The wood goblins rode on rat back through the dark. Their voices were like gravel under a rabbit's foot. They were seeking their princess. They were sure that the green elves had taken her for ransom.
``We will not pay!'' they said. ``We will find her before they kill her. We will rescue her!''
They found the green elves at dawn. They were harvesting clover blossoms for the nectar at their tips.
``We don't have your princess,'' they said, ``go ahead and look. What would we want with her Royal Ugliness?''
The elves' voices were like the sound of wind in small leafy trees.
They found a baby green elf curled up in a buttercup. They left her alone. They did not find the princess, but they did meet a dormouse who thought he might have seen the princess in the country of the earth worm people. The wood goblins raced on to the land of the earth worm people.
The earth worms peered out from their holes in the ground. Their voices were like the sound of a child opening a forbidden door.
``We don't have your princess,'' they said, ``she wouldn't fit in our homes.''
The wood goblins decided to go home. Perhaps they would pay the ransom. Surely no more than three firkins of goblin beer.
It was late when they got back to their own country. They found the princess asleep under her favorite sword fern.
``The bat people tangled in my hair,'' she said, ``they pulled me up to the roof of their cave. I chewed off the hair that tied me to them and got free of them and fell to the ground. The silly bat people cannot see what is on the ground so I ran away from them and got home safe.'' She looked around at the goblins lying exhausted after their long search.
``Drunk again, I see,'' she said.