It would have seemed fitting that, with the unexpected death of the warlord, the swineherd should have chosen to disclose the truth of his situation to the warlord’s daughter and return with her to his home. Instead he remained silent, preferring to reside with her at the palatial residence of the deceased warlord. The nobleman continued to wear the garments of a common swineherd, the muddied breeches of which would frequently be loosed so that the new warlord (the daughter having taken over from the father) could apply the musical cane to his backside all through the day and long into the night as he stood with his hands and head locked into the glittering pillory he had built.
For what better form of annexation could there be?
THE SHOES THAT WERE DANCED TO PIECES
Tellers of folktales have always been known to bring their personal experiences as well as their social environments into their stories. Although the peasant narrator generally reigns as supreme, there exists yet another voice—a voice belonging to one who has experienced the battlefield. Such a voice can be heard in the soldier’s tale called “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces.”
Equally well known as “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” the story tells of a poor discharged soldier who manages to rise in status by using his ingenuity, gaining for himself not only the crown, but also a beautiful princess. This type of tale likely arose from the inspired imaginations of the many soldiers all throughout history who, on finding that their services were no longer required, had nothing remaining to them except a life of poverty. Ergo, the creation of stories like “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces” provided these soldiers with adventure and a means of once again being useful, even if only within the boundaries of folktale reality.
Exclusive primarily to Central Europe, the tale is believed to originate in Russia. More than a hundred variants of “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces” have been recorded, the majority reaching from Serbia to Finland, which makes its diffusion quite limited when compared to other European folktales. Although scholars consider it doubtful that the story of the princesses and their worn-out shoes came into existence any earlier than the seventeenth century, elements occurring in the tale already have their antecedents in works of antiquity. The presence of the underground tree bearing jewels from which the soldier takes a sampling can be seen in the four-thousand-year-old Sumerian epic of the Mesopotamian ruler Gilgamesh. Like his more modern-day counterpart the soldier, Gilgamesh must make his way through an underground world, crossing over waters and encountering along the journey vines and bushes that bear jewels instead of fruit. And indeed, the tale may reach back farther yet by way of the coat the soldier wears to make himself invisible—an element indicating a possible connection to the folklore of primitive cultures and their belief in metamorphosis and magic.
Most familiar to fairy tale fanciers will be the version put forth by the Brothers Grimm. Coming upon elements of their story “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” in their travels throughout various regions of Germany, the Grimms found that not every story contained twelve princesses. One version involves a princess who supposedly wears out twelve pairs of shoes. They are in turn repaired by twelve apprentices, the most curious of which hides beneath her bed to learn how so many pairs of shoes could possibly be worn out by one wearer. In so doing, the apprentice discovers the existence of eleven other princesses, leading to the inevitable reward of being allowed to marry the first. In another version collected by the Grimms, three princesses wear holes into their shoes, thereby inspiring the announcement that anyone who can solve the mystery of the worn shoes will receive the hand of the youngest in marriage. Present here for the first time is the character of the soldier who pretends to drink the drugged wine given him by the princesses—an element that became permanently incorporated into the tale by the Grimms, along with the gruesome disposal of those who tried and failed to solve the mystery of the worn-out shoes.
Indeed, Victorian editors would have a difficult time with the fatal and unjust disposition of the candidates who failed to learn where the princesses went at night. For the concept of those who strove yet failed despite their valiant efforts was not a theme held in particularly high regard by the Victorians. Nonetheless, these very same editors who objected to the dismal fate allocated the many candidates did not appear to pose any objection to a soldier’s surreptitious spying on the intimate doings of beautiful young princesses or the princesses sneaking off in the night to meet with young men. Perhaps the bolting of their bedroom door by their father had been intended as a means of protecting their virtue, since surely a good deal more than a dance was on the princesses’ agenda…as it would be for the young women in my version.
