tin ceilings / Grimms / upholstery

A while ago I was walking in Montreal, looking for a tin ceiling. It's an architectural detail I recall seeing in cafes or bars when I first moved to Montreal in the 80s. I'm sure there are still some, but I couldn't find one. The taverns/bars/bistros I recall having tin ceilings have either closed or moved to larger venues that have been renovated. There are companies who will install new tin ceiling tiles for an elegant, antique look, but that's not the same. The original imprinted tin tile ceilings were a design feature conceived in the mid-1800s as an affordable alternative to carved plaster ceilings. I don't recall seeing them where I grew up in Ontario, and so I noticed them in Montreal.


In the 1990s we lived in an apartment that had tin wainscoting in the living room. The metal was imprinted with fleurs-de-lys and painted white like the plaster walls. There was handsome oak trim. The apartment had "charm" but there were problems with the plumbing, the noise between the apartments, the thin, rattling windows in the winter.

The tin ceiling in the photo belongs to Cafe Shaika on Sherbrooke where R and I went for a walk the other day. What was best? The ceiling, the generous layout of the tables, the varnished tabletops covered in pages and drawings from fairy tales? Of course, I sat at a Grimms' table with the story of the Wolf and the Seven Little Goats.

The decaff latte was good too.

Also on our walk along Sherbrooke we saw this old shop, now Pizzeria Melrose. I appreciate that they kept the original upholsterer's sign--that they've made this nod to the history of the building.














R and I had a chair reupholstered here. The man drove across the city to where we were living, picked up the chair--no charge--and delivered it once it was made new again.
Here's a pic of a younger version of myself in the new chair, with other details from my life in the 1990s. The black rotary phone, plaster Ionic column (a popular feature in Greek neighbourhoods in Montreal), the table loom in the background. I used to weave scarves on that loom. Later I got a larger floor loom.

Here's the painting R did.

I don't know what the relationship between the words and the painting is.

But I'm wondering now how old T.S. Eliot was when he wrote Prufrock. I empathized with the indecisive anguish of the poem when I was younger, but now that I'm Prufrock's age--my own hair thinning--I don't have the time nor the patience for that kind of anguish. At this age, I get on with things.

(Just looked up Eliot's age. He was 22.)

aprons / Grimms' fairy tales / linen

Do you wear an apron? I'm pretty sure my mother wore one when I was growing up but I didn't take the habit with me when I left home.

I wore one the year I had a job baking cakes in a restaurant, because I didn't want melted chocolate or egg yolks dripped and smeared on my clothes. The kitchen wasn't so fancy that any of us wore full kitchen whites, except for the supper chef who gave himself airs. He had trained in France. The rest of us wore jeans and aprons. That was in 1981? 82?

At home I only started wearing an apron after I splashed a beloved sweater with hot olive oil. I opted for the bibbed apron over the skirt-style apron my mother used to wear.

That's not a picture of my mother and I haven't included a photo of my apron because it's long ago acquired a patina of avocado, tomato, orange juice, chocolate, oil and whatever else I've wiped across it over the years. An apron is handy when you need to blot your hands or clean a knife fast. I do wash the apron but the stains are there to stay. That's why they're called stains. (Stay = stains?)

I've been thinking about aprons because I want to know what kind of cloth would have been used to make an apron in Grimms' fairy tale times.

As far as I can discover, the common household fibre at that time in Europe was linen. Linen is made from flax. There are a few Grimms' fairy tales about the spinning of flax--most often when an irrational monarch demands that a girl spin flax into gold.

Last year I happened to wander into a shed in Austria where I saw honest-to-goodness flax. Even in the dim light, the fairy tales about spinning flax into gold suddenly made sense.

To get flax supple enough to spin into yarn, the stalks are threshed with a flail, followed by retting, then scutching, AND THEN they are heckled with heckling combs!

If I'm ever heckled when I'm standing on stage, I hope I have the presence of mind to point out to my heckler that I am not a stalk of flax.

And here's a linguistic/textile tidbit I came across while looking up the history of cloth. When cotton was first introduced to Europe in the 1300s, people knew only that it came from a plant, and so they imagined there were trees that grew in India with tiny lambs on the ends of its branches. This myth lives on in the German word for cotton which is baumwolle. Literally: tree wool.

