The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Let’s talk about fairy tales for a minute. Princes and princesses and happily ever after. Trolls under bridges outwitted by young men who follow the advice of old crones in the woods. Enchanted castles, apples, spinning wheels. Magic around every corner.

When I was little, I had an illustrated book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I would spend hours poring over every page, getting absolutely lost in the details of the illustrations. The stories were, of course, sanitized versions of the original tales, but they still contained a hint of the original menace of the Brothers Grimm. Like salted dark chocolate, this little hint of danger/salt made the sweet stories so much better than other, completely scrubbed versions I found.

Now, as an adult women who has lived through the falseness of easy “happily ever after,” I have a love/hate relationship with most of the stories. The one that still draws me in, though, is the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. If you haven’t heard of it, you can get the full version here. Here’s a very short version:

A King had twelve beautiful daughters. He locked them in their room every night as they slept, but still every morning their shoes would be completely worn out as if they had been dancing all night. The King asked for help to discover their secret, offering one of his daughters as the reward. Some people tried and failed. One man, taking the advice of an old crone he encountered in the woods, discovered their secret. The princesses followed an enchanted pathway to a castle…