Synopsis
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, but every suitor 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. The passageway leads them to three groves of trees: the first having silver trees, the second golden trees, and the third diamond trees. The invisible soldier breaks off a twig from each grove as evidence, scaring the youngest princess each time he does so. Whenever the youngest princess warns her sisters of the sounds of wood cracking, the eldest dismisses them as salutes. They walk on until they come upon a great clear lake where twelve princes, in twelve boats, are waiting for the twelve princesses. Each princess gets into one boat, the soldier boarding the same one as the youngest princess. The twelfth prince complains to the twelfth princess that their boat is heavier than usual, unaware that the soldier is also on board. On the other side of the lake stands a castle, into which the twelve princesses go and dance the night away.
The twelve princesses happily dance until three in the morning when their shoes are worn out and they must leave. When the twelve princes row the twelve princesses back across the lake, the soldier sits by the eldest. When they reach the top of the secret staircase, the soldier runs ahead of the twelve princesses and lies back in his bed, snoring to trick them into thinking that their secret remains safe.
The soldier does not tell the king of his discovery right away, and follows and spies on the twelve princesses on the second and third nights, with everything happening just as before, except that on the third night, the soldier carries away a cup as a fourth token of where he has been. When the time comes for him to declare the princesses' secret, the soldier presents before the king the three twigs and the cup, and tells the king about 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 no longer a young man, and is made the king's heir.
The twelve princes are cursed for as many nights as they have danced with the twelve princesses.
Background
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. [4] This version introduces the ruse of the soldier disposing of the drugged wine and pretending to be asleep. [5]
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. [5]
The Princesses in the Grimms' version are often 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, despite knowing that those who fail are put to death in some versions of the story.
"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world. The protagonist is a young girl living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BC and 23 AD, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.
"Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was Sneewittchen; the modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1857 version of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
"Sleeping Beauty", also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to awaken when the princess does.
"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in Magasin des enfants to produce the version most commonly retold. Later, Andrew Lang retold the story in Blue Fairy Book, a part of the Fairy Book series, in 1889. The fairy tale was influenced by the story of Petrus Gonsalvus as well as Ancient Greek stories such as "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the second century AD, and "The Pig King", an Italian fairytale published by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.
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"Kate Crackernuts" is a Scottish fairy tale collected by Andrew Lang in the Orkney Islands and published in Longman's Magazine in 1889. Joseph Jacobs edited and republished the tale in his English Fairy Tales (1890). The tale is about a princess who rescues her beautiful sister from an evil enchantment and a prince from a wasting sickness caused by dancing nightly with the fairies. The tale has been adapted to a children's novel and a stage play.
"Allerleirauh" is a fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, it has been recorded as Tale no. 65. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book.
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"The Three Little Birds" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 96. The story is originally written in Low German. It is Aarne-Thompson type 707, the dancing water, the singing apple, and the speaking bird. The story resembles Ancilotto, King of Provino, by Giovanni Francesco Straparola, and The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette, the story of the 756th night of the Arabian Nights.
King Kojata or The Unlooked for Prince or Prince Unexpected is a Slavonic fairy tale, of Polish origin. Louis Léger remarked that its source was "one of the most important collections of Polish literature".
Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses is a 2006 animated dance film. It premiered on Nickelodeon on September 10, 2006, and it was later released to DVD on September 19.
"The Water of Life" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 97.
The Norka is a Russian and Ukrainian fairy tale published by Alexander Afanasyev in his collection of Russian Fairy Tales, numbered 132.
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