between November 1870 and June 1871. This was accompanied by a series of 30 illustrations by Arthur Hughes.$^{:48–52}$ In a letter George MacDonald wrote to his wife, dated to the 25th February 1871, he stated that “I know it is as good a work of the kind as I can do, and I think it will be the most complete thing I have done.” Despite this, sales of Good Words for the Young began to slow, which the story was blamed for. Strahan, his publisher, stated that it had “too much of the fairy element” in it. It was published separately in novel form by Strahan & Co in December 1871, although the publication date was listed as 1872. The first American publication also came in 1871 through Routledge, New York.$^{:48}$

## Themes

MacDonald’s depiction of the goblins portray them as descendants of individuals who had fled underground to escape from the strict laws of society. Within the opening of the novel, MacDonald states that “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… According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns.” This synthesis of folkloric and anthropological elements reflected a persistent evolutionary theory in contemporary Victorian society, which conflated mythological tales of fairies with folk memories of primordial race. The conclusion of the novel, in which Curdie tricks the goblins into flooding their underground kingdom in an extended reference of the Biblical Flood, can therefore be read as an act of God in excising the goblins, who are depicted as moral and physical degenerate. This is MacDonald’s attempt to synthesise scientific, pagan and Christian elements into a single unified system of ethics and morals. It has been observed, however, that this final sequence is both shocking and disturbing, depicting as it does the extermination of innocent animals alongside the "evil" goblins.

## Film adaptations

In the 1960s, the novel was adapted in animated form by Jay Ward for his Fractured Fairy Tales series. This version involved a race of innocent goblins who are forced to live underground. The ugly goblin king falls in love with a beautiful princess, but a prince saves her by reciting poetry because goblins hate it.
A full-length animated adaptation of the book, directed by József Gémes, was released in 1992 in the United Kingdom, and in June 1994 in the United States. This Hungary/Wales/Japan co-production, created at Budapest's PannóniaFilm, Japan's NHK, and S4C and Siriol Productions in Great Britain, starred the voices of Joss Ackland, Claire Bloom, William Hootkins and Rik Mayall. The film's producer, Robin Lyons, also wrote the screenplay and voiced the Goblin King. However, it was not well received commercially nor critically upon its US release from Hemdale Film Corporation in summer 1994, reportedly grossing only $1.8 million domestically and receiving mainly negative reviews (compared to Disney's very successful The Lion King that was released during the same month in the United States).
The film's title is "De Prinses van het Zonnevolk" in Dutch (English: The Princess of the Sun-people), "Prinsessan og durtarnir" in Icelandic (The Princess and the Trolls), and "La princesse et la forêt magique" (The princess and the magic forest) in French.

## Other adaptations

* The book was dramatised by adapted by Gracer Calvert Holland in 1926. This was published in script form by Erskine MacDonald before it was performed.$^{:105}$
* A 1930 theatrical adaptation was published by W.H. Baker in Boston. The title was changed to The Princess and the Goblins.
* The Princess and the Goblins is also a poem by Sylvia Plath (1932–1963).
* Shirley Temple played Princess Irene in a production on an episode of her television show. Although the plot follows the basic outline of Macdonald's story, it glosses over the darker elements and is played primarily as comedy. Irene and Curdie are portrayed as young adults instead of children (with hints of a budding romance), and the goblins are forgiven their evil deeds and reform.
* It was a book in the "100 Classic Books" collection for the Nintendo DS.
* Twyla Tharp used the story in the full-length ballet of the same title. It was her first to incorporate children and was co-commissioned by Atlanta Ballet and Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 2012.

## Legacy

The sequel to this book is The Princess and Curdie.
* Author Douglas Anderson suggests that J. R. R. Tolkien's depictions of goblins within Tolkien's legendarium was heavily influenced by the goblins in The Princess and the Goblin.
* In C. S. Lewis' novel That Hideous Strength, Elwin Ransom says that he lives "like the king in Curdie", and later in the novel, Jane Studdock reads the "Curdie books".
* G. K. Chesterton wrote of The Princess and the Goblin:
   I for one can really testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence, which helped me to see things in a certain way from the start; a vision of things which even so real a revolution as a change of religious allegiance has substantially only crowned and confirmed. Of all the stories I have read, including even all the novels of the same novelist, it remains the most real, the most realistic, in the exact sense of the phrase the most like life. It is called The Princess and the Goblin, and is by George MacDonald, the man who is the subject of this book.