HIGH IN THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS where counts came a dime a dozen, there lived a wealthy widowed Count who had for his pride and joy twelve daughters whose smiles warmed their father’s heart. Concerned about untoward influences affecting the wholesome innocence of their lives, the Count insisted that his toothy offspring share the same bedchamber. Fortunately, it was a very large room with space enough to accommodate twelve satin-upholstered beds, which had been custom made from the finest mahogany and trimmed with bronze. Each evening at twilight, their father locked the young Countesses in, placing the one and only key within the pocket of his cape, thus ensuring that no one could go in or out but he himself.
Despite these paternal precautions, something always seemed to go seriously awry. For just before sunrise when he unlocked their bedchamber door to check on his daughters before retiring for the day to his own bed, the Count discovered that the soles of their shoes had become worn through from their nocturnal activities—activities that had evidently been of so strenuous a nature that twelve corresponding pairs of underdrawers lay discarded beside their owners’ beds, one damper than the next. The continually thwarted Count was eventually forced to post a notice in the village, announcing that any man who learned where his twelve daughters went at night would be granted the countess of his choice to take for his wife and—upon the father’s death—would inherit vast wealth. As with most bargains of the day, there was a slight caveat to this generous proposal: Not only had the Count already lived for many centuries and would likely live for many more, but if the man who offered his services had not made the discovery inside of three nights, he would have every drop of blood drained from his body.
Within hours of the notice’s posting, the son of the burghermaster presented himself at the castle. A notorious gambler, he owed money to nearly everyone in the village and had twice suffered a broken nose as a result. He was immediately assigned a small room across from that of the twelve Countesses in which a pine box had been conveniently placed for him to rest. So that the Count’s ungovernable daughters might be more effectively observed, the door of their bedchamber would be left fully open, placing their every activity within plain sight of this sentinel. Indeed, the burghermaster’s son took considerable delight in watching such fine young ladies dashing to and fro in petticoat and chemise as each performed her toilette, for the twelve Countesses possessed figures of great allure that not even the modest cloak of their undergarments could hide.
Although such visual pleasures had never before been made so readily available to him, this new arrival had undergone a tiresome journey from the village, and his eyelids began to droop with heaviness, bringing with them an unwanted slumber. Having found no coachman willing to transport him to the Count’s castle, he had had to walk the distance, most of which was uphill. Only the rising of the sun could finally prize the burghermaster’s son out from his sleeping box. The following morning he awakened rested and refreshed…until suddenly he remembered the reason he had come to the castle. Stealing into the bedchamber of those over whom he had been assigned to keep watch, he was greeted with the reassuring image of the twelve Countesses sleeping peacefully in their mahogany beds, a toothy smile of contentment on their pale faces. Alas, their guardian’s relief at his findings would be very short-lived.
For aba
ndoned alongside each sister was a pair of shoes, all of which had fresh holes worn into their soles. Stuffed carelessly inside the left foot of each was what at first glance appeared to be a kerchief. However, a more thorough investigation revealed not kerchiefs as originally thought, but ladies’ underdrawers. The burghermaster’s son pulled them out one by one the better to examine them, his fumbling fingers encountering a mysterious dampness upon their silken gussets. So intrigued was he by his findings that he took the pair assigned to the shoe of the youngest of the twelve Countesses back with him to his quarters to contemplate it at his leisure. And so it would be on the second and third nights as well, which explained how this luckless betting man came to be bled dry.
Be that as it may, there was always some desperate soul willing to risk his life-giving fluids for a chance at possessing great wealth in his pockets and a beautiful young bride in his bed. Indeed, both trades-man and peasant would be left with an emptiness in their veins, thereby necessitating a continuous supply of pine boxes to the castle. For not only did they function as beds, they could be utilized to bury their users in as well, proving the ultimate in multipurpose efficiency for the economically minded Count, who, it should be noted, had not accumulated his fortune by being a spendthrift.
