If you haven't read the fairy tale, here's a link. It's a pretty fast read. Check it out, and poke around the site, too - it's absolutely amazing!
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/twelvedancing/index.html
Here's my insight on it. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Daring to Dance:
An Analysis of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
An Analysis of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
Once upon a
time, there were approximately 360 dancing princesses, along with about a dozen
dancing princes. They wore out hundreds of dancing shoes, making about 30 royal
shoemakers very busy and about 30 royal fathers very perplexed. That is, until
about 30 soldiers or farmers discovered about 30 magical kingdoms where the
girls danced at night, after which about 30 or more weddings were celebrated.
And all the hundreds of princesses and dozens of soldiers lived, more or less,
happily ever after.
The
fascination with retelling fairy tales has certainly not overlooked “The Twelve
Dancing Princesses.” While I spent time with around thirty different versions
of this story, I discovered that almost as many more were still out there, and
I have the feeling that I probably overlooked nearly as many as I found. From
young adult novels and picture books to anime cartoons and musical stage
productions, this story has been retold a number of times in a number of ways.
While there are many reasons to retell the same story, I believe that the tale
of twelve girls who dance their shoes to shreds at night appeals to its
audiences because of its openness to reinterpretation, particularly in regard
to understanding the princesses’ motivations.
The story
of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” is thought to have originated during the 17th
century, and it was recorded by the Grimm brothers after they heard the story
from some of their acquaintances (Heiner “History”). Andrew Lang, another
well-known fairy tale author, published a longer and more detailed version of
this story, but his inspiration came from the French “Les Douze Princesses
Dansantes” by Charles Deulin, who based his version on the Grimm’s original (Heiner
“Tales Similar”). Other early variations on this tale come largely from Central
Europe, and for the most part this story “cannot be found further east than
Russia” (Heiner “History”).
As with
many fairy tales, this story has seen a surge in retellings and adaptations in
recent years. Each new artist that retells a story, be they an author,
illustrator, director, etc., brings to that story a new meaning and relevance.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s original version of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”
is very short, describing only the main events. In this way, it seems that the
Grimm Brothers had a knack for giving us just enough information to make our minds
run wild with possibilities. This means that each new version of the story
offers its own interpretations and explanations. In retellings of “The Twelve
Dancing Princesses,” it seems that one question is on everyone’s mind – why are these girls dancing, anyway?
In the
Grimm Brother’s original story, the princesses apparently make the choice to go
out dancing every night, and they seem to enjoy their time doing so. They give
drugged wine to all those who attempt to solve the mystery, fully understanding
that it will mean death for these men. By all appearances, “[t]he princesses
show no remorse for their involvement in the mystery and the deaths of the
suitors” (Heiner “Annotations”). For what is usually considered a children’s
story, this seems a bit harsh. “The callousness displayed by the princesses is
often troubling to many critics and readers. Are the princesses really that
cruel or are they under an enchantment?” (Heiner “Annotations”). While the
Grimm Brothers left this question unanswered, other authors have found many
ways to address it.
One of the
most popular explanations for the princesses’ actions is in the idea that they
are all under an enchantment. This explanation may have come first from Andrew
Lang’s version, where the actions of the youngest princess and the hero,
Michael, break a charm. However, this charm appears to have only been over the
princesses’ dancing partners, not necessarily the princesses themselves, and
while Lina, the youngest princess, shows some compassion, her older sisters
seem just as uncaring as they were in the Grimm’s tale. With this idea of an
enchantment, however, came a host of stories about princesses under spells, in
trances, or bound by magical contracts. In the novel Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George, the princesses
are cursed, forced to dance every night for the King Under Stone, paying off
the debt of their mother who, before she died, agreed to dance for him in exchange
for his magical help. In some versions, the princesses don’t fully understand
the reason they’re dancing, such as in a cartoon version, where they are under
a deep trance (“Worn-Out Dancing Shoes”), or in the short story by Patricia A.
