The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces
Twelve princesses, one locked door, and the soldier who followed them down a stairway under the floor
Page 1
There was once a king who had twelve daughters, and all twelve slept together in one great room, their beds standing side by side against the wall. Every night the door was locked and bolted, and every morning, when the door was opened again, there the twelve pairs of dancing shoes lay in a heap, danced clean through at the soles — though nobody had seen a single princess leave the room, and nobody could say where they had been. The king could not understand it at all, and it troubled him so much that at last he could bear the not-knowing no longer. He had the oldest, most worn-out pair of shoes brought to him in the courtyard, and he turned them over and over in his hands, as if the leather itself might finally tell him the truth.
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So the king called his whole kingdom together and made a proclamation. Whoever could discover where his twelve daughters went every night to dance their shoes to pieces might choose any one of them to be his wife, and should be king after him when he died. But, the proclamation went on, any man who tried for three nights and failed to find the secret must leave the kingdom at once in disgrace, and would never be allowed to try again. Many princes came forward over the following weeks, eager for a throne and a bride, and one by one they kept watch outside the princesses' door — and one by one, within three nights, every single one of them had failed, and been sent home ashamed, never to return. Still, as the king sat on his dais one grey morning, another young prince stepped forward, bowing low, certain he would be the one to succeed.
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Not far off, on a road winding through the forest, walked a soldier who had just been let go from the king's army, with no money and no plan beyond getting himself home. He had no thought at all of trying for a princess or a throne. But as he came around a bend, he met an old woman sitting by the road, who greeted him as if she had been waiting for him. She already seemed to know all about the king's twelve daughters and their ruined shoes, and she told the soldier plainly what he must do if he ever found himself keeping watch outside their door: drink nothing they offered him, no matter how kindly it was poured, and wear a certain grey cloak she then took from beneath her own, which she said would make him invisible the moment he put it on, so that he might follow wherever the princesses went without ever being seen.
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The soldier offered himself as the next to try, and that evening he was given a small chamber just off the princesses' own locked room, with a comfortable bed and a candle burning low. As had happened to every prince before him, the eldest princess came in herself before he settled down for the night, carrying a cup of wine for him to drink, smiling kindly as she handed it over. The soldier thanked her politely and raised the cup to his lips — but the very moment her back was turned to leave, he tipped it quietly away, letting it run down inside his sleeve instead of swallowing a drop, just as the old woman had warned him to do. Then he lay down on the bed, pulled the blanket to his chin, and began to snore as loudly and as convincingly as he possibly could.
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As soon as the soldier seemed fast asleep, the twelve princesses rose and dressed themselves in splendid gowns, laughing softly to one another, all except the eldest, who only smiled and said nothing. Then she went to her own bed and knocked on it three times, and at once it sank slowly down into the floor, opening onto a stairway that led down into darkness beneath. One by one the sisters climbed down through the gap. The soldier, watching through half-closed eyes, threw on his grey cloak the instant the last of them had gone, and in a heartbeat he was quite invisible. He hurried after them down the dark stairs — and in his hurry, he trod on the hem of the youngest princess's gown. She spun around with a gasp, certain something had seized her dress in the darkness.
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The stairway led the princesses down into a long underground avenue lined with trees, and the trees themselves were the strangest the soldier had ever seen. The first grove had leaves of pure silver, shining softly all down the path; the second had leaves of gold, glowing warmer still; and the third was hung all over with trees of clear diamond, sparkling like frost in starlight. The soldier, still invisible beside them, could not resist breaking off one branch from each avenue as proof of what he had seen, and each time he snapped one free, the sound cracked sharply through the quiet air. Twice the youngest princess startled and looked about her, sure that something was wrong, but each time her eldest sister only laughed it away as nothing at all, and the whole procession walked calmly on.
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At the end of the avenue of trees, the path opened onto the shore of a great underground lake, its still water stretching away toward a castle on the far side, all lit up and glittering like a hundred candles at once. Drawn up at the shore were twelve little boats, and in each boat sat a prince, waiting with his oar ready to row one of the sisters across. The eldest princess stepped into the first boat, and the soldier, still unseen, slipped quietly in after her and sat down at her feet. At once the little boat sat lower in the water and pulled far heavier than it ever had before, and the prince rowing it frowned, working his oar harder than usual against the current, though the night was perfectly still and calm.
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Across the lake, the castle was even more splendid inside than it had looked from the shore — a great hall ablaze with candlelight, musicians playing without pause, and every one of the twelve princesses dancing all night long with her own prince, around and around, until the soles of their shoes wore thin and then wore through completely. The soldier kept himself close by in the shadows at the edge of the hall, still unseen by anyone, watching it all unfold exactly as it had every night before. On the third night, as the dancing wore on toward the grey hour before dawn, he reached out quietly and lifted one golden cup from a table laid with refreshments, tucking it away beneath his cloak as a third piece of proof, and not one soul at the bright, whirling party ever noticed it had gone.
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On each of the three nights, the soldier took care to hurry on ahead of the sisters by a shorter way he had found, so that by the time the tired princesses climbed back up the dark stairway into their own room, he was already lying in his bed with his eyes shut, snoring away exactly as he had been when they left him. Each morning they set down their shoes, danced completely to pieces all over again, and went to their own beds without the smallest suspicion that anything at all had happened while they were gone. They believed, as they had every single night before, that their secret was still entirely their own, and that nobody in the whole kingdom knew the first thing about where they went or what became of their shoes.
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The next morning, the soldier was brought before the king and laid out his proof: one branch of silver, one of gold, one of diamond, and the golden cup taken from the lit castle's table, and he told the whole story of the sunken bed, the long avenues, the lake, and the dancing, exactly as it had happened. The princesses, seeing the proof laid plainly before them, could deny it no longer and confessed that every word was true. The king, keeping his word, told the soldier he might choose any one of his twelve daughters for a wife. "I am not so young myself," said the soldier, "so, with your leave, I will take the eldest." And so it was settled that very day, and he was named heir to the kingdom besides. As for the twelve princes who had rowed and danced with the sisters each night, they remained under their spell for as many nights more as they had already danced — and then, at last, they were free.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
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