The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories

In Short

This collection of inventive fairy tales follows remarkable children, cursed royals, and solitary seekers through landscapes where ordinary reality bends to spiritual truth. Across stories like "The Light Princess" and "The Golden Key," characters lose their physical gravity, confront predatory giants, and navigate subterranean caverns in search of love, redemption, and a mysterious homeland. George MacDonald blends playful wit with profound allegorical wonder, creating timeless stories that reveal how sacrifice, grief, and unyielding devotion ultimately restore the human soul.

The Story

The book presents distinct, imaginative journeys across Fairyland. In "The Light Princess," a king and queen long for a child, only to have their daughter cursed at her christening by the forgotten Princess Makemnoit. The baby is stripped of all physical weight and emotional gravity; she floats uncontrollably through the air and bursts into constant, unfeeling laughter. The kingdom's metaphysicians attempt absurd remedies, but the princess finds relief only in the local lake, where the water restores her weight and allows her to feel normal.

When a wandering prince arrives and falls in love with her, they swim together nightly. However, the bitter Princess Makemnoit schemes to destroy the lake by using a white snake to drain its waters into a vast underground cavern. To save the lake, a sacrifice is required: a man must willingly plug the draining hole with his body until the water rises over his head. The prince offers himself on the condition that the princess watch over him and feed him. As the water engulfs him, the princess realizes her love for him and desperately pulls his body free. She rowed him back to the palace, where she and her nurse tend to him. When he awakens at sunrise, the princess bursts into tears, regaining her true weight as a magical rain restores the filled lake.

In another tale, two children, Tricksey-Wee and Buffy-Bob, wander into the woods and are trapped by a giant named Thunderthump and his wife. The giant keeps a row of fattened boys before his fire, intending to pickle or eat them. The children escape into a broom, evade the giant, and set out to defeat him. Guided by an owl, a singing nightingale, and a cooperative spider, they learn that the giant's heart is guarded by a she-eagle atop Mount Skycrack. With a special poison provided by the spider, they set out to subdue the heart and break the giant's terror over children.

In "The Golden Key," a young boy named Mossy learns of a golden key hidden where the rainbow touches the earth. Setting out into the borders of Fairyland, he finds the key in a forest of red tree trunks. Meanwhile, a girl named Tangle escapes neglectful servants and finds a mysterious, ancient woman called Grandmother, who lives in a cottage with a boiling pot and air-fishes. Mossy meets Tangle at the cottage, and together they set out into the wild to find the keyhole that fits Mossy’s golden key.

Separated in a sea of shadows, Tangle is guided through mountains by a transformed air-fish called an aeranth. She meets the Old Men of the Earth and Sea, enduring intense thermal heat that transforms her into a creature of wisdom and beauty. Reunited in a mossy cave near the heart of the earth, Mossy and Tangle find the hidden lock within a column of light. Mossy turns the golden key, and together they ascend a winding staircase inside the rainbow toward the country whence all shadows fall.

How It Unfolds

A cursed cradle A long-childless king and queen welcome a daughter, but their joy is marred when the king forgets to invite his bitter sister, Princess Makemnoit, to the christening. In revenge, the aunt curses the child to lose all physical weight and emotional seriousness.

Floating and floating The young princess drifts uncontrollably through the air and laughs at every calamity, prompting her father to consult absurd metaphysicians who suggest burying her alive or forcing her to cry. She discovers her only physical relief and dignity while swimming in the palace lake.

The sacrifice at the plug A visiting prince falls in love with the floating princess while swimming with her, but the vengeful aunt uses a giant white snake to drain the lake dry. The prince offers to plug the lake’s drain hole with his body, demanding only that the princess stay beside him until he drowns.

Tears and gravity restored As the water covers the prince, the princess experiences love and fear for the first time, dragging his unconscious body to shore and tending him until dawn. When he wakes, her passionate tears break the curse, bringing a glorious rain that fills the lake and restores her weight.

Escaping the giant's kitchen In a separate adventure, Tricksey-Wee and Buffy-Bob hide inside a broom to escape the cannibalistic giant Thunderthump. Guided by creatures of the forest, they seek out the giant's heart atop Mount Skycrack to save other children.

The spider's poison A wise spider and his companions give the children a bag of toxic spider-juice and guide them toward the she-eagle's nest. They plan to drop the poison on the giant's giant heart to strip him of his power.

Finding the golden key A boy named Mossy searches the borders of Fairyland and discovers a radiant golden key at the base of a rainbow. He travels into the woods, driven by a deep desire to discover what lock the key is meant to open.

