Character guide

Curdie

major

Also known as Curdie Peterson, dear Curdie, Mr. Curdie, Poor Curdie

Curdie haunts the king's garden at night, tracking goblin excavators by ear and creeping on hands and knees to learn where they tunnel. When the men-at-arms catch him, he laughs at their threats and gives nothing away, because he does not yet know whether he can trust them. His stubborn honesty and his habit of confessing his own faults mark him as something more than a miner's boy, and make him the one person underground who can match the goblins at their own game.

Princess Irene

major

Also known as Irene, The Princess

Irene lives shut inside a great house, guarded from goblins even by daylight's end, and on a wet afternoon she escapes her nurse and runs up a worm-eaten stair until the corridors of doors frighten her into tears. She is lonely, curious, and quick to trust what her elders dismiss, and the ring on her finger glows like a fiery rose when something unseen is near. Her wanderings open the story's second world, the tower where her great-great-grandmother waits.

The Old Lady

major

Also known as The Old Lady, the old lady

She appears only to Irene, in a high chamber reached by stairs the household has forgotten, and she spins and weaves with a patience that unnerves as much as it comforts. Her gifts, a ring that glows and a thread that leads, demand trust rather than explanation, and the princess must believe her even when the evidence of her own eyes says otherwise. She is the story's quiet center of gravity, the one who knows what the goblins are doing long before the miners do.

Lootie

supporting

Lootie keeps the princess indoors after dark and frets over every strange sight, but on the night the long-legged creatures came at them she panicked and lost her way home, earning a talking-to from the king. She half believes the princess's tales of a twilight cat and a hidden grandmother, and that half-belief makes her both comic and pitiable. Her failures of nerve are what push Irene out of the nursery and into the story.

Peter Peterson

supporting

Also known as Peter

Peter works the mine alongside his son and, when Curdie bursts in with news of the goblins' second plan, he is already at the gang with blocks and cement ready. He is steady where Curdie is daring, and his quiet preparations are what keep the mine from being flooded and the miners from drowning. His cottage, braced against a great rock, becomes a refuge in the storm, and his competence grounds the story's underground struggle in ordinary labor.

The King

supporting

Also known as the king, King Papa

The king keeps no fixed capital, appointing and removing officials as he finds them just or corrupt, and this care for his people is precisely what keeps him away from the princess. He arrives on a great white horse to the sound of a bugle, and Irene saves up her questions for him, including the one about her ring. His absences and returns frame the story's sense of a world larger than the nursery, and his vigilance is the reason the goblins have not yet overrun the mountain.

Glump

minor

Also known as the worthy Glump

A goblin leader who counsels the goblin king.

Harelip

minor

A goblin with a harelip who is a messenger and spy.

Helfer

minor

A goblin who assists in the goblins' plot against the humans.

Mrs. Peterson

minor

Curdie's mother, a kind and practical woman.

The Captain

minor

The captain of the king's guard who leads the defense.

Sir Walter

minor

Also known as Poor Sir Walter

A knight who is turned to stone by goblin magic.

Nursie

minor

Also known as nursie

An old nurse who cares for Irene in the palace.

Mrs. Housekeeper

minor

The housekeeper at the palace who manages the servants.