The blue stones come to represent an aspect of being that lies outside of

human control.  A part of the "Peter and Rosa" story, the allegorical
meaning of the blue stones embodies a force outside of human control.
The skipper's wife is shown to be consumed with wanting to appropriate
the world in accordance to her own subjectivity.  Her sense of self cannot
be reconciled with the idea that the skipper's boat might pull his attention
more than her own presence: "But his wife was jealous of the ship. 'You
think more of the figurehead than of me,' she said to him."  The skipper's
wife operates under this premise.  At the same time, the blue stones are
revealed to contain elements that lie outside of human control and
appropriation.  Dinesen's depiction reflects this in a distinct manner:“You
had better give me the stones for a pair of earrings,” said she. “No,” he
said again, “I cannot  do that, and you would not ask me to if you
understood.”  The depiction of the "precious" nature of the stones lies
outside the realm of human appropriation.  It makes sense that both the
husband and wife end up suffering from a lack of vision in accordance to
the wife's desire to assume control of the stones. She loses sight and his
boat runs aground.

The stones end up acquiring the greatest amount of symbolism in

the allegory.  The skipper sees the stones as a way to communicate the
beauty of his wife's eyes:  "As they parted the King gave him two big
blue, precious stones, and these he had set into the face of his
figurehead, like a pair of eyes to it. When he came home he told his wife
of his adventure, and said: 'Now she has your blue eyes too.”  This is
one layer of symbolism to the blue stones.  Another symbolic aspect of
the blue stones would be to represent the element of the world that
exists beyond human control.  The skipper echoes this to an extent in
how he uses the stones as "eyes" for his boat.  Finally, the stones end
up symbolizing the wife's jealousy.  Her desire to appropriate the world in
accordance to her own subjectivity causes her to "blind" the vessel and
bring about her own condition of blindness. In this symbolism, the world
outside of the "precious" stones that lies outside the individual's control
ends up causing harm to individuals driven by their own ambition and
desire to appropriate the world in accordance to their own subjectivity.