McKillip, where the spell they are under convinces them that their nightly
journeys are only a dream. In an older English tale we see another curse and an
interesting switch in gender roles as the princess cleverly saves the prince
who is under a spell that forces him to dance every night (Jacobs). Depending
on the retelling, these various enchantments can be seen as humorous, “a
puzzling – and downright silly – curse” (Haskell), or as deadly, a curse that
must be solved, or else “the twelve princesses will surely dance to their
deaths” (Zahler). Certainly, an enchantment of any kind is a reasonable way to
explain why twelve girls would dance their shoes to pieces night after night. However,
this is not the only explanation that has been offered.
If these
princesses are not under any kind of enchantment or curse, it’s only logical to
assume that the reason behind their dancing is the fact that they choose to dance. If this is the case, we
have to examine the motivations behind this choice, and they are often far more
varied and complex than any curse. In Entwined,
for example, the twelve young princesses have just lost their mother, who
loved and encouraged dancing, so although the rules of mourning forbid them
from dancing, they use it as a way of coping with their grief (Dixon). In other
versions, it is similarly the act of being forbidden to dance that causes the
girls to pursue dancing in secret. Interestingly enough, this motive, holding
an undertone of rebellion, seems to be common in some of the retellings geared
toward children. In the animated film Barbie
and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Genevieve and her sisters sneak through
the magic passage in their room to dance by themselves after an
evil-step-mother type figure forbids all dancing. Similarly, in the children’s
book by Emma Helbrough, the king “believed that princesses should be seen and
not heard” (5), telling his daughters in an illustration to “sit down and look
pretty!” (4). In this book, the king is said to hate dancing, “so whenever he
wasn’t looking, [the princesses] danced anyway” (6). By the end of Helbrough’s
book, the king comes to enjoy dancing as well, and the girl’s apparent
rebellion and disobedience is never addressed or looked down on.
If dancing in their underground
kingdom is what these girls chose, then we are left to wonder whether or not
the princesses will truly live happily ever after when the story closes. Perhaps
the most extreme example of this is seen in the Gypsy tale “The Three Girls,” in
which three princesses have been traveling to hell each night to dance with
and, in the case of two of the girls, to sleep with demons (Groome). When the
three girls’ father is informed of their actions, he promptly shoots and cuts
open his possessed daughters, which isn’t a typical happy ending, even if the
girls are later revived (Groome). Less dramatic and horrifying versions, though
still dark, question whether or not dancing was something the girls wanted to
continue. The beginning of Anne Sexton’s poem asks: “If you danced from
midnight/to six A.M. who would understand?” (87). It then gives a list of
people who would understand – the runaway boy living in Boston Common, the wife
of a paralytic, the drunken poet, the insomniac. These people are, in one way
or another, trying to escape. Once the soldier discovered their secret, the
princesses could no longer escape, “the runaways would run no more” (Sexton 92),
and the princesses “averted their eyes/and sagged like old sweatshirts” (Sexton
92) after dancing was taken away from them. This doesn’t quite sound like happily
ever after! In “Feminism and Fairy Tales,” Karen Rowe seems to agree with the
idea that the “unfortunate” (352) princesses didn’t exactly get the best end of
the bargain. Rowe views these girls as being opposed to marriage (353), but
apparently forced into it. Perhaps the soldier wasn’t such a hero, after all. It
all depends on the princesses’ motivations and attitudes.
Of course we also have to consider the
view that the girls’ seeming deceitfulness wasn’t overtly rebellious, an option
that often leads into issues in family, and especially parental, relationships.
Perhaps they simply felt that they would be misunderstood and so were afraid to
tell anyone, particularly their father, about their secret. In the novel The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold, which
sets the story in modern times, the escaping girls who feel confined by their
life are encouraged by the friend who finds them out to reveal their secret to
their father themselves (Elenatintil). The same is true in the children’s book Brothers of the Knight, only this time
the twelve princesses are transformed into twelve black brothers from Harlem (Allen).
