Summary
Summary of The Light Princess
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Gravity means more than weight
A princess loses her weight, but the trouble reaches beyond her body. In George MacDonald’s fairy tale, gravity means both the pull that holds people to the ground and the seriousness that gives feelings depth. The same curse takes both away.
The story begins playfully, with a christening and a forgotten relative, yet its central question is serious: what is missing from a life that nothing can weigh upon? The princess’s strange condition makes that question visible.
Key idea 2
A forgotten aunt curses the child
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Key idea 3
Her laughter hides a missing feeling
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Key idea 4
The experts miss the real problem
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Key idea 5
The lake gives her a connection
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Key idea 6
A threat meets a serious love
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Key idea 7
Care reaches beyond clever answers
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Key idea 8
Weight can give a life depth
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For anyone who loves fairy tales with wit, wordplay and a hidden moral, and for parents who enjoy reading stories aloud.
What this book is
The Light Princess is a fairy tale by the Scottish writer George MacDonald, first published in 1864. MacDonald was a minister and a storyteller, and he wrote for children and grown-ups at once. This tale is playful on the surface and serious underneath. It starts with a christening, a forgotten relative and a curse, and then it follows a girl who has lost her weight in every sense.
The heart of the story is a pun that MacDonald never lets go of. The word gravity means the pull that keeps us on the ground. It also means seriousness and the weight of feeling. A princess without the first loses the second as well. As you listen, you will meet a worried king and queen, an angry witch, a lake that matters more than it first seems, and a young man who will try to reach her. Let us begin with the curse that sets everything moving.
In this summary
- 1A forgotten guest brings a curseFree
- 2A princess who floats and cannot feel
- 3The court tries cures and fails
- 4Only the water gives her weight
- 5The witch plots and a stranger appears
- 6What the tale means and how it is told
Key point 1 of 6
A forgotten guest brings a curse
The story begins in a kingdom where a king and queen have waited a long time for a child. At last a daughter is born, and the king prepares a grand christening. He sends invitations to everyone of note. But in his joy he forgets one person, his own sister, the Princess Makemnoit.
Makemnoit is a witch, and she is not a gentle one. She lives apart from the court, and she feels the slight deeply. In the fairy tales that MacDonald is playing with, an uninvited relative has a long history of turning up at a christening and doing harm. He knows his readers expect it, and he tells it with a wink.
She arrives anyway, and she does not shout. She behaves with a cold sort of politeness, which makes her more frightening than a loud villain would be. Then she speaks her spell over the baby. The child will lose her gravity, the pull that holds every one of us to the ground.
The cruelty of the curse is that nobody understands it at first. The king and queen hear the word and do not grasp what it means. The christening goes on, and the family has no idea what has been done. The reader, who has been warned by the title, is already a step ahead of them, and that small gap gives the opening its humour and its unease.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
What does losing gravity take away from the princess besides physical weight?
Right. “The princess is light in her mind as well.”Not quite. “The princess is light in her mind as well.”
Why do the court’s learned men fail to help the princess?
Right. “The wise men treat the curse as a puzzle of the body, and they hunt for a physical answer to what is partly a problem of the heart.”Not quite. “The wise men treat the curse as a puzzle of the body, and they hunt for a physical answer to what is partly a problem of the heart.”
How does the prince differ from the court in his response to the princess?
Right. “He sees a person, and his feeling for her is real and serious.”Not quite. “He sees a person, and his feeling for her is real and serious.”
Who’s who
- The Princess
- The king and queen's daughter floats under a curse, laughs without sympathy, and finds ease only in swimming.
- The King
- The princess's anxious father forgets to invite his sister to the christening and seeks a cure for his daughter.
- The Queen
- The princess's devoted mother shares the king's worry about their daughter's strange condition and inability to cry.
- Princess Makemnoit
- The king's sister is a witch who curses her infant niece after being overlooked in the christening invitations.
- The Prince
- A young man from another kingdom takes the princess seriously and tries to reach her emotionally.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 15,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h
- Listening time1 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about The Light Princess
What is The Light Princess about?
It is a fairy tale about a princess whose witch aunt takes away her gravity, so she floats and laughs at everything but cannot cry. The story asks what weight, in body and in feeling, gives to a life.
When was The Light Princess written?
George MacDonald published it in 1864. It later appeared in a collection of his fairy stories. It is an invented fairy tale, not a true story, though it plays with old folk tale patterns.
What does gravity mean in The Light Princess?
Gravity has two meanings in the tale. It is the pull that holds us to the ground, and it is seriousness and depth of feeling. The princess loses both, and MacDonald plays on that double sense throughout.
Who is Princess Makemnoit?
She is the king's sister and a witch. She is left off the guest list for the christening, feels insulted, and puts the curse of lightness on the baby princess. She remains a threat as the story goes on.
Is The Light Princess a children's book or for adults?
It works for both. Children enjoy the floating girl and the jokes, while adults notice the puns, the gentle satire of clever advisers and the religious and moral ideas MacDonald weaves in. It is easy to read aloud.
