The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Cultural origins: This story has traveled all over the world and its origins are controversial. The version laid out here is the told by Grimm where the boy marries the oldest daughter as opposed to the French version where he marries the youngest daughter. Many picture books have teased out the relationship between the boy and the youngest daughter to great effect, having the oldest sister try to trick the boy into drinking a poisoned cup in the enchanted castle dooming him there for all eternity. In those variants, the youngest princess realizes her love for the boy regardless of his lack of wealth and title and swipes the cup from his hand, saving him and sealing their fate. The story told below is one where the oldest daughter is running the show and the youngest daughter is the worry-wart that wants to ruin everyone's fun. 

Intended audience: Middle School Students (11-13)

Why this audience?: This story has dark elements, while still retaining the fairy tale features that secretly appeal to middle school students. It is too mature for an elementary audience, but is capable of lighting the imagination of late elementary to middle school tweens.

Characters:   The Oldest Sister

                        The Youngest Sister

                        The King

                        The Old Woman

                        The Soldier/ Michael

Scenes/Settings: The Countryside, The Castle, The Bedroom of the 12 Princesses, The 3 Enchanted Forests of the Underworld (silver, gold, diamond) and the Underworld Castle surrounded by a lake.

Synopsis: A weary soldier, tired of war, is wandering in the woods when he encounters an old woman begging for food. He shares his food with her and in return she offers him the chance to make his fortune by winning the hand of one of the 12 princesses in the neighboring kingdom who are rumored to be under a spell. Every morning their father discovers that their shoes are danced to pieces even though he has kept their room locked all night. Every morning the new shoes are worn to pieces and the King is so frustrated he offers his kingdom and his daughter’s hand to any man who can discover where the princesses go every night. The old woman gives him a cloak of invisibility so he can accomplish this task as well as the most important piece of advice: do not drink anything in the castle.

            Michael sets off to the castle to seek his fortune and discovers to his horror that all the men who have tried to discover the princesses secret before him have vanished within the princesses’ chamber. He pretends to drink from the cup offered to him by the oldest princess and succeeds in fooling them, then follows them through under the oldest sisters bed into an enchanted underworld with 3 forests (silver, gold and diamond). Michael almost get caught following them when he trips on the youngest sister’s dress and when he is gathering evidence of the forests for the king and the youngest sister hears the crack. At the edge of the forest is a black lake with 12 boats along with 12 handsome men entirely dressed in black. Michael takes one last piece of evidence from the palace, the princesses’ final destination: a goblet. He then rides back, invisible, with the princesses and awaits the King in the morning. The morning the King opens the door, Michael tells him of the Princesses secrets and offers the proof. As soon as the secret has left his lips the princesses’ bedroom floor crumble to pieces and buries the entrance to the enchanted world once and for all.

            The King offers Michael the hand of any daughter he wishes. He chooses the oldest daughter:" I have grown old in my years in battle and your oldest daughter is old enough for me."
             They return to the glen where Michael first met the old woman who gave him the cloak of invisibility and when they found that her hut was missing they asked around for the old woman who lived in the woods. The villagers had never heard of such a woman, nor any hut.

Story Climaxes/High Points: Michael reveals the secret of the underworld the princesses secretly visit every night and produces evidence (the goblet and the branch of diamonds). When he reveals there secret the floor of the bedroom suddenly crumbles, forever blocking anyone from entering the underworld ever again.

Special phrases: "12 Princesses, each more beautiful than the last."

                               Old woman: "One bite is a feast to those who have nothing."

                               "He decided he wanted a wife as clever as she was beautiful."

Bibliographic Information:

Carter, A. (1989). The Twelve Dancing Princesses. New York: J.B. Lippincott.

Heiner, H. A. (Ed.). (2010). SurLaLune Fairy Tale Series: Twelve Dancing Princesses; Tales From Around the World. S.I.: SurLaLune Press. 

Lang A. (1966). The Twelve Dancing Princesses.  In The Red Fairy Book (pp. 1-14). New York: Dover Publications. 

Mayer, M. (1989). The Twelve Dancing Princesses (K.Y. Craft, Illustrator). New York: Morrow Junior Books.

McKillip, P. A. (2000). The Twelve Dancing Princesses. In E. Datlow & T. Windling (Eds.), A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales (pp.150-165). New York: Simon & Schuster. 

McKinley, R. (1981). The Twelve Dancing Princesses. In The Door in the Hedge (pp. 137-216). New York: Greenwillow Books. 

Opie, P & I. (1974). The Twelve Dancing Princesses.  In The Classic Fairy Tales (pp. 248-252). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1823) 

Pullman, P. (2012). The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces. In Fairy  Tales from the Brothers Grimm; A New English Version (pp. 344-349). New York: Viking. 

Quiller-Couch, A.T. (1923). The Twelve Dancing Princesses.Twelve Dancing Princesses (pp. 117-150). New York: George H. Doran Company. 

Sanderson, R. (1990). The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Boston: Little Brown.