16 Retellings of Twelve Dancing Princesses

Though The Twelve Dancing Princesses is not as popular as the many fairy tales Disney has adapted, it’s still a better known fairy tale and has quite a few adaptions–both in book and movie format! Today I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of them, and the differences between the stories. It’s surprisingly quite long–though most of them are indie published and not traditionally published.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses: By K. M. Shea–that’s me, and yes this is a shameless plug: My version has a lot of battles and magical fights in addition to witty banter, elves, sweet romance, and more! If you’re a fan of Tamora Pierce or Sarah J Maas, this retelling is going to be right up your alley.

The Princess Curse: By Merrie Haskell: This is undoubtedly the funniest–and in my opinion, the best–retelling of the original fairy tale ever! It’s very light on the romance due to the main character’s age and leaves you still wanting more when it’s done, but it presents a traditional melding of the two different versions of the 12 dancing princesses that are most known today. Seriously, you need to read it!!

Entwined: By Heather Dixon: This is a YA retelling that mostly revolves around the romance aspect. (It’s been ages since I’ve read it, but I do recall it being a diverting read!)

Princess of the Midnight Ball: By Jessica Day George: This book is from the perspective of both the princess and the soldier–which is always a plus–and to make it even better, the soldier is not the typical hero (he knits) which makes him really interesting! Additionally, The villain has a different motive that really stands out from the rest of the pack as well.

A Dance of Silver and Shadows: By Mellanie Cellier: What makes this book unique is that the main character in this story is a twin, and she and her sister actually appeared in some of Mellanie’s earlier work. Additionally, the set up is very different as the 10 other girls involved in the story are princesses, but they are not Lilly’s sisters. (Well, besides her twin, anyway!)

Pirouette: by Kenley Davidson: Kenlely’s work always has amazing romance, but I think this book of hers uses some especially masterful plot-twists. It’s the third book in a series, The Andari Chronicles, but the books are all stand alone so you can read it without knowing anything about the two previous books.

The Firethorn Crown: by Lea Douge: This is another YA retelling, but it focuses more on the sisters’ relationship than many of the books I’ve listed above. The way the curse ends up coming down on the girls is very interesting, and the series is set up so you follow the younger sisters on to new adventures once this book is finished.

Other retellings that I have not read–so I can’t vouch for them–but I know they exist: A Branch of Silver a Branch of Gold–by Anne Elisabeth Stengl; Moon Dance–by Christine Pope; and The Twelve Dancing Princesses–by Jenni James.

Do you any other retellings, Champions? Please mention them in the comments below, and share this post with any friends you think need more dancing princesses in their life. 😉

Edit:  Thanks Champions for all the suggestions below in the comments!  I’m adding links to those:

Wildwood Dancing – Juliet Marillier

The Door in the Hedge – Robin McKinley

The Thirteenth Princess – Diane Zahler

My Fairly Dangerous Godmother – Janette Rallison

The Night Dance – Suzanne Weyn

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club – Genevieve Valentine

The Phoenix Dance – Dia Calhoun

Twelve Dancing Princesses: The Moral & My Retelling

A huge thank you to everyone who reviewed this book!

About the final extra. As I noted on the original announcement, it’s actually a general Timeless Fairy Tale story, and is told from the point-of-view of Odette of Swan Lake. The story will eventually be expanded upon and will show up in Angelique’s trilogy, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy the plot twist it delivers! Now, on to the post!

Normally I like to devote a whole post to the morals of the original fairy tale, but I’ll be honest…it’s pretty thin in Twelve Dancing Princesses. In fact, when I was researching the story I came across only a few resources that cited morals, and the best of them involved the German version with the soldier, not the French version with the gardener’s boy.

One proposed moral is that parents need to let their children grow up, and they cannot grasp them too tightly. This is displayed in the way the king/duke locks the princesses into their room and they still get away at night to do whatever they want.

Another proposed moral is something along the lines of listening to elders. Though many princes and nobles try, it is the wounded, middle-aged soldier who succeeds, and even that’s only because he listened to an old wise woman.

Some say that the French version encourages suffering and patience for the sake of love. (Why else would a shallow-boy have put up with the bratty youngest sisters’ antics?) But as I read over all of these…none of them really appealed to me.

So before I even crafted Quinn, before I even introduced the elves in Swan Lake, I looked at my series (including all my planned books) and contemplated what I wanted a main theme to be for 12 Dancing Princesses. Often in my stories you’ll see lots of themes of friendship, loyalty, and sticking together. These things are great and important. (No matter who you are, you NEED support!) But there is a problem with that…sometimes we get so caught up in our friendships we make poor choices because of those important relationships. We allow others to influence us to do things we wouldn’t normally do or say because they’re our friends. So I decided 12 Dancing Princesses would be the story where I flaunt friendship…and then shatter it by making Quinn choose to do the right thing rather than choose to follow her companions.