If you're wondering how far off the beaten path I went to find an old shed where flax used to be threshed, retted, scutched, and heckled, here's the view. The first snow had blown in the night before. Guess from which direction.

Making linen was a laborious process, but in countries that didn't have ties to cotton-growing colonies linen was still the least inexpensive textile until partway through the 19th century. Nightgowns were made from linen. Underwear was linen. Shirts were linen. Collars were linen. Skirts were linen.
When the brothers Grimm were researching and writing their fairy tales, aprons were made of linen. And people wore aprons. The word has been around in English since the early 1600s. Men wore aprons specific to their trade--carpenters, butchers, stonemasons, cobblers...

Even the witch in "Hansel and Gretel" wears an apron.

Illustrations of aprons courtesy of Fritz Fischer in Grimms Märchen (Bertelsmann Verlag, 1957) 

fairy tales, illustrations, engravings

I've fallen behind with blog writing because I've been writing. Or trying to.

I had this astounding month in Austria with all kinds of experiences I could blog about--visiting with family; staying in houses stuffed with ad hoc statuary and gold leaf and no end of surprises

A Roman senator with a mink collar

 A gold-leaf clock over the fridge

An Egyptian fresco sliding door...

I went hiking and cycling around mountain lakes.

I had a private tour of a 15th-century castle whose name I promised the countess I wouldn't reveal

Note the castle dog lower right

Innumerable interesting details. This chandelier would have been lit with real candles at one time. The little man is not added. He's part of the antler carving. 

In Vienna there was Klimt, the Prader, cobblestone streets, fountains so large you could drown a Japanese car in them, the Institute of Conservation where I had a letter of introduction.

BUT. Full stop. I don't yet know what I'll be using in fiction, so I'm keeping my notes and pics to myself. A person should be mindful of her priorities.

I will, however, tell you about a storybook my aunt has. You know I'm interested in fairytales, don't you? My blog is called Rapunzel's Hair--after the Grimms fairytale, not because I want anyone to climb up my hair.
My copy of Grimms was published in 1957 in Germany. It was a present from my grandfather who sent it to Canada so that I would read German. I read the German and picked up some odd life lessons. If a frog speaks and wants a kiss, it might be a prince. An old woman who mutters to herself might be a witch. Or she might be kindly and help you. No telling.  

I loved--and still love--the ink illustrations. They were done by Fritz Fischer, who is not the same Fritz Fischer as the German WWI historian. His drawings are expressive, funny, scary.
Here is Rapunzel's sorceress stepmother climbing her hair. Remember the rhyme? Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair. In German, Rapunzel only gets the command. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, lass dein Haar herunter."

Or how about Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch's house? Best illustration of a candy and sugar house I've ever seen. Those creepy trees hovering around it.

My aunt has a book of fairytales that beats my book for scary illustrations hands down. The stories come from Perrault, a French writer who collected and published the stories in 1697, more than a hundred years before the brothers Grimm, but who never became known as well as they did.
In the 19th century Gustave Doré did engravings to illustrate some of Perreault's tales. This book, published in 1870, is what my aunt has.

The first letter of the first chapter of a story is decorated as an inhabited initial--a term I'd never heard before and makes we want to start doodling.

Here are two engravings from the book:

When this book was first published, Gustave Doré was criticized for the horror and lewdness of his illustrations, but isn't that what fairy tales are all about? Take the worst of your nightmares--a wolf in sheep's clothing, a ogre hovering over your bed--look hard at it, shiver, and then phew! Close the book!

federal elections Canada / Grimms fairytales

I'll be looking online later tonight for election results. Fingers crossed.

Here's an etching to help motivate people to vote. My aunt has this astounding copy of Grimms fairytales illustrated by Gustav Doré. 

Despite mostly grey skies, it's not all grim here. There's been cycling past cornfields and rivers and lakes with a view onto mountains.

Family.

Doesn't everyone have a gold tree on the ceiling of their bathroom?

R got a Klimt tie as a present which he's wearing with my cousin's snazzy glasses.

If you wonder if it's true that in Alpine countries cows gambol about in the meadows, have a look bottom left.

