Remember a kids' book about a witch?

October 14, 2006 9:53 AM

Namethatbookfilter: Anyone remember the title of a children's fantasy about a witch, two kids, and a goblin king?

It was a heavily illustrated hardcover (perhaps two hundred pages) that I read in my elementary school's library about fourteen years ago. It was already somewhat scuffed and dog-eared by that point, so I'd guess that it was published sometime in the seventies.

Here's what I remember of the plot: A witch has lost her broom (or her pointy hat, or some other MacGuffin) to a goblin king, so she and her two young friends (a boy and a girl, possibly siblings) travel to his underground kingdom to retrieve it. The king is actually pretty understanding about the whole matter, and he agrees to give the MacGuffin back if the witch and company complete three mystical quests for him. (I don't remember much about the quests, except that one involved a bridge and a troll). Anyway, they manage to complete the first two tasks, but fail at the last. All seems lost—but by that time, the king has fallen for the witch, and the witch has fallen for the king, and they marry. The witch, as the new queen, gets her MacGuffin back, and the kids return to the human world.

Can anyone remember the title?

posted by Iridic to media & arts (3 answers total)

It's not the Princess and the Goblin, or the Princess and Curdie, by any chance, is it? I haven't read them in years (and they're a LOT older than the 70s) but something about this sounds familiar.
posted by mygothlaundry at 11:37 AM on October 14, 2006

It was definitely not The Princess and the Goblin nor The Princess and Curdie, though I don't know what it would have been.
posted by orange swan at 4:49 PM on October 14, 2006

I don't know the answer, but you might want to post to the Google Group rec.arts.books.childrens.
posted by jeri at 6:52 PM on October 14, 2006