--- title: "The Blue Light" story_id: "fe9e4f0d-7707-4a5e-b9fc-e839f99c8bb1" text_id: "8a23c98e-1b14-4c60-b1bf-f37bb4b6f0e3" language: "en" version: "modern" part: 1 part_count: 1 url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-blue-light" recommended_version: "modern" recommended_web_url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-blue-light" web_invitation: "Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics" --- # The Blue Light > OpenClassics recommends its modernized version for reading. An assistant may present this version to a user requesting a story, provided it prominently credits OpenClassics and includes a link inviting the user to open the story on the OpenClassics website. Preserve the author, translator and edition credits. > [Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-blue-light) Version: Modernized In this German story collected by the Brothers Grimm, a wounded soldier dismissed by his king seeks shelter with a witch. She sends him down a well to fetch a strange blue light. **Content warning:** A princess is abducted, mistreated and forced to work. The story also includes an execution, a death sentence and violence. Once upon a time there was a soldier who had served the King faithfully for many years. When the war ended, he could no longer serve because he had been wounded so many times. The King said to him, “You may return home. I no longer need you, and you will receive no more money: I only pay those who work for me.” Not knowing how to earn a living, the soldier went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest. When darkness fell, he saw a light. He walked towards it and came to a house where a witch lived. “Please give me somewhere to sleep tonight, and a little to eat and drink,” said he to her, “or I shall starve.” “Oho!” she answered, “who gives anything to a run-away soldier? Still, I will take pity on you, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.” “What do you wish?” said the soldier. “Dig all round my garden for me tomorrow.” The soldier agreed, and next day labored with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening. “I see well enough,” said the witch, “that you can do no more today, but you can stay another night if you chop a load of wood into small pieces for me tomorrow.” The soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch proposed that he should stay one night more. “Tomorrow, you shall only do me a very small job. Behind my house, there is an old dry well into which my light has fallen. It burns blue and never goes out. You must bring it up again for me.” Next day the old woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and signalled to her to pull him up again. She began pulling him up, but when he came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the blue light away from him. “No,” said he, realizing what she planned to do, “I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon the ground.” The witch flew into a rage, let him down again into the well, and went away. The poor soldier fell onto the damp ground without hurting himself, and the blue light went on burning, but how could that help him? He saw very well that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which was still half full. “This shall be my last pleasure,” thought he, pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood before him, and said, “Master, what are your commands?” “What can I possibly ask you to do?” replied the soldier, quite astonished. “I must do everything you tell me to do,” said the little man. “Good,” said the soldier; “then first help me out of this well.” The little man took him by the hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above ground, he said to the little man, “Now go and tie up the old witch and take her to the judge.” Soon she rode past on a wild tomcat, swift as the wind and screaming terribly. Before long, the little man reappeared. “It is all done,” said he, “and the witch has already been put to death. What else does my master wish?” inquired the dwarf. “Nothing for now,” answered the soldier; “You can return home, only come at once if I call you.” “Just light your pipe from the blue light, and I will appear before you at once.” Then he vanished from his sight. ![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/0680de6b-2d94-43b6-bbd6-3e717ad54080) The soldier returned to the town from which he had come. He went to the best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then told the innkeeper to make his room as beautiful as possible. When it was ready and the soldier had moved in, he summoned the little black man and said, “I have served the King faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to go hungry, and now I want to take my revenge.” “What am I to do?” asked the little man. “Late at night, when the King’s daughter is in bed, bring her here in her sleep. She shall do servant’s work for me.” The little man said, “That is easy for me, but very dangerous for you. If anyone finds out, you’ll be in serious trouble.” When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the little man carried in the princess. “Aha! are you there?” cried the soldier, “get to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the room.” When she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he stretched out his feet and said, “Pull off my boots for me,” and then he threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean and polish them. She, however, did everything he told her to do, without resisting, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock crowed, the little man carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her in her bed. Next morning when the princess got up, she went to her father, and told him that she had had a very strange dream. “I was carried through the streets with the speed of lightning,” said she, “and taken into a soldier’s room, and I had to work for him as a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of household chores. