The Princess and Curdie

Summary

The Princess and Curdie is George MacDonald's sequel to The Princess and the Goblin, set about a year after the goblins were defeated. Curdie, the miner's son, now nearly thirteen, has grown dull and doubtful; he half believes that Princess Irene's great-great-grandmother was only a child's dream. One evening he shoots a white pigeon with an arrow for the pleasure of his skill, sees the bird's eyes, and is overwhelmed with shame. He carries it to the tower of the king's house, where the old princess, first a withered spinner and then a tall, grand lady, mends the bird and leads him to see that his real fault was never trying to be better. In the mine she later appears to Curdie and his father Peter in green light, and gives Peter an emerald that will show whether his son is safe. Then she asks Curdie to thrust his hands into a fire of burning roses. The pain takes away his rough skin and gives him a gift: by touching a person's hand he can feel whether that person is turning into a beast, and which beast. She sends him to the royal city of Gwyntystorm with Lina, a hideous, loyal creature whose paw he finds is a child's hand, and on the way forty-nine other strange creatures join him. Gwyntystorm is proud, greedy and inhospitable. Its people stone Curdie, its butchers' dogs attack Lina, and only the poor old woman Derba and her grandchild Barbara take him in. Imprisoned, he escapes through the cellars into the palace and finds the king lying weak and confused, guarded by Irene, while the doctor, Dr Kelman, gives him drugged wine each night and the lord chamberlain and other officers plot to take his crown. Curdie feeds the king on honest bread and wine, Lina breaks the doctor's leg, and the creatures drive out the thieving servants and the treacherous courtiers. A neighbouring kingdom, Borsagrass, invades at the traitors' invitation. In a night of rose-fire the old princess heals the king, and next day the king, his old colonel, a page, Curdie, the Uglies and a cloud of white pigeons rout the invaders, with Peter arriving in time to strike down their general. The king's housemaid is revealed as the old princess herself. Curdie and Irene later marry and reign well, but they have no children, and a greedy king chosen after them mines away the pillars under the city until Gwyntystorm falls into the river and is forgotten. MacDonald published the book in 1883 after an earlier magazine serialization.

Top Lessons

• Not trying to be better is itself a wrong

  Curdie thinks he has done nothing very bad all day, but the old princess helps him see that he has been drifting, ignoring his parents and grumbling at his work. MacDonald teaches that the soul either grows or decays, and that repentance begins when a child sees plainly what he has done.

• Hands that tell the truth

  After the rose-fire Curdie can feel in a hand whether a person is becoming a beast. The gift shows that what people do slowly makes them what they are. The princess warns him not to judge quickly, since two people may stand in the same place while one climbs and the other falls.

• Hospitality and its opposite

  Gwyntystorm keeps its gates open but its houses and hearts shut. Only Derba, called a witch because she lives quietly and honestly, welcomes the stranger. The book measures a city by how it treats newcomers, the poor and children.

• Greed undermines a city

  The palace servants steal, the courtiers plot, the preacher teaches that every one should take care of number one, and at last a greedy king mines away the pillars that hold up the city. MacDonald shows that a people can be saved for a time by good rulers and still choose ruin.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The centre of the book is a doctor who poisons his patient. The king has been ill for a year; his daughter believes the soft-spoken Dr Kelman gives him only wine, but the doctor fills the glass from a phial, rouses the sleeping king roughly, and is twice seen with something bright, once a lancet, that he means to run into the king's arm. The king himself describes the inner side of the illness: after his queen's death he lost heart over the wickedness of his people, could not sleep, had terrible dreams, wandered in speech, and doubted everyone, while also suspecting rightly that his physician gave him poison. MacDonald's narrator calls despondency the main cause of the illness and the drugs a cause of lingering night terrors. Recovery comes by plain food, clean air, an honest nurse, a child who comforts him at night, and finally the old princess's fire. The first priest's fall into lunacy, whose madness jabbered sense, is a satirical touch. The modern reader may think of chronic sedation, depression or delirium, but these are readings of a fairy tale, not diagnoses.

• Chapter 19, The King's Chamber

  Irene describes her father's nightly wandering and the doctor's medicine that is not really medicine but wine; Dr Kelman rouses the king and appears to run something bright into his arm.

• Chapter 23, Dr Kelman

  The king tells of his despondency, sleeplessness, dreams and suspicion; the doctor fills the glass from a phial and takes out a lancet before Lina seizes him.

• Chapter 28, The Preacher

  The first priest, carried off by the legserpent, is found a lunatic whose madness, the narrator says, jabbered sense.

• Chapter 29, Barbara

  Evil dreams left by the doctor's medicines wake the king in terror, and only the sleeping child Barbara laid in his arms drives them away.