本集演播：槑贰

后期：骐煜

英文对照在底部，请往下拉

第1章 公主的故事是怎么来的

很久很久以前，有一位小公主。她的父亲国王陛下统治着一个群山和溪谷遍布的伟大国家。国王的那座宏伟又华丽的宫殿就建在其中一座山上。小公主的名字叫做艾琳，她在这座宫殿中出生，但是因为王后的身体虚弱，小公主一出生没多久就被送到另一座山上的大庄园里，由国人抚养。那庄园一半是城堡，一半是农场，就盖在半山腰上。

公主是个讨人喜爱的小家伙，在我故事的开始，我估摸她大约八岁上下，不过她很快就长大了。她长着白皙可爱的脸庞，两只眼睛就像夜空中的两颗星星，每一颗都融化在蓝色里。而这两颗小星星仿佛也知道它们从何而来似的，时常仰望着来处。小公主的房顶涂着蓝色，上面星星点点，简直跟天空没什么两样。不过我怀疑她未必见过真正的满天星斗，原因我暂时还是不要提的好。

这个国家的山脉底下布满了空洞；有巨大的洞穴，蜿蜒的小路，有些有水流贯穿其中，有些被阳光照射进来还有五颜六色的彩虹。而发现这一切，都是因为开矿的缘故。为了开采丰富的矿藏，山中到处都挖着深深的矿坑，矿坑之间连接着长长的地道和通路。在开矿的时候，矿工们就发现了很多天然形成的岩洞。有些岩洞的出口一直远远延伸到山的另一头，或者开在哪个山谷里。

就在这些地下的洞穴里，生活着一种奇怪的生物，有人管他们叫侏儒有人管他们叫地精(kobold)，也有人管他们叫哥布林。在这个国家曾有这样的传说，这些地下的生物原来也是生活在地上的，就跟人类没什么两样。但是因为种种原因——这在不同的传说里有不同版本的说法——比方说他们觉得国王跟他们征收的赋税太高，国王让他们遵守的规矩他们不喜欢，国王对他们太过严厉，国王想方设法地推行更严峻的法律，如此等等；于是最终的结果就是，他们从这个国家的表面消失了。但根据传说的说法，他们并没有搬去别的国家，而是把地下洞穴当成了藏身之所。从此之后他们昼伏夜出，每次出现的数量都不一样，但绝不会一下子出现在许多人面前。据说即使是在晚上他们也只会在极其罕见的情况下聚集在露天的场所，而且是在山脉最最险峻的地方。见过他们的人都说他们经过一代代的演化，已经完全改变了。这也难怪，他们远离阳光，生活在寒冷、潮湿又阴暗的地下。如今的他们，无论是长相还是身型，都不能仅仅用丑陋这个词来形容了。他们简直称得上狰狞，或者说奇形怪状。见过他们的人都说，即使是最天马行空的画笔也甭想描绘出长得如此肆无忌惮的形象来。可依我看来，说这话的人没准儿是把哥布林的宠物错当成他们了，哥布林本尊长得可比他们的宠物吓人得多。不过单凭这只言片语还不能说清哥布林和人类有多么不同。他们甚至可以办到凡人连想都不敢想的事情。但随着他们变得越来越狡猾，坏心眼儿也越来越多，他们最大的乐趣就是想尽各种办法折腾生活在他们头顶的、地面上的人类邻居。他们对彼此倒还是保留着一点儿感情，在碰面的时候还不至于极其残忍；然而他们对那个将他们曾经拥有的财产夺走的国王依然万分憎恨。对于害得他们无家可归的国王的后人，哥布林更是恨得咬牙切齿，并且随时寻找机会折磨这些王孙贵族。手段古怪得简直比这些怪物的造物主还要奇葩。尽管他们身材矮小，长相丑陋，他们的力量却跟他们的狡猾不相上下。随着时间的推移，他们也有了自己的国王和政府。除了处理他们那点儿简单的日常事务之外，国王和政府的主要职能还是给他们上层的邻居们制造各种麻烦。现在你们该知道为什么小公主从来没见过夜空了吧。人们怕极了哥布林，所以根本不敢让小公主走出宅子，就算有大批随从陪同也不行。他们有充分的理由这样做，后面我们就会知道了。

CHAPTER 1

Why the Princess Has a Story About Her

There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak.


The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old, I think, but she got older very fast. Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction. The ceiling of her nursery was blue, with stars in it, as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had better mention at once.


These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining with all colours of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full. In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a mountain, or into a ravine.


Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves—of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbours. It will now be pretty evident why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by and by.