Produced by Jo Churcher. HTML version by Al Haines. The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald CONTENTS 1 The Mountain 2 The White Pigeon 3 The Mistress of the Silver Moon 4 Curdie's Father and Mother 5 The Miners 6 The Emerald 7 What Is in a Name? 8 Curdie's Mission 9 Hands 10 The Heath 11 Lina 12 More Creatures 13 The Baker's Wife 14 The Dogs of Gwyntystorm 15 Derba and Barbara 16 The Mattock 17 The Wine Cellar 18 The King's Kitchen 19 The King's Chamber 20 Counterplotting 21 The Loaf 22 The Lord Chamberlain 23 Dr Kelman 24 The Prophecy 25 The Avengers 26 The Vengeance 27 More Vengeance 28 The Preacher 29 Barbara 30 Peter 31 The Sacrifice 32 The King's Army 33 The Battle 34 Judgement 35 The End CHAPTER 1 The Mountain Curdie was the son of Peter the miner. He lived with his father and mother in a cottage built on a mountain, and he worked with his father inside the mountain. A mountain is a strange and awful thing. In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains. But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them--and what people hate they must fear. Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite awe enough of them. To me they are beautiful terrors. I will try to tell you what they are. They are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot, melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight--that is what it is.