I've been learning about restoring centuries-old statues that were *cleaned* by slapping on a coat of white paint. The white paint is now removed--very carefully--revealing the original colouring that is freshened. I learned, too, how the expression on a statue's face comes from the brush more than the chisel. I've now seen several version of the same statue with expressions that range from glowering to mild and sweet.

We were so fortunate as to be invited by a countess on a private tour of a castle built in the 1500s.

On another mountain entirely we found a hut with flax that a character from a fairytale might one day spin into gold.

grimms fairytale "the seven ravens" / die sieben Raben

Here's a Grimms fairytale I remember from childhood because of the illustrations. I was particularly taken with the way the girl strapped a stool to her back--and not just any stool. It has carved legs. No collapsible, lightweight camping stools in the world of fairytales.

The Seven Ravens

A man had seven sons and still no daughter, much as he longed for one.
--nice that he wanted a girl, but less practical that he wished yet another pregnancy on his wife

Finally his wife told him she was expecting again. When she gave birth, the child was a girl.
He was delighted, but the girl was frail and small, so needed to be baptized immediately.
--what exactly happens to children, who die unbaptized, has plagued Christian theologians since forever. When I was growing up and taught Catholic belief, I was told they go to limbo. It's an indeterminate state of neither heaven nor hell. Spiritual dusk.

The man told one of his sons to run to the spring for baptismal water. The other six hustled along, and since each wanted to be the first to fetch the water, the jug was knocked into the well. They stood, not knowing what to do. Not one of them dared to go home.
--another version of spiritual dusk

As they still didn't return, the father grew impatient and said, "For sure they've started playing some game and forgot what I told them, those godless brats." He grew afraid that his daughter might die unbaptized, and in his vexation cried, "I wish they would all turn into ravens."
He'd hardly spoken the word when he heard flapping in the air over his head, looked up and saw seven coal-black ravens flying up and away.

The parents couldn't take back the curse, and as sad as they were over the loss of their sons, they found comfort in their darling daughter, who every day grew stronger and more beautiful.
--I'm surprised at so little grief over the loss of seven children, but let's keep the story moving.

For a long time the little girl didn't know she had brothers, because the parents were careful never to mention it, until one day she heard people saying that, although she was pretty, she was responsible for the misfortune of her seven brothers.
--don't you love the slant gossips take? How about, for example, blaming the father who cursed the boys?

Troubled to hear this, the girl asked her parents if she had brothers and what had happened to them. The parents realized they could no longer keep the secret. They told her it was heaven's fate and not her fault that her birth had caused it.
--heaven made the father curse his sons? The mix of religious belief, magic, and superstition in this story is dizzying.

The girl's conscience bothered her. Every day she told herself she had to rescue her brothers. She had no peace nor rest until, telling no one, she set out into the world to search for her brothers and free them, cost what it would. She took nothing with her but a small ring from her parents as a keepsake, a loaf of bread against hunger, a small jug of water against thirst, and a little stool for when she was tired.

And so she walked, farther and farther until the end of the world. She came to the sun but it was too hot and frightening and ate little children. Hurriedly she ran away toward the moon, but it was too cold and scary and mean, and when it noticed the child, said, "I smell, I smell human flesh."

The girl ran away quickly and came to the stars. They were friendly and kind, and each sat on her unusual stool.Then the morning star stood, gave her a chicken bone and said, "Without this little bone, you won't be able to unlock the glass mountain. Inside the glass mountain are your brothers."

The girl wrapped the bone carefully in a small cloth and set out again, walking until she came to the glass mountain. The great door was locked, but when she reached for the cloth, where she had wrapped the bone, and unrolled it, the cloth was empty. She had lost the good star's gift.
What should she do now? She wanted to save her brothers but had no key to get into the glass mountain. The good little sister took a knife, cut off her little finger, and pushed it in the lock which happily now opened.

As she walked in, a dwarf approached. "My child, what are you looking for?"
"I'm looking for my brothers, the seven ravens."
"The gentlemen are not home, but if you want to wait until they arrive, come inside."
The dwarf carried in the ravens' meals on seven small plates and seven small beakers. From each plate the girl ate a crumb, and from each beaker she took a sip.
--that's right, echoes of Goldilocks. If it works in one story, why not another? Please note, though, if any surprise guests want to make their presence known in my house, I would request that you keep your oral bacteria to yourself.

