George MacDonald

In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling they had no reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to the sun-people they chose to be busy when there was the least chance of their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep or catching their goats. And indeed it was only when the sun was away that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal regions to be endurable to their mole eyes, so thoroughly had they become unaccustomed to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches.

--George MacDonald, THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN, 1872


"Stamp on their feet; stamp on their feet!" He shouted, and in a moment the goblins were disappearing through the hole in the floor like rats and mice.

--George MacDonald, THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN, 1872


The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity toward the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. But in the course of time all had undergone even greater changes than had passed upon their owners.

--George MacDonald, THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN, 1872