The Bizarre Tale That Inspired ‘Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses’

Being the most famous doll in the world, since the early 2000s, Barbie has also conquered audiences in the world of drama, with animated films embraced by children all over the world. In 2023, Barbie came to life through the skin of Margot Robbie for the live-action film that bears his name, and became one of the most successful releases of the year.

Its first adaptation, however, arrived in 2001: the animation “Barbie: The Nutcracker”, inspired by the ballet Tchaikovsky“The Nutcracker”, and in the work The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, by Hoffmann ETA.

In the plot, the doll becomes Clara, a girl who receives a Nutcracker as a gift. However, when she wakes up, she realizes that she has been shrunk and, alongside the doll, sets off on an adventure in search of the only person who can help her undo the spell, the Caramel Fairy.

Among the various Barbie animations that managed to win over the public is “Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses”, from 2006, a story that follows 12 sisters who are passionate about dancing, who end up being forbidden from dancing by their cousin, Duchess Rowena, hired by her father so that the princesses would behave like ladies, as required by the nobility.

However, on the youngest’s birthday, they receive a book left by their mother, which reveals to them the secret of a place where, by dancing on the tiles of the room, a magical portal would open, and would take them directly to a garden where they could dance without being disturbed.

Despite the captivating and fun story, the inspiration for the plot is a little more bizarre than that presented in the animation, as it was originally written to scare naughty children, as pointed out by AdoroCinema.

The original version

“Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses” was based on a 1457 fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm — the same people responsible for stories that inspired Disney animations such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Tangled” —, where the title can be translated as “The Worn Out Dancing Shoes” or “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces”.

In the work, we follow a king who has 12 daughters, and always locks the girls’ bedroom door when they go to sleep, however, at dawn, he sees that all of their shoes are worn out, after they spent the entire night dancing in hiding.

Despite the girls’ denial, the monarch does not believe him and signs a decree stating that the man who could solve the mystery of what his daughters did at night in three days would be rewarded with the hand of one of the girls in marriage, in addition to becoming the heir to the throne when he died. On the other hand, if the gentleman could not complete the mission within the stipulated period, his fate was death.

Initially, no one managed to complete the challenge since, every time someone tried to watch the princesses during the night, they simply ended up falling asleep and, consequently, being killed after the deadline.

However, everything changed after the arrival of a soldier who had come to the kingdom from another city. As he was on his way to accept the mission, he received valuable advice from a lady, who told him not to drink the glass of wine offered by the king’s daughters. Before saying goodbye, the old woman also gave the man an important item for his endeavor: an invisibility cloak.

When he meets the princesses, the soldier follows the advice he received and manages to deceive them by pretending to drink the wine and falling asleep. When the 12 girls believe he is asleep, they enter a hidden passage under their beds, which leads directly to a forest.

The man then gets up and follows them stealthily, watching the heiresses head towards a river with twelve boats and twelve princes, one for each. They get on the boats and head to another castle, where they dance with their loved ones until 3 am.

Fulfilling his mission, the soldier returns before the princesses and continues to pretend to be asleep, revealing the girls’ deceit the next morning. In the end, he ends up marrying the eldest daughter, and the twelve princes they used to meet are cursed and trapped in the world that almost no one knew.