In the last beaker the girl dropped the ring she had brought from home.
Suddenly she heard flapping and felt the air stirring. The dwarf said, "The gentlemen ravens are flying home."
They arrived, ready for their supper and sat at the table before their food and drink. One after the other said, "Who has eaten from my plate? Who has drunk from my beaker? This was a human's mouth." And as the seventh emptied his beaker, the ring rolled toward him. He recognized it was a ring from their father and mother, and said, "By the grace of god, if our sister were here, then we would be saved."
When the girl, who was standing by the door heard the wish, she came forward, and the ravens became humans again. They hugged and kissed each other and made their happy way home.

--a footnote about a German verb in that last sentence. The siblings didn't hug each other. They "hearted" each other. "Und sie herzten und küssten einander..." Current texting lingo existed long before Facebook.

translating words of abuse

The language with which we abuse people is harsh and unfair, but sometimes colourful as well.
Just now I'm looking at the German word Einfaltspinsel. Einfalt means naivete or simplicity. Push it a little and it means stupid. To break that down even more, a Falt is a fold or pleat, so Einfalt is a single fold or pleat.
A Pinsel is a brush. That makes an Einfaltspinsel a single-fold brush. Except brushes don't have folds, they have hairs, so an Einfaltspinsel is a single-hair brush.
Neat, eh? Who came up with that one? A master painter shouting at a hopeless apprentice? Though maybe the apprentice only had a different way of seeing and applying paint. The word first appeared in print in 1732.
In the dictionary, Einfaltspinsel translates as nitwit.

If you are planning a trip to a German-speaking country and packing a few words of abuse to toss around, I don't know how current Einfaltspinsel is. It can be found online if that's an indication.

The frog comes from my old copy of Grimms which I'm using for something else I'm writing. He's a happy frog, isn't he? Ready for spring as we all are in the unending cold that winter has been.

Back to work...

Grimms' fairy tale for vegetarians / Straw, Coal, Bean / Strohhalm, Kohle und Bohne

It's been a while since I translated a Grimms' fairy tale. Of course, I'm referring to the book my grandfather sent when I was a child to help keep my German in shape. (Big joke on me: red-hot iron shoes, severed noses, grumbling cauldrons, devils breathing soot. Learn the language, learn what you come from.)

Here's a Grimms' for vegetarians: Straw, Coal and Bean.

In a village there lived an old woman who had gathered some beans and wanted to cook them. She made fire in her stove and so that it would burn more quickly, lit it with a handful of straw.
As she poured the beans in a pot, one fell out. It lay on the floor next to a piece of straw.
Soon after a piece of coal sparked from the stove and fell beside them.
The straw began by saying, "Dear friends, where do you come from?"
The coal answered, "With luck I sprang free from the fire, and if I hadn't been so strong, I would be dead for sure. I would be ash by now."
The bean said, "I just escaped by my skin too. Had the old woman kept me in her pot, I would be mercilessly cooked to mash by now--like my comrades."
"Would my future have been any different?" asked the straw. "The old woman let all my brothers go up in smoke, sixty in one handful--murdered. Fortunately I slipped between her fingers."
"So what shall we do now?" asked the coal.
"Right," said the straw. "Since we all escaped death together, we should stick together, and so that we don't get into any more danger in this perilous place, we should emigrate to a foreign land."

--I kid you not. The words are auswandern--emigrate--and fremdes Land--foreign land.

The suggestion pleased the others and they set out. Soon, though, they came to a small stream, and since there was no bridge or path, they didn't know how to get across.
The straw had a good idea and said, "I will lie down and you can cross on me as if I were a bridge."
The straw stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal with its fiery nature scampered across, except that when it got to the middle and heard the water rushing beneath, it became afraid, stopped, and couldn't go farther.
The straw began to burn, broke in two, and fell in the stream. The coal slipped after it, hissed when it hit the water, and gave up the ghost.
The bean had carefully stayed on the bank, but couldn't stop laughing when it saw what had happened, and laughed so hard that it finally burst.
Now, as it happened--perhaps with luck too--a tailor, who was also travelling, had also been resting by the stream and saw what had happened. Since he had a compassionate heart, he took out his needle and thread and sewed the bean together again and the bean thanked him most beautifully.
However, since the tailor had used black thread, that explains why since then some beans have a black stitch.

