Joaquin Nico B.

Ramirez
HM501
GREAT BOOKS
ACTIVITY 2 (EASSY)
THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES

Background of the authors/date of publishing

 “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” first published by the Grimm Brothers in 1812, is
known by more than one title. Occasionally, it is also referred to as “The Shoes That
Were Worn to Pieces” or “The Worn-out Dancing Shoes.”
Characters

 The king/father
 Old veteran soldier
 Old woman
 The twelve princesses

Plot

 "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" tells the story of twelve royal sisters who are locked in
their bedroom every night but emerge in the morning with their dancing shoes worn out.
12 pairs of shoes ruined night after night, week after week. What happens to them?
Nobody knows, and the princesses are refusing to reveal their secret.
Sequence

 The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a story about a king with 12 beautiful daughters who
all share a bedroom. Each night when the girls go to bed, the king locks them in until
morning. Despite being locked in their bedroom each night, every morning their shoes
are tattered and worn as though they had been dancing all night. The king, desperate to
find out where his daughters go each night and how they get out, announces that any man
who can solve the mystery may choose one of the daughters to marry. Several
unsuccessful men later, the answer is revealed, and the daughters confess to their late
night
activities.
Conflict

 The story's conflict revolves around the mystery of where the princesses went for a dance
and why they returned home with holes in their shoes. The solution comes when an old
 soldier on a mission to find the girls discovers a castle on the other side of the lake where
the daughters dance.
Theme

 Growing up
 Heed the advice of the elders or seniors

Application in real life and to self

 Children grow up, despite their parents' best efforts to keep them small. They want their
freedom when they do. Often, the harder a parent tries to keep their children safe, the
more determined the children are to break free. The king did everything he could to keep
his beautiful daughters safe. "When they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up,"
he made sure, but the princesses still found a way to escape every night to go drinking
and dancing with twelve princes in an underworld castle. Another lesson from this
fairytale is to respect your elders. The princes had tried and failed to keep track of the
princesses for the king, but it is an old, wounded soldier who discovers where they have
been. His success is the result of his heeding the advice of an elderly woman he meets in
the woods.