| The Twelve Dancing Princesses | |
|---|---|
| Children's Theatre performance in Maine 1942 | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name: | The Twelve Dancing Princesses |
| Data | |
| Aarne-Thompson Grouping: | 306 |
| Country: | Germany |
| Region: | Münster |
| Published in: | Kinder- und Hausmärchen |
| Related: | Kate Crackernuts |
"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" (or "The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes" or "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces") is a German fairy tale originally published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 in Kinder- und Hausmärchen as tale number 133. Its closest analogue is the Scottish Kate Crackernuts, where it is a prince who is obliged to dance every night.
Charles Deulin collected another, French version in his Contes du Roi Cambinus (1874), which he credited to the Grimm version.[1] Alexander Afanasyev collected a Russian variant, "The Secret Ball", in Narodnye russkie skazki.It was retold in Walter de la Mare's Told Again and Tales Told Again and in Robin McKinley's The Door in the Hedge.
Contents |
Twelve princesses, each more beautiful than the last, sleep in twelve beds in the same room; every night their doors are securely locked, but in the morning their shoes are found to be worn through as if they had been dancing all night. The king, perplexed, promises his kingdom and a daughter to any man who can discover the princesses' secret within three days and three nights, but those who fail within the set time limit will be put to death.
An old soldier returned from war comes to the king's call after several princes have failed in the endeavour. Whilst traveling through a wood he comes upon an old woman, who gives him an invisibility cloak and tells him not to eat or drink anything given to him in the evening by any of the princesses and to pretend to be fast asleep until after they leave.
The soldier is well received at the palace just as the others had been and indeed, in the evening, the eldest princess comes to his chamber and offers him a cup of wine. The soldier, remembering the old woman's advice, throws it away secretly and begins to snore very loudly as if asleep.
The princesses, sure that the soldier is asleep, dress themselves in fine clothes and escape from their room by a trap door in the floor. The soldier, seeing this, dons his invisibility cloak and follows them. He steps on the gown of the youngest princess, whose cry of alarm to her sisters is rebuffed by the eldest. The passageway leads them to three groves of trees; the first having leaves of silver, the second of gold, and the third of diamonds. The soldier, wishing for a token, breaks off a twig of each as evidence. They walk on until they come upon a great lake. Twelve boats with twelve princes are waiting. Each princess gets into one, and the soldier steps into the same boat as the youngest. The young prince in the boat rows slowly, unaware that the soldier is causing the boat to be heavy. The youngest princess complains that the prince is not rowing fast enough, not knowing the soldier is in the boat. On the other side of the lake stands a castle, into which all the princesses go and dance the night away.
The princesses dance until their shoes are worn through and they are obliged to leave. This strange adventure continues on the second and third nights, and everything happens just as before, except that on the third night the soldier carries away a golden cup as a token of where he has been. When it comes time for him to declare the princesses' secret, he goes before the king with the three branches and the golden cup, and tells the king all he has seen. The princesses know that there is no use in denying the truth, and confess. The soldier chooses the eldest princess as his bride for he is not a very young man, and is made the king's heir.
The Brothers Grimm learned the tale from their friends the Hauxhausens who had heard the tale in Munster. Other versions were known in Hesse and Paderborn. In the Hesse version, only one princess is believed to be responsible for wearing out a dozen shoes every night until a young shoemaker's apprentice discovers that she is joined by eleven other princesses in the revels. The spell is broken, and the apprentice marries the princess. In the Paderborn version, it is three princesses who dance nightly. This version introduces the ruse of the soldier disposing of the drugged wine and pretending to be asleep.[2]
Victorian editors disliked the "do or die" aspect imposed upon those willing to discover the Princessess' whereabouts, and found ways to avoid it. The candidates who failed simply vanished without explanation instead of being sent to their deaths. The garden of trees with gold, silver, and diamond leaves recalls a similar garden in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh.[2]
The tale is not likely to be earlier than the 17th century, and, though many variants are known, their distribution is not wide, but confined to Central Europe. The tale is barely known in France and is not found east of Russia. In the British Isles, its closest equivalent is the Scottish tale "Kate Crackernuts". Kate rescues a prince who is forced by the fairies to dance night after night until he becomes exhausted and ill.[2]
Jeanette Winterson varies and adds to this tale in Sexing the Cherry, in which the old soldier is a prince with 11 brothers, each of which marries a sister except the youngest, who escapes before her wedding to the prince.
Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, in which Barbie plays the role of the 7th sister, Genevieve. The plot was changed extensively. The twelve princesses visit a magic garden to dance by themselves, and they are only able to go there three times. Meanwhile, a cousin, brought in by the king to supervise their upbringing, is plotting to kill the king, and attempts to trap the princesses in their dancing garden. The hero is not an old soldier, but a cobbler who has been making their dancing shoes, and who follows them to their garden to warn them of their cousin's plot. He marries the 7th sister, Genevieve.
It was a storybook and cassette in the Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale series except that the soldier marries the youngest daughter because of her kind nature.
Entwined by Heather Dixon is another retelling of this story. After their mother passes away the 12 princesses are forced into a year of mourning. To get away from everything the girls go down a magic passage inside the castle to dance the night away with the Keeper. He understands how that they feel trapped in the castle...he feels the same way. But coming down to Keeper will cost the girls a price. Much worse than they think.
In 1978, a made-for-TV telling of the story was directed by Ben Rea, featuring Jim Dale, Freddie Jones, and Gloria Grahame. Significant changes were made to the story.
This version of the tale has not aired in years and, to date, has not been released on video.
Patricia A. McKillip wrote an adaptation for the anthology A Wolf at the Door. It is largely similar to the original fairy tale, with a few variations—the most significant being that the princes the princesses were spending their nights dancing with were actually dead, and planning to take the princesses away from the mortal world forever the night after the soldier reveals what the princesses were doing.
The children's television show, Super Why!, included an episode called "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" (Season 1. Episode 21, April 7, 2008) In this adaptation, the king asks the Super Readers to find out where his daughters are disappearing to each night. When their secret is discovered, the princesses confess to the Super Readers that they have been planning a surprise party for their father, which everyone gets to attend.
Nancy Madore's erotic novel The Twelve Dancing Princesses focuses on twelve princesses who are already married to twelve princes. Unlike the original fairy tale, the dancing is only done in their dreams (although somehow the shoes still wear out in reality). A wizard determines that the dancing is due to the discontent in each of the princesses sex lives. And when the problem is solved, the dancing stops. The problems include common issues like the husband neglecting the wife's desires, the wife's feelings of self-consciousness, fear that religious beliefs prevent the enjoyment of sex, etc.
Suzanne Weyn's novel The Night Dance retells the story, intertwining it with Arthurian legend. Here the princesses are not princesses but daughters to Vivienne, better known as the Lady of the Lake, who bore twelve daughters to her mortal husband before becoming imprisoned in a frozen lake. Sometime later, Vivienne's enemy, the wicked sorceress Morgan, sets up an enchantment that will force the sisters to dance each night away at a subterranean palace. Meanwhile, the youngest, Rowena, keeps having visions of a knight: Sir Bedivere, last survivor of the Round Table. The knight arrives in time to save them all from the curse and everyone lives happily ever after, Vivienne included.
Juliet Marillier's novel Wildwood Dancing gives a retelling set in Transylvania, mixed with traditional Transylvanian folk tales. The underground kingdom they dance in is the fairy kingdom, to which they have gained entrance by the grace of the Witch of the Wood. There are only five sisters; the eldest falls in love with a man bewitched and trapped there along with his sister as a child, and the narrator, her sister, has to learn to let others live their own lives as well as trust in true love. The storyline with the princes is almost entirely altered.
Jessica Day George's novel, Princess of the Midnight Ball, is a retelling with the twist that the princesses are cursed to dance every night for an evil sorcerer, the King Under Stone. The main character, Galen, returns home from a war to work in the king's gardens, and falls in love with the eldest princess, Rose. He must use his soldierly wits and skills in knitting to rescue the princesses from their curse. This adaptation is fairly close to the original fairy tale, with some changes:
"The Thirteenth Princess," a novel by Diane Zahler, retells the story from the youngest princess, Zita. Born after the first twelve princesses, she is forced to work in the kitchens as punishment for not being the son her father wanted. When her elder sisters, however, take ill and mysteriously wear out their dancing slippers each night, it is up to Zita, her friend Breckin, his brother Milek, and the kindly witch Babette to solve the mystery.
The television series Faerie Tale Theatre had an episode entitled "The Dancing Princesses". There were six princesses as opposed to twelve, but otherwise the story remains the same.
The anime series Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, features a twist within the story (with the princesses being reduced to 3). It turns out demons live within the magical place and have placed a spell on the fair maidens before the soldier realizes the truth and rescues them. He marries the eldest daughter.
The musical Metaphasia is a "radically updated retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses" by Paul Collette, Gary Fritzen and Robert Wright. The princesses in this retelling are all of different characteristics and descent (for example, there is a New York princess, ballerina princess, and Asian princess).
There is also a modern day version, Midnight dancers.