The Twelve Dancing Princesses

This story was from the Brothers' Grimm, and it tells the story of a frustrated king and his young, rebellious daughters.

Every night, the twelve princesses were locked into their rooms, with their brand new dance slippers, but by the morning, the slippers were completely worn through.  This frustrated the king, and he decided to make a competition of it.  He made a competition that said if anyone could figure out where his daughters were going in three days and three nights he would let the man marry the daughter of his choosing.  However, if the man failed, he would be put to death.

Princes from around the land come to the castle and try to determine where the girls are.  They failed every time, and each prince was put to death.

Eventually, an ex soldier comes to try his hand at the mystery.  An old woman warned him before he came not to accept any wine given to him by the princesses, and she also gave him an invisibility cloak so he could follow the ladies in secret.  That night, when the princesses bring him wine, he does not drink it.  He instead fakes sleep, and the girls put on their finery, safe in the knowledge that he is asleep.  They traveled down a secret passageway to an underworld.  The soldier followed the girls while wearing his invisibility cloak.

In this underworld, there is a beautiful forest of silver.  The soldier follows the girls through the forest, and wanting to be able to prove that the land exists, snaps a silver twig from the tree.  One of the younger princesses is confused by the sound she hears, but they continue without too much interruption.

They then arrive at a beautiful lake and waiting there are twelve princes and twelve boats.  The soldier hops into one of the boats, and is taken to a beautiful party.  The girls dance the night away with their 12 princes.  The soldier danced as well (presumably by himself) and drank the wine that was placed for the princesses.

When the girls shoes were worn through, the princesses went back to their rooms.  The soldier went as well and faked sleep, so the girls would think nothing was amiss with their plans.

He let this continue for his remaining two nights before the soldier would be put to death, but on the third night, he took a goblet with him as further proof of the land. He then told the king all that he knew, producing the twig and the goblet as proof.

Overjoyed that he finally knew the cause of his daughters' worn out slippers, he told the soldier to pick whichever princess he fancied.  The soldier chose the oldest one because she was the closest to his age, and everyone lived happily ever after.


This story is full of really odd moments, like the fact that the girls are so willing to allow their suitors to die night after night. And to examine adaptations of it, we will have to look at both book and movie adaptations next week.

A Nordic Tale's stories

This Nordic tale is ripe for the telling, and the two most well known versions of the story are Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, and East.  The two stories are very different though, even though they were based on the same base fairy tale.  The first of the stories is much closer to the original tale, so it is the first one we should probably talk about.

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow-- By Jessica Day George

The author Jessica Day George has written a number of fairy tale adaptations, and although this is the first one we are talking about, it is far from the last. This adaptation is very close to the original story. The main character is simply called pika or lass, depending on who is talking to her, because her mother refused to name her (she was angry that she had given birth to yet another daughter).  She did have several sons, including Hans Peter, a man who had come back after several years of sailing severely changed.  The lass is closest to him and wants to understand what is making him so sad.

The lass met a white reindeer when she was a little child, and the reindeer granted her a name.  After this encounter, the lass is now able to talk to animals.  By the time she is a teenager, the pika is well-known to have a way with animals, rumored to even be able to converse with them.  So the Isbjorn (ice bear) seeks her out.

The girl is taken away to his palace (voluntarily) and grows used to life there.  She even meets the servants, including a faun named Erasmus.  She is given a diary through which she can talk to her family back home, and learns to love the palace.

She eventually returns home, however, after hearing that her father is extremely ill.  In that time, her mother gives her the candle and flint that would prove to be the girl's undoing.  The story follows the fairy tale through it all.  It does change it so the three old crones who provide the lass with the items she uses to bargain time with her beloved to be in a single spot.  This is really nice actually, because that section would be extremely repetitive to read otherwise.

The story continues, with her riding on the backs of each of the winds, until the lass has reached the palace that is East of Sun, West of Moon.  She bargains away her things for time with the prince, and on the third night, when he is conscious, they make the necessary plans so he can trick the troll.

When the troll fails to wash out the tallow, but the lass is able to, the palace comes crashing down.  They escape with the human prisoners, and make their way south in search of civilization.  The girl and her isbjorn marry, and everyone in the story lives happily ever after.

East--Edith Pattou

This story centers around a girl named Ebba Rose.  Actually, her name is Nyamh Rose, but that is beside the point.  Her mother was superstitious, and believed that the "birth direction"  of the child indicated some of the personality traits that the kid would have.  She wanted one child born for each of the directions on the compass rose (7 of them--she included South-East, South-West, etc), except for North, because she North borns are the hardest to deal with.  She also had a prediction from a soothsayer that indicated that any north-born child of hers would die painfully.  So when her last daughter was born with an ambiguous birth direction, her mother convinced herself that her daughter was born an East.

Because Rose was a North born, she love to explore the world around her.  But when she was a teenager, everything on her family's farm went wrong, to the point that they were being foreclosed upon.  In the nick of time, an Ice Bear who had been protecting her all her life came back into it.  From here, the story follows the actual fairy tale fairly closely, with only minor addendums, until we get to the point where Rose makes the crucial mistake.  She looks at the prince with the candle given to her by her mother, drops the wax, and the prince is whirled away to marry the troll-queen.

She is able, through much struggling, to book passage onto a ship headed north, believing that to be the way to the land East of Sun and West of Moon, and through much hardship, makes it to Gronland (Greenland), where she meets a tribe of Inuit people who are more than willing to help her.  Rose is guided through the icy land by a village Shaman who speaks her language.

Finally, Rose reaches the palace that is East of Sun, West of Moon, only to discover that they are in the midst of wedding preparations.  She disguises herself as a servant, and, with the help of a troll friend that she made in her time with the ice bear, Tuki, Rose is able to get the prince to stop taking the potion.  She attends the wedding disguised as a troll, and she meets her prince on the first, preliminary night of the wedding.  By the second day, the prince decides that his queen must wash the shirt before she can marry him, seemingly out of the blue.

The story ends happily ever after, with the prince and Rose going off to get married.



Both of these novels are really quite good and very entertaining, and they can be found in the YA section of your local library or bookstore.



Next week, we shall pick up our dancing slippers and learn about the 12 girls who danced every night--the Twelve Dancing Princesses.