One day a soldier passing through the village heard of the Count’s unusual proposition from an old woman selling garlic in the marketplace. No longer in the sweet bloom of youth, he found the prospect of seizing tremendous riches greatly appealing. A wound incurred during the heat of battle had prevented the soldier from remaining on in service, leaving him in a position of poverty and lowly status. He beseeched the garlic seller to direct him to the castle until she grudgingly obliged, albeit not without first issuing a garlic-breathed warning: “You must refuse to eat or drink anything the Count’s daughters offer. For if you fall asleep, your blood will be let by the close of the third night!” Apparently taking pity on him, the old woman placed a cloak of the blackest and most supple rubber across his arms. “Wear this and you will be protected from evil.”
In appreciation, the soldier bestowed upon the marketwoman the one thing of value he owned: the silver crucifix he wore around his neck. Then he set confidently off on the road to the castle. Like his inauspicious predecessors, he would promptly be conducted into the little room across from the bedchamber of the Count’s daughters. Accustomed to sleeping rough, the soldier found no fault with his accommodation. As darkness descended over the Carpathians, he lay in repose inside his pine box, observing the twelve Countesses through a crack in the wood. The moment the eldest came toward him with a cup of what looked to be wine, he began to snore loudly and with great enthusiasm, for he thought it best to heed the old garlic-seller’s advice. With cup in hand, the Countess returned to her eleven sisters, whereupon they tittered merrily, no doubt heartily sorry for the doomed fellow who, at the conclusion of the designated three nights, would be obliged to spill his blood.
With the soldier snoring safely at his post, wardrobes and cupboards were flung open and garments were draped over every available surface. The Countesses dressed both themselves and each other, dancing gaily about on shoes whose soles had yet to experience wear. Despite such girlish gaiety, the youngest of the Count’s daughters did not act nearly so carefree as her siblings. “Sisters,” she addressed them portentously, “I fear an obstacle shall be placed in our paths on this eve.”
“What nonsense!” retorted the eldest. “Can you not see how the fool sleeps?” She indicated the slumbering soldier, who had not altered his position since dusk. One might even have imagined him dead were it not for the guttural snorts and rattles emanating from the pine box. To make certain all was well, the sisters performed a closer inspection of their inharmonious sentry. Confident that he posed them no threat, they returned to their bedchamber, forming a line before a painted landscape of an ancient necropolis whose ghoulish iconography had sent shudders through the soldier on his arrival. The first-born rapped her knuckles thrice against the gilt frame and the immense canvas swung inward, revealing the entrance to a passageway. Although many castles had been designed with such secret labyrinths, it was the Count’s servants whose persistent indolence prevented this particular one from being sealed up. With toothy grins, the twelve Countesses vanished into the black tunnel, the oldest going first, the youngest last.
All the while, the ostensibly slumbering soldier had witnessed everything, including the very pleasurable sight of the sisters’ disrobing. Why, his famished eyes had roamed over vistas the likes of which had never been theirs to roam! With such fleshy scenarios still vivid in his mind, he undressed down to his boots before fastening at his neck the cloak of black rubber the old marketwoman had given him—only to discover that it rendered him completely invisible. Armed in his protective garb, the fearless soldier followed the Count’s giggling daughters into the cobwebby darkness and down a succession of narrow steps. The smell of the rubber and the feel of it against his bare skin proved unexpectedly stimulating and in his distraction, he accidentally trod on the hem of the youngest’s gown. “Eeek! Who goes there?” she shrieked, swatting her hands about as if to ward off an overly persistent bat.
“Hush, you silly!” hissed her sisters in annoyance. For they needed to remain absolutely silent until they had left the castle grounds and, most especially, the range of their father’s highly acute hearing.
The twelve Countesses and their unseen pursuer emerged from the musty passageway into a small family graveyard whose ancient and crumbling tombstones lay in the moonlit shadows of trees. Unlike ordinary trees one might encounter in any graveyard, these arboreal specimens were dappled with shiny leaves of silver. The soldier decided to collect one as a token, figuring that he could secure a good price for it in the village in the event that matters did not conclude as favorably as he hoped and a hasty escape proved necessary. As he reached up to break off a leaf, the sound of its stem snapping fractured the stillness, alarming the already-alarmed younger Countess. “Sisters, did you hear?” she cried.
