The Blue Light

A soldier had served the king faithfully for many years, but when the war ended his wounds left him unfit to serve. The king sent him home without pay—wages, he said, were only for those who still worked. Not knowing how to live, the soldier walked all day troubled, and at evening entered a forest. In the dark he saw a light, went to it, and found a witch’s house. He asked one night’s lodging and a little food, or he would starve. She scoffed at a runaway soldier, yet said she would take him in if he did what she wished: dig her garden next day. He agreed and dug all the next day, but could not finish the garden. She offered him another night’s lodging in return for chopping wood the following day. When that was done, she offered one more night and spoke of a dry well in which her blue light burned and never went out. He must go down and bring it up to her. The following day she took him to the well and lowered him in a basket. At the bottom he found the light, set it in the basket, and signaled. She hauled him nearly to the rim, then stretched out her hand for the light alone and meant to let him drop. He saw the trick in time, would not give up the flame, and she, furious, left him stranded in the dark.

He sat a while very sorrowfully, then suddenly felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, still half full. “This shall be my last pleasure,” he thought; he pulled it out, lit it at the blue light, and began to smoke. At once a small magical servant stood before him. “What does my lord command?” “Get me out of this well.” The servant led him out through an underground passage, bringing the blue light and showing him the witch’s hidden treasure. The soldier took as much gold as he could carry. Then the soldier ordered his little servant to bind the old witch and carry her before the judge. Soon she came by like the wind, riding on a wild cat; the judge heard the case and condemned her to death. The servant told him that the witch had been executed.

He went into the town, chose the best inn, and bade the landlord furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and he had taken possession, he summoned the magical servant and said he had served the king faithfully, yet been cast off without wages; now the king’s daughter must come each night to wait on him, bring water for washing, and do whatever he ordered. The manikin fetched her while she slept and set her to work. She served him, came to his chair, pulled off his boots—which he threw in her face—and had to pick them up again; and before dawn she was carried home still asleep. In the morning she told her father she had dreamed strange labours and was tired as if she had really done them all. He advised her to fill her pocket with peas and make a hole so they would drop and mark the road. That night the manikin noticed the peas and scattered more all over town; in the morning children everywhere were picking them up, saying it must have rained peas. The king then told her to keep her shoes on when she went to bed, and to leave one behind in the place where she was taken, so they could track the house. That night she did so; one shoe remained at the soldier’s lodging. Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter’s shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself—who at the dwarf’s urging had gone outside the gate—was soon brought back and imprisoned. In his flight he had left the blue light and gold at the inn and had only one ducat. Seeing a comrade pass the prison window, he offered the coin if the man would fetch the bundle from his room. The comrade brought it, returning the light to the soldier.

When the soldier was alone again he lit his pipe and summoned the magical servant. “Have no fear,” said the little servant to his master. “Go wherever they take you, and let them do what they will; only take the blue light with you.” The next day the soldier was condemned to death. He asked permission to smoke once more, and the king allowed it. As soon as a few wreaths of smoke rose from the pipe, the manikin appeared with a cudgel. “Strike down that false judge and his constable, and spare not the king who treated me so ill.” The manikin fell on them like lightning; whoever the cudgel touched dropped and dared not stir. The king threw himself on the soldier’s mercy and, merely to live, gave him the kingdom and his daughter for wife.

Where this story comes from

The Brothers Grimm collected “The Blue Light” in Germany; it is not an Indian tale. Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation numbers it 116 (Das blaue Licht), and this page follows the Project Gutenberg text based on the work of Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes.

In the linked text, the soldier loses access to the light when arrested and pays a comrade to retrieve it. His last request to smoke matters because the pipe can summon his magical servant only through that light.

The narrative retains execution, kidnapping and violence toward the princess. The soldier’s grievance against her father does not make her responsible for it.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales, tr. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes (Project Gutenberg #2591, The Blue Light)

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes threatened starvation, attempted killing, execution, kidnapping, forced labor, assault and a marriage obtained through violence. The hero’s success is not a guide to fair treatment.

Reading the story closely

The soldier’s first demand is escape from a trap; later demands trap the princess in service to him. That reversal is central: gaining power does not ensure he will use it more justly than the people who harmed him. The peas fail as evidence because they can be multiplied everywhere; a single hidden shoe identifies a particular room.

Follow the blue light’s location from well to inn to prison to judgment. At each point, name who has power and who has a choice. Then compare the king’s original refusal of support with the soldier’s treatment of someone who had no role in that refusal.

Talk about it

• How does the witch try to trick the soldier, and how does he get the better of her?
• Was the soldier right to make the princess work for him at night? Explain what you think.
• Why do you think the king finally gives the soldier his kingdom?

Related stories

• The King of the Golden Mountain — a Grimm hero with a magic wishing-ring who also returns for revenge
• The Valiant Little Tailor — another poor Grimm hero who outwits a king who looks down on him
• The Water of Life — a Grimm quest in which a kind young prince wins through in the end