The Princess and the Goblin

Curdie works through the night, and when he takes a rest, he hears three goblin voices talking. One is a child named Helfer, who seems to be speaking to his father. They discuss the fact that Curdie almost broke through into their caverns but missed. Curdie also overhears them talking about their weak feet and strong heads: “The goblin’s glory is his head” (42). Curdie then hears a female voice, likely the mother, discussing how only the goblin queen wears shoes. The man mentions their first king having married a human; because she wore shoes, all queens after her have done the same. The father saw the current queen’s feet once and incredulously remarks on how they had toes, which she hides inside shoes. The man reasons that this is why all surface people wear shoes: “[T]hey can’t bear the sight of their own feet without them” (43).

The man mentions a meeting at the palace, noting how much trouble the miners will soon be in, but his voice then becomes too muffled for Curdie to hear. Curdie realizes he learned that the goblins were creating new houses for themselves but also (more importantly) that something terrible is soon going to happen to the miners.