The Blue Light

The blue light is a fairy tale (ATU 562 ). It is in the Children's and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm in place 116 (KHM 116). A brave soldier is the title figure of this tale.

Hans Christian Andersen tells a different version of the story in The lighter. Among others, soldier, witch and forced to lower services princess same figures. In Grimm, a little man fulfills the wishes, at Andersen there are three grotesque dogs.

Content

A soldier becomes disabled and is disdainful of his king abdicated. He pulls away and comes in the woods to a witch's house. The witch asks him three tasks on two he fails, the third is to bring up her a blue light from a dry well. He is lowered, place the lamp, but is suspicious and wants to hand it only when he is on solid ground. The angry witch leaves him then crash with the light. When he desperately his pipe infects at the blue light, appears a small, black males and asks: " Lord, what You command " The soldier can get free, gain gold and burn the witch, then moves into the royal city and is three times at night the king's daughter to the room to bring in order to establish regular maid services him. Before dawn she brings the little man back each time. The third time, she directs the king on the track, the soldier is captured and led to the gallows. His last request (it must not beg for his life ) is there to be allowed to light a pipe. The male appears again, everything goes over well, and he gets the princess and the kingdom.

Origin and comparisons

Grimm's note quoted from the Mecklenburg. You suspect the root of the pipes motif in the flute, as in KHM 91 Dat Erdmänneken, the blue light is a wisp, which has to do with spirits and dwarfs. Albertus Magnus in Gorres master songs fetches the French princess and escapes through a magical ball of yarn, when the king and his daughter Paris white paint makes the hands appear in red color. Pröhle No. 11 and 67; Andersen The lighter; Gaal No. 1

For flute motif see KHM 28, 91, 96, 126, 181, to the fight against witches and kings KHM 71, 134

Others

The blue light is one of the 36 of 228 fairy tales from the collection of the Brothers Grimm, in which the death penalty was imposed.

Reception

  • The DEFA in East Germany in 1975 turned a feature film The Blue Light ( Director: Iris Gusner ) whose plot is based on the fairy tale.
  • Also in 1975 appeared in the children's series The Scarlet Spielmobil a two-part film adaptation with Frithjof Vierock in the lead role
  • There is a radio play The Blue Light by Franz Fühmann (director) and Reiner Brede Meyer (composition).
  • In the manufactured in 2000 animated series SimsalaGrimm that interprets the Grimm fairy tales new and witty, The Blue Light is the 19th episode.
  • 2010 originated in the German fairy tale film series Six in one fell swoop the television film The Blue Light with Christoph Letkowski as a soldier and Veronica Ferres as a witch.

Leni Riefenstahl's film The blue light is based on another story.

Aarne–Thompson classification system The Tinderbox The Singing Bone Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft Das feuerrote Spielmobil Reiner Bredemeyer The Blue Light (1932 film)
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