Week 2: Chapters 6 - 10

[Kerstin, Moderator]

After the incident with the miners Curdie and his father notice a green light and proceed to check out what it is. Mysteriously the light never comes nearer to them but keeps at the same distance and leads them through known and unknown passages. Eventually they come to a great room, the former assembly room of the goblins, where all the gems in the rockfaces are gleaming far more intensely than Curdie had seen before. The green light reveals to be a most beautiful young woman with eyes Curdie recognizes but can’t quite place. To show them where the light comes from she leaves the room, and all is meagerly illuminated by their miner’s lamps.
They wait for a long time for the lady to return, and only after their lamps extinguish do they notice a faint green light in the distance which is now coming closer and the lady reappears. She reveals to them that they are of royal blood, and that she has selected Curdie for a mission. She also reveals as much as is necessary for them to understand about herself, but no more. Then the lady leads them out of the cave and reappearing as an old woman sitting nearby. Curdie greets her properly and she instructs him to visit her in the tower the following evening.

After entering the room in the dove tower Curdie is taught to distinguish between truly good men and men that have turned into beasts on the inside. To help him navigate he has to put his hands into the fire of roses. It is a gift that comes with responsibility, for its misuse will end in the loss of the gift without him knowing. He is also introduced to a strange but kind beast that upon taking its paw he identifies as a child. He is sent off to go to the court of the king the very next morning.

Upon returning home he tells the strange tale of what happened in the dove tower, and his parents don’t quite believe it. After his mother gave Curdie her hand he identifies her as a princess. She laughs at the flattery but his father has always known her to be of a noble nature. The next morning Curdie leaves.

Curdie walks off the mountain before turning north. He walks for hours and at long last comes to a desolate heath with very few and unpleasant people. They think he is abandoning his life as a miner. Still he keeps walking on in good cheer. At nightfall he seeks shelter under a gnarly hawthorn tree and strange hot and cold winds surround him, and as the sun is setting a beast appears and approaches him wagging his huge tail.

[Nancy]

Curdie and his parents have placed extreme trust in the princess, which requires great courage (or gray foolishness, but since this is a fairy tale….). I fear that Curdie will suffer great trials before his journey is over, but great trials can result in great growth for those who have the strength. Macdonald’s writing is delicious. I feel like a wide-eyed child reading this story.

[Trev]

Having read the first story (The Princess and the Goblin), the revelation that Curdie’s family were linked to royalty was not really a surprise, more intriguing was why they were miners now.

The shapeshifting great, great grandmother is also shaping Curdie’s destiny as he places his full trust in her by agreeing to an unspecified mission. The mission entails a visit to the King’s court where he will probably meet once again with young Princess Irene.

The descriptions of ‘the Mother of Light,’ encrusted with various gemstones and illuminating the dark chambers of the mine, were delightful.

Another reoccurrence from’The Princess and the Goblin’ was the appearance of one of the weird creatures made up of many different parts of animals. I tried to visualise Lina but found it very difficult and wondered if any original illustrations had ever been produced of Lina.

’ She had a very short body, and very long legs made like an elephant’s, so that in lying down she kneeled with both pairs. Her tail, which dragged on the floor behind her, was twice as long and quite as thick as her body. Her head was something between that of a polar bear and a snake. Her eyes were dark green, with a yellow light in them. Her under teeth came up like a fringe of icicles, only very white, outside of her upper lip. Her throat looked as if the hair had been plucked off. It showed a skin white and smooth.’

Her reappearance on the heath could mean that she will play a bigger part in the story than the other animals did in ‘The Princess and the Goblin.’

[Renee, Moderator]

Now that MacDonald has set up the elements, it will be interesting to see what he does with them. We’ve got supernatural elements, a hidden royal lineage, a mysterious mission. So many possibilities!