The force of this quote-comparison will be much stronger for those who have read in full the stories from which both are taken (The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and The Princess and the Goblin.) Suffice it to say here that just as Lucy's siblings fail to credit her "imaginary country" and her friendship with a faun, so Curdie dismisses Irene's tale about her great-great grandmother and the existence of a certain magic thread. Their slowness to accept the truth is then gently rebuked by two grown-ups (Professor Kirke and Curdie's mother) who DO believe the young heroines-and whose past histories, once we know them, make this belief almost inevitable: