RED CANDLE

A red candle burns the same as a plain one and lights the same block once placed, but the colour is what a build usually wants it for, matching brickwork, redstone contraptions, or anything else already leaning that way. The Librarian sells one for 3 emeralds once he has reached master.

A crafting grid makes the same item from a plain candle and red dye, so the trade is only worth taking when a run through the wax and the dye is more trouble than the emeralds. It never appears on the buying side of a villager's window, only the selling one.

One seller, one price: the Librarian at master asks 3 emeralds for 1 candle, and that figure is set directly in the trade file rather than rolled, so a second Librarian at the same tier charges the exact same amount.

Nothing buys a red candle back off you, and the offer itself locks after 12 uses before the villager needs to walk back to his lectern to restock.

Red Candle sells for as little as 3 emeralds, from the Librarian at the Master tier, and 2 of the other 6 cost less. The price is fixed rather than rolled, so a second Librarian will quote you exactly the same.

The Librarian at its master tier asks 3 emeralds for a red candle. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

3 diamonds against 72 paper for the same 3 emeralds, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 1.9 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

Every red candle offer locks after 12 uses, and with two restocks allowed per Minecraft day, one Librarian is good for 24 of these trades a day and no more.

It sits at master, level 5 of five, which a villager reaches at 250 trade experience, the last tier a Librarian has. A freshly employed one has the whole climb ahead of him before red candle shows up on his shelf at all.

Every earlier trade he completes pays experience toward that same climb.

12 candles empty one slot, over in as long as it takes to click. The restock is where real time goes: the game holds the offer for 2 real minutes before the villager can refill, and a Minecraft day of 20 real minutes only fits two of those windows.

One Librarian therefore caps out at 24 red candles for 72 emeralds across a 20-minute day, then goes quiet until the next one starts.

Clearing the shelf costs 36 emeralds: 12 candles at 3 emeralds each before the Librarian needs to restock.

Where the emeralds come from: the same Librarian pays an emerald per 2 book and quills, which is worth stocking ahead of a lectern trip since the ingredients keep.

Also on the Librarian's list: paper, bookshelf, enchanted book, book, lantern, and ink sac.

A candle starts as string and honeycomb, which puts a beehive rather than a mine behind it, and the dye is applied to the finished candle rather than to the wax. That is why every colour costs the same and why the trade for one colour tells you the price of all sixteen.

Light is the reason to place one. A single lit candle is a dim source, and up to four of them stack in the same block, each one adding to the glow, so a cluster reads as a proper light without the hard shine of a torch. A candle on top of a cake is the one case where the block does something other than light a room.

The wax in a candle is honeycomb, and honeycomb means bees: a hive with shears, and shears used without a campfire underneath means an angry hive. That is the part of the recipe that costs something, and the string is whatever a spider left behind.

Honeycomb has a second job worth knowing about. Rubbed on copper it stops the copper from oxidising, which freezes a colour in place, so the same material that lights a room also decides what shade a copper roof stays.

A candle can be waterlogged and keeps burning, which is the trick behind an underwater lamp that does not need a conduit or a sea pickle.