The Twelve Dancing Princesses

The tradition & historical record

"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" (also "The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes" or "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces"; German: Die zertanzten Schuhe) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1815 (KHM 133). It is of Aarne-Thompson type 306. Charles Deulin collected another, French version in his Contes du Roi Cambrinus (1874), which he credited to the Grimm version. Alexander Afanasyev collected two Russian variants, entitled "The Night Dances", in his Narodnye russkie skazki. Its closest analogue is the Scottish Kate Crackernuts, where it is a prince who is obliged to dance every night. ¹

The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, volume 2, in 1815. Their source was Jenny von Droste-Hülshoff. It was originally numbered 47 but appeared as KHM 133 in subsequent editions. ¹

In a kingdom lives a king and his twelve daughters. The twelve princesses sleep in twelve beds in the same bedroom, the doors to which their father locks every night. But every morning, the king unlocks his daughters' bedroom doors to find their shoes worn out as if they have been dancing all night. The king, perplexed, promises that any man who can solve the mystery can marry any of the twelve princesses and inherit the kingdom; each suitor, however, will be given only three days and three nights to discover the princesses' secret or he will be beheaded. Many princes attempt to discover where the twelve princesses dance every night, but all of them fail and are executed. An old soldier, returning from war, meets an old woman to whom he tells of his decision to try the king's challenge. The old woman warns the soldier to avoid drinking the wine the princesses will give him and to pretend to be fast asleep until they leave, and gives him an invisibility cloak that he can use to observe them. The soldier is well received at the palace and 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, secretly pours the wine into a sponge he has tied under his chin and lies on his bed, snoring loudly as if he were asleep. The twelve princesses, assured that the soldier is asleep, dress themselves in fine dancing gowns and escape from their room by a trapdoor beneath the eldest one's bed. The soldier, seeing this, puts on his invisibility cloak and follows them down a flight of stairs. He steps on the gown of the youngest princess, whose cry of alarm to her sisters is rebuffed by the eldest. ¹

The Brothers Grimm learned the tale from their friends, the Haxthausens, who had heard the tale in Münster. 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 in a palace escorted by three giants. This version introduces the ruse of the soldier disposing of the drugged wine and pretending to be asleep. ¹

Victorian editors disliked the "do or die" aspect imposed upon those willing to discover the Princesses' whereabouts, and found ways to avoid it. The candidates who failed simply vanished without explanation instead of being sent to their deaths. Andrew Lang's version has the questing princes vanish and it is revealed they have been enchanted and trapped in the underground world. The hero of Lang's version is a cowherd named Michael, who marries the youngest princess, Lina, not the eldest. Her sisters each marry one of the contestants once they are freed from the enchantment. The garden of trees with gold, silver, and diamond leaves recalls a similar garden in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. The Princesses in the Grimms' version are portrayed as somewhat malicious characters, showing no remorse for lying to their father, and repeatedly giving their suitors drugged wine to ensure that their mystery remains unsolved, knowing that those who fail are put to death. ¹

The tale is not likely to be earlier than the 17th century and many variants are known from different countries. ¹

Europe: Scotland – Katie Crackernuts or Katherine Crackernuts France – The Twelve Dancing Princesses Portugal – The Moorish Prince and the Christian Princess, The Seven Iron Slippers Germany – The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces, The Twelve Dancing Princesses Denmark – The Princess with the Twelve Pair of Golden Shoes Iceland – Hild, Queen of the Elves; Hildur the Fairy Queen; Hildur, the Queen of the Elves Czech Republic – The Three Girls Slovakia – The Three Girls Hungary – The Hell-Bent Misses, The Invisible Shepherd Lad Romania – The Slippers of the Twelve Princesses, The Twelve Princesses with the Worn-Out Slipper Russia – The Danced Out Shoes; Elena the Wise; The Midnight Dance; The Secret Ball Armenia – The Giant-Slayer Africa: Cape Verde – The Shoes That Were Danced To Pieces; Dividing the Heirlooms: The Shoes That Were Danced To Pieces Middle East: Turkey – The Magic Turban, the Magic Whip, and the Magic Carpet Arabic - The Golden City Asia: India – Dorani, "The Invisible Woman" Bengal – The Kotwal's Daughter, The Rose of Bakáwalí Uzbek - Mohistara. In variants, the princesses vary in number, sometimes being just one maiden. In other variants, the princess goes to a night dance with a supernatural character, such as the Devil. A French literary version exists, penned by Charles Deulin in his Contes du Roi Cambrinus. ¹

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. It was retold in literature as Walter de la Mare's Told Again and Tales Told Again and in Robin McKinley's The Door in the Hedge. In some versions, such as the one in Robin McKinley's The Door in the Hedge and Ellen Kushner's in Troll's-Eye View, the eldest princess disguises herself as an old woman to give the soldier life-saving advice. Patricia A. McKillip wrote an adaptation for the anthology A Wolf at the Door. It has a few variations, the most significant being that the princes who 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 Once Upon a Time novel series published by Simon Pulse featured a retelling of the story as The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is folktale type (ATU 306), according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²