This week we read a story that seemed awfully familiar to two other stories we’ve already read (three others if you include Cinderella, but Cinderella doesn’t quite fit all the elements in these stories.)
- Three nights. Three balls. Three dresses.
- Three attempts to gain the attention of the prince / king.
- Three times the girl flees; the third time her identity is revealed.
- And her dresses are like the sun, moon, and stars (worn in various order)
Lets see how these elements play out in each story:
All-Kinds-of-Fur
This story was way back in #65 of Grimm. It’s a story about a girl fleeing marriage to her father. She ends up working in the kitchen at a neighboring castle. When a series of three balls take place, she attends, wearing each of the three dresses she escaped home with (made by the most skillful women in her kingdom). The king dances with her all night before she runs away. During the day, she hides her identity under soot and a coat of fur while working as a kitchen maid. The king eventually figures out who she is by slipping a ring on her finger to mark her.
See Also: Palace Intrigue
The True Bride
Next, The True Bride starts as a Cinderella tale, turns into a Rumpelstiltskin story, and then ends as a rescuing-the-fiance tale.
A young and beautiful maiden living with her stepmother is forced to work hard. The more work she does, the more she is given. First, she has to strip the quills from twelve pounds of feathers. Next, she has to empty a pond using a spoon filled with holes. Lastly, she has to build a castle by evening.
This maiden has a helper who sneaks in and does the work for her, much like Rumpelstiltskin. However, this helper demands nothing in return, more like Cinderella’s fairy godmother.
In this epic tale, our maiden takes control of the castle (after the terrible stepmother falls down the stairs and dies) and a prince comes along. He and the new princess fall in love.
Under the linden tree, the prince tells her he is going home to tell the king he wants to marry her. She kisses his left cheek and tells him to remain true and not let anyone kiss him on that cheek. He only plans to be gone a few hours…
When he doesn’t return she worries he had an accident. She sets out to look for him, but she must have gone to the wrong kingdom (?) because no one knows who she is searching for. Giving up, she becomes a shepherdess…for years. (I told you this was an epic tale.) Until one day, he rides by and she recognizes him, but he has forgotten her. He is in town because the princess of this kingdom is getting married…to him.
The king is throwing a three day celebration for his daughter’s upcoming wedding. Our sad maiden attends each night wearing a different dress (of stars, moons, and suns which she brought with her from the castle the old woman made and filled with royal things) and dances with the prince each night instead of his new betrothed. (No mention of how they get away with this…seems like the king would have something to say about his daughter being tossed aside.)
The prince senses he’s known her for a long time, and his eyes are opened after she kisses him on his left cheek.
The Drummer
In a slight twist, or in a bid for equal rights, this particular ballroom story starts from the male POV. A young drummer, while walking near a lake at night finds three pieces of cloth on the beach. He picks one up and brings it home. That night, he is visited by a princess who has been put under a spell. Before she leaves him, she tells him how he can rescue her. (Yes, an example of the boy rescuing the girl…until there is a twist and she has to go rescue him.)
The drummer sets out for the glass mountain, besting giants along the way and then performing three tasks to best the witch. Victorious in rescuing the princess, he goes off to tell his parents…and after erroneously kissing them on the right cheek, he forgets everything and the story switches to the princess’s POV.
She obtains her dresses from a wishing ring.
This story then becomes like The Singing, Springing Lark in that the princess only wears the dresses long enough for the new bride-to-be to notice and covet the dress. The two young women then work out a trade so that the old bride can sleep outside the door of the groom. After several nights of this behavior, the servants tell the prince what is going on so he only pretends to drink the sleeping potion (in these stories, the new fiancees aren’t completely naive regarding motivations) and finally recognizes his true bride after hearing her soft voice in the night the way he did when he first met her.
So, there we go. Three stories. Three balls. Three dresses of sun, moon, and stars. Which elements do you like best from the stories?
ALERT! This series of posts has turned into a book! Preorder the ebook now; paperbacks and workbooks to follow!
While you think on that, here are some quotes from other stories this week:
