The Twelve Dancing Princesses

I am thinking so much about the 12 Dancing Princesses these days. It’s one of those stories that occasionally comes back and demands my attention. It has since I was 8 years old or so. Which is also when I started writing, and thinking of myself as a writer. There is no coincidence here.

It occurs to me that The Twelve Dancing Princesses generally appear in times of transition. I suspect it’s because of all the Grimm’s Fairy Tales I know, this is the one I want to rewrite the most.

There is no way, in my mind, that twelve girls who have managed to find and follow their desires, night after night, deserve the ending they got.

There is no way they deserve an end to dancing.

Because when a girl (woman) has enough life force and passion to dance her shoes to bits every night, night after night, she is well beyond the convention of marrying a man who tricks her into revealing her secrets.

So, an SFD* that is an alternate ending to The Twelve Dancing Princesses:

Of course I will call Truth by her name when I see her.Even Truth undressed against her will,held to your designs and cast aside with your satisfaction.Be careful, sir, when you think to take my hand.Better to satisfy yourselfwith silver, gold, diamonds –those pleasures you can possess.Better not to test the will you think you’ve brokenwith your silly parlor tricks.Take the money, sir.Or take the consequencesof thinking you can own me.

(*- SFD stands for “sh*tty first draft,” as inspired by Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. This space is held for SFDs, nascent ideas, and all things still forming. Welcome.)