The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Once upon a time there was a king who had twelve daughters, each one lovelier than the last. They slept in one big room, bed beside bed. Every evening the king locked the door himself. And every morning, wonder of wonders, beside each bed stood a pair of little shoes, danced right through to holes.

“Where have you been?” the king would ask.

“Nowhere, Papa,” the princesses would yawn. “We were asleep.”

The king scratched his head under his crown. He couldn’t buy shoes fast enough! So he had it announced far and wide: whoever found out where the princesses danced at night could choose one of them for his wife and would be king after him. But whoever kept watch for three nights and learned nothing would go home empty-handed.

Princes came. They sat in the little room next to the bedroom, kept watch… and fell asleep. They snored so loudly that the windowpanes rattled. And in the morning the shoes had holes in them again. Red with shame, the princes got on their horses and rode away.

One day an old soldier came walking down the road. His service was over, his leg had been wounded in battle, and the wind whistled through his empty pockets. Then he saw an old woman sitting by the roadside with a bundle of firewood.

“Where are you going, son?” she asked.

“I don’t really know,” the soldier smiled. “Maybe I’ll go to the king and see where those princesses wear out their shoes.”

He helped the old woman heave the firewood onto her back, and she grew kinder still.

“That’s no hard task,” she said. “Just don’t drink the wine they give you in the evening. Pretend you’re fast, fast asleep.” And she handed him a grey cloak. “Put this on, and nobody will see you. Then follow them.”

The soldier thanked her, tucked the cloak under his arm and limped off to the palace.

The king welcomed him kindly: he fed him, gave him a clean shirt and put him for the night in the little room next to the bedroom. In the evening the eldest princess came in with a cup.

“Drink up, soldier. Sleep well.”

But the soldier had already tied a sponge under his chin. He only pretended to drink, and the wine went — splosh! — straight into the sponge. He lay down and began to snore: hrrr… hrrr…

The princesses laughed.

“This one will sleep through it too,” said the eldest.

They got up, opened their chests and wardrobes, put on their finest dresses and twirled in front of the mirrors. Only the youngest sighed:

“I feel uneasy somehow. As if something is about to happen.”

“Oh, you’re always scared,” said the eldest, waving her hand. “Just listen to him snore.”

She knocked on her bed — knock, knock, knock! — and the bed sank down under the floor. Beneath it, stairs led down into the dark. One after another, the princesses vanished through the opening.

The soldier threw on the cloak, and just like that, there was no soldier! Quietly he crept after them. On the stairs he accidentally stepped on the hem of the youngest one’s dress.

“Oh!” she squeaked. “Somebody tugged at my skirt!”

“You just caught it on a nail,” said the eldest.

Down below grew a grove. The trees in it were silver, and the leaves were silver too: tinkle-jingle in the breeze. The soldier thought, “I must take something as proof.” And he broke off a twig. Snap!

“Did you hear that?” the youngest gasped.

“That’s our princes clapping their hands for joy,” the eldest replied.

Further on stood a golden grove, its leaves shining like the morning sun. And beyond it a diamond one: every little leaf sparkled like a drop of dew. In those, too, the soldier broke off a twig from each. Snap! Snap! The youngest jumped every time, but the eldest only laughed.

And then they came to a lake. Twelve little boats rocked by the shore, and in each one sat a handsome prince. Each princess got in with her own prince, and the soldier got in with the youngest.

“The boat’s heavy today,” the prince puffed, pulling hard on the oars. “I row and row, and it hardly moves.”

“It must be the heat,” said the youngest. She was puzzled herself.

On the far shore a palace shone, and music rang out from its windows: trumpets and fiddles, drums and pipes. The princesses began to dance. They whirled, they hopped, they stamped: stomp-stomp, stomp-stomp! The soldier in his cloak did a little dance in the corner too. When the youngest set down her cup, he picked it up and drank the wine to the last drop. She looked, and the cup was empty.

“Oh! Who drank my wine?”

“You drank it yourself and forgot,” her sisters laughed.

They danced until the third cockcrow, until their shoes were worn right through. Then the princes rowed the princesses back. They didn’t even get out of their boats: they waved to the princesses and rowed off to their palace. This time the soldier sat in the eldest one’s boat. On the shore he hurried ahead, climbed the stairs quickly, threw off the cloak and lay down. When the princesses came back, half dead with tiredness, from the little room came: hrrr… hrrr…

“There, you see,” said the eldest. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

It was the same on the second night, and on the third. And on the third night the soldier also took a golden cup from the palace.

In the morning he was called before the king. The princesses stood behind the door, whispering: now this one will say he saw nothing too.

“Well,” asked the king, “where do my daughters dance at night?”

“In a palace under the ground, with twelve princes,” the soldier answered. And he laid on the table a silver twig, a golden one, a diamond one, and the cup beside them.

The king called his daughters. They took one look and blushed right up to their ears. What could they say? They had to confess.

“So which one would you like for your wife?” asked the king.

“I’m not young any more,” the soldier smiled into his moustache. “So give me the eldest.”

At first the eldest sulked, but then she laughed too:

“You’re a sly one, soldier. But a brave one too.”

The wedding was held that very day. The bed never sank under the floor again, however hard you knocked on it, and the stairs down vanished as if they had never been there.

And the twelve princes stayed down there below. They were under a spell, and that was why they never came up. Every evening they sat in their little boats and waited, but nobody came down the stairs any more. And now the spell would keep them in the underground palace for as many days as the nights they had danced with the princesses.

And how many nights were there? Ask the king. He bought shoes by the cartload!