Twelve Dancing Princesses Retellings

Though The Twelve Dancing Princesses is not as popular as the many fairy tales Disney has adapted, it’s still a better known then most and has quite a few adaptions–both in book and movie format! Today I'm going to share some of my favorite books plus a bonus list of books recommended by my Facebook followers.

My top suggestions for Twelve Dancing Princesses Retellings:

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 but also demonstrates the super strong bond between the sisters (the princesses).

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.

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! My version switches the main characters to the female soldier trying to break the curse and the Elf King (who is enslaved along with the princesses).

Now it's time for the bonus list of Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale retellings recommended by my social medial followers. (I asked them for no spice and low language but check reviewers first if that is a concern for you.)

The Firethorn Crown by Lea Douge

A Dance of Silver and Shadows by Melanie Cellier

Pirouette by Kenley Davidson

A Branch of Silver a Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Moon Dance by Christine Pope

The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Jenni James

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

My Fairly Dangerous Godmother by Janette Rallison

The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

The Phoenix Dance by Dia Calhoun

The Dancer and the Dragon Speaker by Laurie Lucking

Till Midnight by Arisa May

The Dark King and the Eternal Dance by Alesha Adamson

The Twelve Dancing "Princesses" by S.R. Nulton

Kingdom of Dance by Deborah Grace White

The Silver Prince by Lyndsey Hall

Sole of Secrets by Abigail Manning

Poison's Dance by Tricia Mingerink

I hope you find a book you love and share this post with any friends you think need more dancing princesses in their life. 😉

If you're looking for more book recommendations I have a whole series of these blog posts featuring lists of books vetted by readers! Click here to start reading or use the Book Lists category to filter them.

Twelve Dancing Princesses: The Moral & My Retelling

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.

And if you're now interested in reading my adaptation of this popular fairy tale here are the links:

Click here for Amazon.com   Or Click here for all other Amazon stores

12 Dancing Princesses: Where it fits

Where does the story of Twelve Dancing Princesses fit into the Continent and the timeline of the series?

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 if you want a much more detailed overview of the timeline for the Timeless Fairy Tales series I highly recommend you check out one of the Champion created Timelines linked on my fairy tale page (it also has a map showing all the countries!)