Tangle and the grandmother A young girl named Tangle flees into the woods and finds the cottage of a thousands-year-old Grandmother who feeds her and teaches her about the world. Mossy arrives at the same cottage, and the Grandmother sends the two children out into the wilderness together.

Trial through heat and shadow Separated in a land of shifting shadows, Tangle is guided by a winged aeranth through deep mountain caves and fiery underground passages. She meets ancient guardians who strip away her mortality and impart the deep secrets of the earth.

Ascending the rainbow Reunited in a central cavern as wiser, ageless beings, Mossy and Tangle locate the sapphire-encrusted keyhole within a pillar of light. The key opens a winding staircase inside the rainbow, allowing them to ascend together into the heavenly country above.

The People

• The Light Princess longs for weight and freedom, yet her curse keeps her floating uselessly in the air and laughing at every sorrow. Her light-headed detachment stands in the way of true connection until the threat of losing the prince forces her to feel deep love and grief, ultimately restoring her physical and emotional gravity.
• The Prince desires the love of the light princess and seeks to serve her unconditionally. Facing the loss of her lake, he willingly sacrifices his life by plugging the drain with his body, a selflessness that finally awakens the princess's heart.
• Princess Makemnoit wants vengeance against her royal brother for omitting her from the christening invitation. She uses dark magic, a subterranean cave, and a giant white snake to drain the lake, acting as an unyielding force of spite.
• Tricksey-Wee and Buffy-Bob want to survive the perilous woods and protect other children from being eaten by giants. Guided by birds and spiders, they venture to Mount Skycrack to poison the giant's hidden heart.
• Mossy wants to find the keyhole that fits his golden key. He travels through the unknown, enduring long separation and aging until he fulfills his destiny at the rainbow's door.
• Tangle begins as a neglected, untidy child who seeks safety. Through her journey with Grandmother, the aeranth, and the subterranean Old Men, she undergoes severe trials by fire and water, emerging as a wise, beautiful woman who understands the secret of the earth.

In Its Own Voice

When the king attempts to quarrel with his grieving wife over their weightless daughter, the queen responds with prophetic foresight regarding their child's peculiar nature:

"'It is a bad thing to be light-headed,' answered the queen, looking with prophetic soul far into the future."

Deep in the subterranean darkness beneath the lake, the bitter witch prepares her snake to drain the kingdom's precious water supply:

"Then she took the keys and went down to her cellar; and as she unlocked the door she said to herself, 'This is worth living for!'"

After undergoing a painful, fiery descent through the subterranean depths, Tangle arrives in a mossy cave where the true nature of creation is suddenly revealed to her:

"Everything she had seen, or learned from books; all that her grandmother had said or sung to her; all the talk of the beasts, birds, and fishes; all that had happened to her on her journey with Mossy, and since then in the heart of the earth with the Old man and the Older man--all was plain: she understood it all, and saw that everything meant the same thing, though she could not have put it into words again."

What It's Really About

The stories explore how genuine maturity requires emotional weight, sacrifice, and the willingness to endure pain. The Light Princess cannot truly live or love so long as she remains exempt from sorrow; her physical levity reflects a spiritual emptiness that only self-sacrificing love and tears can cure. Similarly, in "The Golden Key," the journey through Fairyland represents the soul's long, transformative pilgrimage toward divine truth. The characters must lose their childhood innocence, endure heat, isolation, and physical death to gain true wisdom. MacDonald argues that suffering and joy are inextricably linked, and that mortal life is merely a shadow of a higher, eternal reality.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate deep, mythic fantasy, rich symbolism, and classic fairy tales will find this collection captivating. MacDonald's writing offers a rare blend of witty, lighthearted banter—such as the bickering royal parents and satirical metaphysicians—and profoundly haunting allegories of spiritual growth. The stories feel less like simple bedtime tales and more like luminous, dreamlike journeys where every creature, stream, and rainbow carries symbolic importance.

Modern readers should be prepared for Victorian narrative mannerisms, including deliberate puns, archaic phrasing, and abrupt shifts into moral reflection. The stories do not follow standard modern pacing; characters spend long stretches wandering through mysterious landscapes or engaging in philosophical conversations with owls, spiders, and ancient figures. Yet these eccentricities give the work its unique atmosphere. What remains with you long after reading is the striking visual imagery: a princess floating like a balloon above her chair, a giant snake winding beneath a lake's rocky floor, and two travelers climbing a crystalline staircase inside a rainbow toward a country beyond shadows.