It’s not every day I capture my kids’ attention with a book 150+ years old, but with the help of the ol’ Rev. George MacDonald, we did just that. This fairytale novel wasn’t quite what I expected, but it kept all of our attentions to the very end, so props to the old author for penning a good yarn!

The story follows two main tracks. First is that of young Princess Irene with her nursemaid, Lootie, generally stuck in the house full of servants while her King Papa is away on his trips about his kingdom, but occasionally also getting herself lost in the upper rooms of the castle or in the mountainside and mines around her home. Second is that of Curdie, the young miner who stumbles upon a family of Goblins (a.k.a. cobs) which reveals a plot either to steal the princess or to flood the mines.

These two storylines eventually intertwine, thanks mostly to Irene’s grandmother who’s essentially a helpful ghost that helps the two children in various ways. The Goblins themselves also help tie the storylines together, though it turns out that the only cobs Irene ever sees in this novel are the drowned and dead ones littering the scene in the end.

This is a book that reads well, despite its occasionally lengthy sentences – a hallmark of 19th century writing to be sure! It was an easy one for me to read aloud, and there were so few characters to voice that I was able generally to do 3-4 chapters per night. My kids are getting older (13 and 11), so I was a little concerned that the princess’s young age might make them want to quit, but they were glued especially to Curdie’s adventures, and they stuck with it. What did make them almost want to quit was the 3rd-to-last chapter titled “The King and the Kiss.” That was almost too “sus” for them, so I skipped those icky paragraphs.

My personal favorite portion of the whole book was MacDonald’s description not of the goblins but of the goblins’ creatures on Chapter 9. Two passages really stood out, and since this book is so old, I think I’m fine to quote them both at length:

Running with him into that part of the garden, which I have already described, they saw a score of creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of which was like another, hideous, and ludicrous at once, gamboling on the lawn in the moonlight. The supernatural or rather subnatural ugliness of their faces, the length of legs and necks and some, the apparent absence of both or either in others, made the spectators, although in one consent as to what they saw, yet doubtful, as I have said, of the evidence of their own eyes – and ears as well; for the noises they made, although not loud, were as uncouth and varied as their forms, and could be described, neither as grunts nor squeaks nor roars nor howls nor barks nor yells nor screams nor croaks nor hisses nor mews nor shrieks, but only as something like all of them mingled in one horrible dissident. … they were, of course, household animals belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions of darkness. (96-97)

I fancy Lootie was longer in returning than she had intended; for when Irene, who had been lost in thought, looked up, she saw it was nearly dark, and the same moment caught site of a pair of eyes, bright with a green light, glowering at her through the open window. The next instant something leaked into the room. It was like a cat, with legs as long as a horse’s, Irene said, but it’s body no bigger and its legs no thicker than those of a cat. She was too frightened to cry out, but not too frightened to jump from her chair and run from the room. (103)

This last description is just plain creepy! And add to it that this horse-legged cat climbing through the window had an almost human face, I’m surprised my kids haven’t had nightmares! I’m actually surprised I haven’t had ’em either.

Two other great little lines I marked were these:

Mrs. Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all more and no less. (91)

It is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. (118)

There’s a second novel in this series, The Princess and Curdie, though I think I’ve exhausted my kids’ patience with books of this sort…at least for now. Perhaps we’ll circle back one day and see whether these two characters hit it off in the end—and if my kids will be able to endure hearing about it. Sus!

©2024 E.T.