another Grimms fairytale: clever Else / die kluge Else

This Grimms fairytale, "Die kluge Else" or "Clever Else", always tortured me a little as a child, because when my name is pronounced by a German speaker--as were my parents and their friends--it sounds more like Else than the English Alice. (Only in later years did my parents learn how to say Alice the English way.)
As well, as a child, I sort of hoped I was clever. But did that mean this miserable creature might by my fate?

Clever Else

Once there was a man who had a daughter called Else. When she grew up, he said, "We want her to marry."
--right to the point, those German fathers

"Yes," said her mother, "if only a man would come she would consent to have."
--nice that her mother rights the balance, though she does it by making Else sound difficult

Finally a man by the name of Hans came from far away. He decided he was interested, though he made the condition that clever Else also had to be wise.
"Goodness," her father said, "she's so smart, you can hear her thoughts whirring."
 --is this a compliment or a nuisance? In German the literal words are: she has thread in her head.

Her mother said, "She sees the wind in the alleys and hears flies cough."
"All very well," said Hans, "but if she's not wise, I won't take her."
--I thought Else was the difficult one, but so far we haven't heard her say a word. Hans is making all the conditions.

Once they were finished eating, Else's mother said, "Else, go to the cellar and fetch beer."
Else took the jug from its hook, went down the stairs, and on the way opened and shut the lid so the time would pass quickly.
--this is the first we've seen of clever Else and I'm not overly impressed with how she amuses herself. True, the clapping sound could be a cover for deep philosophical rumination, but I dunno.

If you're not familiar with beer jugs or mugs with lids, here's an example:

In the cellar Else fetched a little stool and set it before the beer tap so she wouldn't have to stoop and strain her back or otherwise hurt herself.
She held the jug under the spout, and while the beer poured, she didn't want her eyes to be idle so she began to examine the wall, looking from side to side, and finally noticing the pickaxe that hung over the barrel.
Clever Else said, "If I marry Hans and we have a child and it gets older and we send it down to the cellar to get beer, the pickaxe will fall on its head and kill it."
She began to cry with all her heart over this impending misfortune.

Upstairs they waited for their beer, but clever Else did not return. The mother told the maid to go to the cellar to see what was keeping Else. The maid found her sitting and weeping before the barrel.
The maid asked why she was crying.
"Why wouldn't I cry? If I marry Hans and we have a child and it gets older and we send it down to the cellar to get beer, that pickaxe might will fall on its head and kill it."
The maid was astounded at how smart Else was, sat down next to her and began crying about this poor child who would have such misfortune.
After a while, when neither Else nor the maid returned and they were thirsty at the table, Else's mother told the servant to go see what had happened.
He went downstairs and saw Else and the maid sitting together weeping. "Why are you crying?" he asked.
"Of course we're crying," said Else. "If I marry Hans and we have a child and it comes down here to get beer, the pickaxe will fall on its head and kill it."
The servant said, "Oh, Else, you're so smart." And he, too, sat down next to Else and the maid and began sobbing.
Upstairs they were still waiting for their beer and no one had returned.
--not getting their beer seems more important than the curious fact that they've stayed in the cellar

The man said to his wife, "Go down into the cellar and see what's keeping Else." His wife found all three lamenting in front of the beer barrel. When she asked why, Else explained that her future child would be killed when it came to fetch beer and the pickaxe fell on its head.
Her mother threw up her arms at this clever deduction, exclaimed at how smart Else was, and sat down to cry with the others.
Upstairs the man waited for a while longer, but his wife didn't return and his thirst was great.
--again: beer. He's got his priorities.

He said, "It looks as if I'll have to go see for myself what's keeping Else downstairs."
But in the cellar, when he saw them all sitting and weeping and the reason for their dismay was explained to him--about Else having a child and the child growing so big that it would be sent to the cellar to fetch beer and the child would stand right here where the pickaxe would fall on its head and kill it--he cried, "Else is so clever!" And sat with the others and lamented with them.

