Grimms' Fairy Tales The Blue Light Summary

Summary

A wounded soldier, dismissed after the war, wanders until night and seeks shelter at a witch’s house in the forest. The witch sets him to tasks for lodging: digging, chopping wood, and finally fetching a perpetual blue light from an old well. When she betrays him and leaves him to fall back into the well, he discovers the blue light and, smoking his pipe by it, summons a little black dwarf who proclaims himself ready to serve the soldier.

The dwarf leads the soldier out through an underground passage, shows him the witch’s hidden treasures, and obeys the soldier’s order to bind the witch and have her hanged. Armed with the dwarf’s help and the witch’s gold, the soldier returns to town, lives in a fine inn, and sets the dwarf to abduct the king’s daughter at midnight so she will serve him while in a trance. The princess reports strange dreams; the king devises countermeasures (peas, then hiding a shoe) but the dwarf thwarts them until the shoe is found at the soldier’s home. The soldier is arrested and condemned to death. Before execution he smokes once more, summons the dwarf, and commands violence on the judge, the constable, and finally the king until the monarch begs mercy; the soldier demands the king’s kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage and is granted them.

Key events

1. Soldier seeks lodging at the witch’s house and performs tasks for her.
2. Witch betrays him while he retrieves the blue light from a well; he falls but keeps the light.
3. Smoking by the blue light summons a little black dwarf who serves the soldier and reveals the witch’s treasure.
4. The dwarf abducts the princess at night to make her serve; the king’s countermeasures fail until the shoe is found.
5. Soldier is arrested and sentenced to death; he summons the dwarf once more and the dwarf incapacitates the judge, constable, and king, securing the kingdom and the princess.

Analysis

The tale uses a simple rise-fall-rise structure: misfortune (dismissal), gain of uncanny power (the blue light and dwarf), abuse of that power (forcing the princess to serve), legal retribution (arrest and death sentence), and final reversal by supernatural force. Themes include power and its ethics: the soldier moves quickly from victim to aggressor, using magical coercion both against the witch and the royal family. The dwarf functions as an externalized agency of power—loyal, efficient, and amoral—so the story questions responsibility for actions done through magic. The witch occupies a stock role as treacherous hostess whose hoarded wealth becomes the soldier’s reward, linking greed, subterranean treasure, and punishment.

Narratively, the repeated night-visit episodes build a pattern of attempted countermeasures (peas, a hidden shoe) and clever subversion, showing the dwarf’s cunning. Symbolically the blue light itself is ambiguous: it is both life-saving (summons aid) and enabling of coercion. The soldier’s pipe and smoking become the ritual that activates the supernatural, tying ordinary objects to uncanny power. The tale ends with a pragmatic, if morally unsettling, settlement—political power is won through force—so the story explores how justice and social order can be overturned by private vengeance made absolute by magic.

Important quotes

“This shall be my last pleasure,' thought he, pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke.”

NarratorThe soldier uses his pipe by the blue light and thereby summons the little black manikin who will serve him.

“'Lord, what are your commands?'”

the little manThe dwarf appears and offers complete obedience to the soldier, establishing the power relationship that drives the plot.

“'Strike down to earth that false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has treated me so ill.'”

the soldierAt his execution, the soldier orders the dwarf to incapacitate the authorities and the king, forcing a final political reversal.

Characters in The Blue Light

• the soldier
• The Witch
• the little black manikin
• the witch
• the king
• the princess
• the landlord
• his comrade
• the judge
• the constable