In these more modern retellings, the children struggle with the feeling that
their father, who is a minister in both versions, will not understand their
desires, but they are encouraged by an outside source to reveal their secret
and show some trust in their father. The concept of feeling misunderstood and
wanting to do something different than usual is especially strong in the
children’s book The Princesses Have a
Ball, where the twelve sisters are sneaking out every night not to dance,
but to play basketball (Bateman). Then, of course, you have to consider the
versions where everyone gets along nicely, such as the episode of the children’s
show Super Why, where the princesses
are sneaking out to plan their father’s surprise birthday party.
As this story continues to be
retold, each new version is shaped by the reason behind the princesses’
secretive dancing. This one variable has a profound influence on multiple
aspects of the story. One such aspect is the question of who the princesses are
dancing with. If they are under an enchantment, their dance partners are likely
to be some sort of magical beings as well, whether monsters disguised as
princes (“Worn-Out Dancing Shoes”), the undead (McKillip), or the inhuman sons
of a witch (McKinley). In these versions, the princesses are usually destined
to be married to these unappealing partners and trapped in the underworld. In
versions where the princesses dance by choice, however, their dance partners
are usually either nonexistent, as in Entwined,
or relatively unimportant, as in Brothers
of the Knight. You would expect these types of retellings to focus on the
princesses’ desire to be with the men they love in secret, but few retellings
seem to take this route. One of the few stories that does is “The Seven Iron
Slippers,” an older Portuguese version of this tale where the princess is
slipping out to dance with her lover, who happens to be a giant (Pedroso). However,
true love doesn’t exactly seem to prevail in this version, as the princess is
forced to marry the one who discovers her secret (Pedroso). No matter who ends
up getting married in the end, the identity of these dance partners varies
widely. However, it is only as important as the princesses’ reason for being
with those partners.
The reasons behind dancing not only
end up influencing the characters and events, but also the theme of this tale. If
it is a tale of enchantment or a curse, it will also very likely be a tale of
mystery, danger, reward, and romance. If, however, the princesses have chosen
their actions through their own agency, it becomes much more complex, a tale of
inward rather than outward struggles. From this angle, the story can deal with
rebellion, strained family relationships, misunderstandings, escape, promises,
loss of innocence, initiation, learning contentment, and many other emotional
struggles.
Since its
earliest origins, this tale has been changing and adapting to fit its audiences.
Through these changes and countless retellings, it has carved out its own niche
in the world of fairy tales. Looking at the large number of different versions
out there, one would think that “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” must be
relatively popular and well-known. However, this is not necessarily the case.
In my own family, despite our general love of fairy tales, we had never heard
the story of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” until I pulled the title out of a
hat (literally) and was told to research it. It seems to me that, overall,
relatively few people actually know this story. While you can hear constant
references in our society to tales like “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” or “Beauty
and the Beast,” I’ve yet to hear a reference in pop culture to “The Twelve
Dancing Princesses.” Even within literary circles, a culture all their own,
critical pieces on stories such as “Red Riding Hood” or “Sleeping Beauty”
abound, while any analysis of girls dancing in the underworld is sadly lacking.
If there is not much of a popular or critical base of knowledge, we are left
with the question: exactly what audiences are these retellings appealing to?
It seems to me that a good portion
of the audience for these adaptations may just be the ones doing the adapting. While
writers do write to be read, they also write for themselves. And while there
has to be a broader audience for a book to be published, there doesn’t have to
be one for the book to be written in the first place. Perhaps rather than
writing for a particular fan base, these authors wrote to satisfy their own
curiosity over a curious story, to wrestle with the possible themes and
explanations lying just under the surface of the words as forests of jewels lie
just under the surface of a magic passage. Of course it’s impossible for me to
state any particular author’s motivation, but I can always guess their motives
in writing a story guessing the motives of twelve girls dancing through the
night.