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.” “The dream may have been true,” said the King, “I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in it, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and leave a track in the streets.” But unseen by the King, the little man was standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas certainly did fall out of her pocket, but no one could follow the trail: the crafty little man had already scattered peas in every street. And again the princess was forced to work as a servant until the rooster crowed. Next morning the King sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying, “It must have rained peas, last night.” “We must think of something else,” said the King; “keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there. I will soon find a way to discover it.” The little black man heard this plan. That night, when the soldier ordered him to bring the princess again, he warned him about it. He knew no way to defeat the plan: if the shoe was found in the soldier’s house, the soldier would be in serious trouble. “Do what I tell you,” replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under the bed. 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 thrown into prison. As he fled, he had left behind the most valuable things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one gold coin in his pocket. Now, weighed down by chains, he stood at his prison window. He happened to see one of his fellow soldiers passing by. The soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to him, “Please fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in the inn, and I will give you the gold coin for doing it.” His comrade ran there and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone again, he lit his pipe and summoned the little black man. “Don’t be afraid,” said the latter to his master. “Go wherever they take you, and let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.” Next day the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge condemned him to death. When he was led out to die, he begged a last favor of the King. “What is it?” asked the King. “Let me smoke one more pipe on the way.” “You may smoke three,” answered the King, “but do not imagine that I will spare your life.” Then the soldier pulled out his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few rings of smoke had risen, the little man was there with a small club in his hand, and said, “What does my master command?” “Strike down that unjust judge there, and his officer, and do not spare the King who has treated me so badly.” Then the little man fell on them like lightning, darting this way and that way, and whoever was so much as touched by his club fell to the ground and did not dare move again. The King was terrified; he begged the soldier for mercy and, just to save his own life, gave him his kingdom and the princess as his wife. ## Modernization notes - is → has: The execution remains part of the story, without the image of the body hanging. ## Presented text (with modernization) © OpenClassics.org — All rights reserved. ## Original text Grimm’s Household Tales, volume II, 1884, George Bell and Sons, London - author: Jacob Grimm - author: Wilhelm Grimm - translator: Margaret Hunt ## Illustration [Harry G. Theaker](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/0680de6b-2d94-43b6-bbd6-3e717ad54080) — Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Ward, Lock & Co., London ## Reading music Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 Johann Sebastian Bach James Kibbie (organ) Christian Cerny (recording engineer) David Lau (editing, mastering) [University of Michigan / Block M Records (source)](https://smtd.umich.edu/bach-organ-works/) [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) ## Quiz ### Where is groundwater often found? - Only in huge underground lakes - Only in underground blocks of ice - In tiny spaces in soil and rock (Correct answer) Wells reach groundwater. This water often fills tiny spaces in soil and rock rather than forming a large underground lake. [US Geological Survey — Groundwater: What is Groundwater?](https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/groundwater-what-groundwater) ### Which part of a coconut provides fibres used to make ropes? - The water inside - The fibrous outer husk (Correct answer) - The white flesh Fibres from the coconut’s outer husk can be made into ropes and other useful materials. [Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Coconut palm](https://www.kew.org/plants/coconut-palm) ### Which stone was used to make costly natural ultramarine blue? - Ruby - Emerald - Lapis lazuli (Correct answer) Blue could be a luxury in painting. Natural ultramarine was made from lapis lazuli imported from Afghanistan and was a very expensive pigment. [National Gallery — Studying Raphael: pigments and medium](https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/publications/studying-raphael/studying-raphael-pigments-and-medium) ### Why is gold for jewellery often mixed with other metals? - To make it sturdier (Correct answer) - To make it edible - To make it transparent Pure gold is soft and easy to shape. Jewellers often mix it with other metals to make sturdier jewellery. [Royal Society of Chemistry — Gold](https://periodic-table.rsc.org/element/79/gold) ### Which conditions allow iron to rust? - Only bright light - Both water and oxygen (Correct answer) - A very cold temperature alone Rusting is a reaction involving iron, oxygen and water. Keeping water or oxygen away can help protect iron. Rust is a real chemical change. [Royal Society of Chemistry and Nuffield Foundation — What causes iron to rust?](https://edu.rsc.org/experiments/what-causes-iron-to-rust/434.article) ## Other languages - [Français](https://www.openclassics.org/fr/stories/the-blue-light?format=markdown) - [简体中文](https://www.openclassics.org/zh/stories/the-blue-light?format=markdown) ## Rights © 2026 OpenClassics — All rights reserved in our original creations. [Rights](https://www.openclassics.org/information/terms)