The Goblin Wood

infobox Book |
name = The Goblin Wood
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Hilari Bell
illustrator =
cover_artist = Eric Bowman
country = United States
language = English
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Eos
release_date = April 2003
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 304 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 978-0-060-51371-9 (first edition, hardback)

"The Goblin Wood" is a teen fantasy novel by Hilari Bell.

Plot summary

Makenna is a hedgewitch. Her mother is killed when a new priest is sent to town. Makenna flees for her life, and tries to flood the town as her last act of vengeance. She flees to the woods and is teased by a group of goblins. Soon, she catches one goblin named Cogswhallop. She spares his life, and to repay his debt, he helps her out and convinces his fellow goblins to stop taunting her.Makenna later meets a friendly trader in the woods who tells her of the events taking place around the world. The goblin Cogswhallop and his friends ask for Makenna's aid in rescuing a small goblin family from being burned to death by a priest. Makenna aids the goblins, and they form an alliance to help goblins and find a place where they can live in peace.

Tobin, a young knight, finds his brother out late one night fleeing from the guards for helping the rebels. Tobin assists his brother but is caught himself and is branded as a traitor. To help save his name and family, Tobin accepts a mission to rid the northern lands of the goblins so that settlers who have lost their lands to the barbarians in the south may have a place to live. Tobin sets out alone to the far village to the north to rid the lands of the goblins and their leader, a "sorceress." Tobin travels to the town, where he meets a priest of the Bright Ones. The priest informs him of his mission: Tobin is to seek out the goblin lair and plant an Otherworldly stone near the sorceress's headquarters so that they can spy on her through the stone. Tobin sets out to find the lair and is caught by the goblins. He drops the stone and is taken to their village.

While Tobin is a hostage in the Goblin village, he is kept chained to a post in a small jail. There, he watches and learns the customs of the goblins and how they are not so different from human children. Makenna (the "sorceress") sits in with him one day and performs a spell to learn what information he might have. Makenna tells Tobin that she's only a hedegewitch. Tobin is released from his prison to walk around the village with the children. He meets many goblins and becomes a familiar face around the goblin village. That night, the village is raided by knights that lived in the human outpost where Tobin had met the priest. Tobin helps to fight back against the goblins but the town is soon overtaken and the goblins flee.

Makenna sneaks into the human village as a servant and lives with a small family where she saves a seven year old from choking to death, causing the hiring family to accept her. She flees that night and meets back up with the goblins, where they plan their attack. The next night, Tobin and the goblins try to sneak into the village, but he is caught while trying to raid the priest's tent and steal his books of spells. Makenna then valiantly jumps in to save him and they flee with the books, in hope of leading the goblins to a new world.

Makenna, Tobin, and the goblins are all huddled together as Makenna, using a magical wall, performs a spell that opens a portal into a whole new world. Just as the army comes over the hill, the goblins, Makenna, and Tobin disappear into the portal, never to be heard from again. Cogswhallop and some other goblins stay behind to continue to attack the humans.