“Shush! It is only the sound of a gun being fired at a werewolf,” scolded the eldest.
“Must you always be such a ninny?” reproached another sister, her sharp eyeteeth gleaming in the darkness.
The graveyard eventually opened out into a slightly larger graveyard whose leaning tombstones were overhung with trees containing leaves that appeared to have been hammered from gold. Regretting that he had not gathered for himself more of the silver, the soldier happily settled for a token of the gold, since it would fetch an even greater price than its more modest predecessor. Hearing the loud crack the stem made when broken, the youngest Countess jumped in fear, only to do so again when she and her sisters entered a graveyard of immense proportions whose more recent tombstones were eclipsed by trees that dangled glittering diamonds like ordinary raindrops. Having lived a life without anything of value in his pockets, the soldier wished to acquire a sampling of this as well. Indeed, with graveyards such as these in his environs, no wonder the Countesses’ father possessed enormous wealth.
Having by now resigned himself to spending the entire night stalking the Countesses through graveyards, the soldier was startled to see the sparkling water of a lake at the terminus of this dominion of the dead. A dozen rowboats had been moored along the pebbly shore, and at each of their helms sat a handsome young squire, all of whom held a cudgel in their laps to ward off any blackguards who might happen by. As the twelve sisters fanned out to join their waiting sweethearts, the rubber-cloaked soldier attached himself to the youngest and, in his opinion, the prettiest. Since arriving at the castle, he had grown quite enamored of the little Countess, who seemed so much more ingenuous than her older and toothier siblings.
The boats and their occupants cast off toward the opposite shore of the lake, where the sound of music and laughter could be heard. Lagging far behind was the young Countess, whose robust companion rowed with unexpected difficulty, a labored sweat breaking across his sm
ooth brow. On this particular evening the vessel felt unusually heavy—a phenomenon that he blamed on a fatigue brought about by too many nights of carousing with the Countesses, rather than on the presence of their invisible stowaway. As the rowboats touched land, the sisters took off in a run along the beach, taking care not to move too swiftly for fear they might outrun their handsome escorts. Furthermore, the pebbles hurt their feet, the soles of their shoes not having been intended for such rough terrain. Seizing the Countesses in their arms, the squires raised up the hems of their gowns, bringing into exposure their underdrawers, the already-dampened gussets of which were immediately drawn to one side. In this manner each couple danced on the shore, although instead of the partners being face-to-face and palm-to-palm, the gentlemen stood behind the ladies in close tandem.
In his position of newfound invisibility, the soldier could move freely among the twelve dancing couples with no concern for being made a victim of the squires’ weapons, for, indeed, some of the larger ones looked quite menacing. Admittedly lacking in the social graces, this unseen spectator considered their jerky dance steps most peculiar and not at all in keeping with the elegant style he expected from those of their station. Yet perhaps even more peculiar was the fact that the squires insisted upon hiding their cudgels inside the disturbed gussets of the Countesses’ underdrawers. Each charged forth with warlike impunity, his handsome features distorted with the effort of lodging his armament as deeply as possible before moving on to impale the next eager sister. Those gentlemen of a less robust physical nature paused to rest in between and give their spent weapons an opportunity to return to their former defensive mode, leaving their female partners swaying and shuddering in a solo dance before yet another squire moved in to claim them. The soldier placed himself before his favorite of the Count’s twelve daughters so that he might get to the crux of the matter, the crude objects in the squires’ care offering a bitter reminder of how skillfully he had once wielded a bayonet in battle. In his opinion, such masculine horseplay would be certain to result in serious injury to the Countesses, if it had not done so already.
In Sleeping Beauty's Bed Page 9