Endless dancing

 

Endless dancing

Red Shoes (Boots) modelled by Power Ranger Jason Lee Scott

Fairy tales often conceal dark thoughts and fears. Frequently, they’re based on unpleasant and unpalatable facts, and are used as moral fables.

The Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Snow White in 1812, though it traces its origins to earlier folk tales in which a mother wished for a beautiful child, ‘’with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.”

In Snow White the lovely child was born and adored, but her loving mother died soon after the baby’s birth. Her father married a beautiful woman who was excessively vain and despised the pretty little girl. Many times, she sought to kill her, but each time her efforts were thwarted.

After the trials and tribulations visited upon the poor child by her stepmother, Snow White was awoken from her living death and married her handsome prince. The evil stepmother was invited to the wedding, but was overcome with envy and hatred at seeing the lovely young woman, who had displaced her as “the fairest in all the land.” Her wickedness was repaid with a curse. She was compelled to wear a pair of shoes of red-hot iron and dance until she collapsed and died.

Evil is as evil does, you might say.

A little more than thirty years later, Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Red Shoes in 1845.

If you have ever wondered why ‘Karen’ became a pejorative term for rude, privileged women, the clue may lie within the story. It wasn’t adopted as an insult until the twenty-first century, after an unpleasant incident in Central Park, New York. 

In defence of Karens everywhere, I have known several by that name, all perfectly pleasant.

In the story, poor orphaned Karen was adopted by a wealthy lady and indulged in everything, growing up spoilt and conceited. Spotting a pretty pair of red shoes in a cobbler’s shop window, Karen could not rest until she acquired them. Once in possession of them, she could not bear to remove them.

 Dressed in white for her confirmation, she refused to change them for something more appropriate, greatly upsetting those around her, particularly her guardian. Later, as her guardian lay seriously ill Karen wore the shoes to a ball, giving little heed to the woman who had taken her in and looked after her.

To her shock, as she left the ball, she found herself dancing and unable to stop. An angel appeared and told her she was cursed to wear the shoes and dance through all eternity. In desperation, Karen begged for her feet to be chopped off, and they danced away from her. She was then given wooden feet and crutches, and lived the rest of her life humbly.

That is a profound object lesson.

There are shades of eternal dancing in the Pied Piper of Hamelin, another story written by the Brothers Grimm. It is a strange tale that has its roots in history.

After the Pied Piper had been cheated of his agreed fee for ridding the town of Hamelin of its plague of rats, he took his revenge by enticing the children to follow him out of the town. The children could not resist the strains of the Piper’s tunes, and danced away to a lair in the mountains, never to be seen again. One poor crippled boy, unable to keep up with his companions, was left behind to tell the tale.

As always, there are several versions of the story, but there is a street in Hamelin which is said to be the last place the children were seen alive before they disappeared. It is called ‘Bungelosenstrasse,’ (street without drums) and no music or dancing is ever allowed on that thoroughfare.