This story’s inherent flexibility
makes it appeal to both writers and readers on many levels, whether as an
adventure story, a romance, a cute children’s tale, or a thoughtful look into
common emotional struggles. As we read about a king and his daughters, we may
start thinking about our own complicated relationships. As we imagine a magical
underground kingdom, we may find ourselves longing for a means of escape. And
as we try to understand why someone would want to dance until their shoes fell
off their feet, we may end up trying to understand what motivates our own
actions. Even the cutest stories are far from simple, and even an action as
plain as dancing can take on a thousand new meanings when taken up by over 360
dancing princesses.
Works Cited
Allen, Debbie. Brothers of the Knight. Pictures by
Kadir Nelson. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1999. Print.
Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Dir.
Greg Richardson. Universal Studios, 2006. DVD.
Bateman, Teresa. The Princesses Have a Ball. Illustrated
by Lynne Gravath. Morton Grove, Illinois: Albert Whiteman and Company, 2002.
Print.
Dixon, Heather. Entwined. New York: Grennwillow Books,
2011. Print.
Elenatintil. “A
work of brilliance and depth.” Review for Regina Doman’s The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold. Amazon.com. 4 July 2008.
Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
George, Jessica
Day. Princess of the Midnight Ball. New
York: Bloomsbury, 2009. Print.
Grimm, Jacob and
Wilhelm. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” SurLaLune
Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne Heiner. June 1999, updated 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 8
Dec. 2012.
Groome, Francis
Hindes. “The Three Girls.” Tales Similar
to Twelve Dancing Princesses, SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne Heiner.
June 1999, updated 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
Haskell, Merrie. The Princess Curse. Quote taken from
jacket cover. New York: Harper, 2011. Print.
Heiner, Heidi
Anne. “Annotations for Twelve Dancing Princesses.” SurLaLune Fairy Tales. June 1999, updated 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 8 Dec.
2012.
Heiner, Heidi
Anne. “History of Twelve Dancing Princesses.” SurLaLune Fairy Tales. June 1999, updated 7 July 2007. Web. 8 Dec.
2012.
Heiner, Heidi
Anne. “Tales Similar to Twelve Dancing Princesses: The Twelve Dancing
Princesses (A French Tale).” SurLaLune Fairy
Tales. June 1999, updated 7 July 2007. Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
Helbrough, Emma. The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Illustrated
by Anna Luraschi. London: Usborne Publishing Ltd., 2004. Print.
Jacobs, Joseph.
“Katie Crackernuts.” Tales Similar to
Twelve Dancing Princesses, SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne Heiner.
June 1999, updated 7 July 2007. Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
Lang, Andrew.
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Tales
Similar to Twelve Dancing Princesses, SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne
Heiner. June 1999, updated 7 July 2007. Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
McKillip,
Patricia A. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” A Wolf at the Door: and Other Retold Fairy Tales. Ed. Ellen Datlow
and Terri Windling. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers,
2000. 150-165. Print.
McKinley, Robin.
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” The Door
in the Hedge. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1981. 139-216. Print.
Pedroso,
Consiglieri. “The Seven Iron Slippers.” Tales
Similar to Twelve Dancing Princesses, SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne
Heiner. June 1999, updated 7 July 2007. Web. 8 Dec. 2012.
Rowe, Karen.
“Feminism and Fairy Tales.” Folk and
Fairy Tales. Ed. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. Ontario: Broadview
Press, 2009. Print.
Sexton, Anne.
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Transformations.
Boston: Mariner Books, 2001. 87-92. Print.
“The Twelve
Dancing Princesses.” Super Why! By
Wendy Harris. PBS. 7 Apr. 2008. Television.
“The Worn-Out Dancing
Shoes.” Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics:
Grimm Masterpiece Theatre. By Robert Axelrod, et al. Dir. Kerrigan Mahan.
Nickelodeon. 16 March 1988. Television.
Zahler, Diane. The Thirteenth Princess. Quote taken
from jacket cover. New York: Harper, 2010. Print.