One of the hardest things to do is to step away from your friends and family and do the right thing. It takes a lot of courage, because even if what you stand for is correct it doesn’t guarantee that your friends will understand and accept your decision. Personally, I’ve had several relationships crumble because friends have asked me to do things that I know are wrong. It’s hard, and it happens more often than you would think, which is why I felt it was important to address with this particular tale.

Which launches us into my retelling! As I mentioned in a prior post, for my retelling I decided to stitch the two versions together. Quinn represents the German tale, and Roy the French version.

There’s a few obvious hints. Quinn is a soldier, she takes the silver tree branch as evidence, she receives the cloak from Angelique whom she initially thinks to be an old woman (And yes, for you Stil fans out there, the cloak originally belonged to Rumpelstiltskin. It’s the one Pricker Patch ripped that Stil gives to Angelique after Gemma gives him a new cape.) and she approaches the venture more from a “we’re going to fix this” perspective than a lovesick motivation.

Roy on the other hand is the gardener’s boy (or at least he pretends to be), he hides the twigs from the beautiful trees in the bouquet for the eldest princess (eldest not youngest, because the youngest twins aren’t even teenagers yet, ewwwww!) and he appears to be stupidly in love/motivated by the chance to marry a princess.

You can see a nod to the tales in the way the princesses  drug their victims (German) and that those who succeed in following them are cursed as well (French.) The silver, gold, and diamond trees are featured in my story and both the German and French version as well, but I chose to have the princesses cross a river rather than a lake (featured in both original versions) to get to the elves because I thought a river would be a better divider between the elf and human lands.

Additionally, my story includes the grand parties featured by both stories, and the philtre that serves as a plot point in the French version. (The curse being caused by the food and drink was also a subtle nod to the French version’s philtre.)

Even my choices of making the elves the hosts of the celebration was taken from one of the many other variations of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, in which the parties were hosted by fairies. (Pretty sure Emerys would slug me, though, if he knew he was the substitute for a fairy king.)

And that is the tale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I hope you enjoyed it, and that the story made you laugh and cheer. There’s only one fairy tale left in this current arc and that is Snow White!

Thank you for reading, Champions, and thank you for all your reviews–I really appreciate the time you took in making them. Enjoy the last short, and have a lovely day!

12 Dancing Princesses: Where it fits

Once again, Champions, you have exceeded my hopes, thank you to everyone who has kindly left a review! The next short–which is actually my favorite–is now unlocked: A Gallant Celebration. (Click HERE for the PDF File)

Now, onto today’s topic: where the story fits into the Continent and the timeline.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses make their first debut in the Timeless Fairy Tale series through Cinderella, in a conversation between Friedrich, Merrich, and Deiderrik, and they pop up every few books after that. But besides saying the bare minimum (That they are cursed or something as they wear their shoes out every night) I keep all details under wraps, until the Black Swan Smugglers arrive.

In Swan Lake I reveal that Odette and her crew have been delivering a philtre that freezes the heart of emotion and inspires a passionate desire to dance. This is the first clue that the elves are tied to the twelve dancing princesses as the French version of the story includes that exact same philtre. I planned for the elves to be included since early on in the series, and I knew the Twelve Dancing Princesses would be my ticket.

As you learned in Frog Prince, all the curses, spells, and calamities that have befallen my characters is the work of the Chosen–who have been plotting and planning for centuries. The Chosen specifically target countries and people with power who ruined their attack on Verglas, so naturally the elves would make the top of the list.

Because the elves–though quite limited in number–are a people group, the Chosen would have to strike against all elves if they really wanted lock them out of the incoming fight. Preferably they would want to kill them, but as you recall the elves’ curse was originally powered by Lord Enchanter Evariste, and due to the purity of his magic it couldn’t be twisted to do that. (It is worth mentioning, however, that Angelique’s magic wouldn’t have that problem, which is some food for thought….)

It’s also worth noting that the Chosen acted against them fast. It happened so quickly, in fact, that Emerys and his people didn’t even know Evariste had been kidnapped. (There will be more about this in future books, but its safe to conclude this was done on purpose.)

And to answer your question, Yes, as many of you have asked I do have a Fairy Tale planned to explain the elven Wanderers and how the three generals were freed. My original plan was to include it before Angelique’s book, but the series is already quite long. I still plan to write it one day, but it will likely be a novella. And to answer your burning question, the selected fairy tale is The Elves and the Shoemaker. There’s actually three different stories that include some distant hints to this fairy tale, so super bonus points to any who can guess which three!

Finally, Twelve Dancing Princesses actually introduces a main protagonist from a future story that will take place after Angelique’s books, Bridget! Can anyone guess what her fairy tale is? (Hint: think about her job…)

Thank you for reading and reviewing, Champions. I really hope you enjoy the extra, and have a lovely day!