For a long time the groom sat upstairs alone. As no one returned, he thought: They're waiting for you in the cellar.You should see what's going on.
--this last sentence is so bizarre--him thinking about himself in 2nd person--I translated it as is

He climbed down the stairs and saw all five of them, each one weeping louder than the next.
"What great misfortune has happened?" he asked.
"Oh, my poor dear Hans," Else said, "if we marry each other and have a child and it gets older, and we send it to the cellar to fetch beer, well, look! That pickaxe up there is going to chop off its head! Is that not reason enough to weep?"
"Wow," said Hans, "a more brilliant mind than this I don't need for my household. Since you are such a clever Else, I will have you." He took her by the hand, brought her outside and married her.
--the plot takes forever repeating the scenario with the as yet nonexistent child and the pickaxe but once Hans is brought up to speed, things move fast

When they were married for a while, Hans said, "Wife, I will go work and earn some money. You go into the field and cut some corn so that we can have bread."
"Yes, my dear Hans, I will."
Once Hans was gone, she cooked herself some porridge.
--in German she cooks herself Brei which translates as mash. It might be a very healthy mash made with... what? What did they have in the kitchen if he hasn't been working and she needs to cut corn and mill it to make flour before she can even bake bread? Porridge is poor enough. I don't want to say mash. And of course, it's true, Brei might have been a more substantial dish in the 1800s.

She took her porridge into the field and when she got to their allotment, she wondered out loud, "What do I do? Do I cut the corn first, or do I eat first? Gee, I think I'd better eat first." She ate the whole pot until she was full, and then said, "What do I do? Should I take a nap first or should I cut the corn first? Gee, I think I'd better sleep first." She lay down in the corn and fell fast asleep.

Hans had long been home and Else still hadn't returned. He said, "What a clever Else I have. She works so hard that she doesn't even come home to eat." But as she still didn't come home and it began to get dark, Hans went to see how much corn she had cut. Nothing was cut and she lay on the ground, fast asleep.
Hans ran home as quickly as he could and grabbed a net for catching birds that was hung with little bells and draped it around her. She kept sleeping.
Again he ran home, shut the door, sat on a stool and worked.
Finally, when it was already very dark, clever Else woke, and when she stood up, the bells in the net began tinkling. The sound frightened and disoriented her until she wasn't sure if she was truly clever Else. "Am I or am I not?" But she didn't know what the answer was and stood for a while in confusion.
Finally she thought, I will go home and ask if I am who I am or if I'm not. At home they'll be able to tell me.
She ran to the house door but it was closed. She knocked on the window and called, "Hans, is Else in there?"
"Yes," said Hans. "She's in here."
This alarmed Else who said, "Oh god, then I'm not me!"
She ran to another door but when people heard the bells, they wouldn't open, and she couldn't get any help. She kept running until she'd run from the village and no one ever saw her again.

The end.

What to say to this? I suppose Else can be seen as the folkloric version of a questioning Hamlet--and as such, she's the butt of the story, more ridiculous than practical.
Hans is the one who bothers me. He decides to marry her and then... does he trick her? Is he mean? Is he vengeful?

When I read this story as a child, I could never understand why no one suggested taking the pickaxe off the wall.

grimms / die zertanzten schuhe / the twelve dancing princesses

R asked the other day if I had The Twelve Dancing Princesses in my copy of Grimms.

I remembered a story with twelve dancing princesses but not with that title. I flipped through the pages and found Die Zertanzten Schuhe. Schuhe = shoes. The title isn't translated literally because there's no English equivalent for zertanzt, which means something like "danced to smithereens" or "worn to nothingness from dancing". You can see the stem of the word dance or tanz.

Did you know that once upon a time English and German came from the same language? You can still see that in everyday words like sun/Sonne, moon/Mond, salt/Salz, milk/Milch, etc.

In German, when you put the prefix zer before a word, you add destruction. For example, to zerschlag a bowl doesn't just mean you broke it. You shattered it into tiny bits. Shoes that were zertanzt aren't even worth taking to get reheeled. They've been danced to garbage.

There may not be a single English word to translate zertanzt, but gee. The story could have been called Shoes Danced to Shreds. Or how about Dance-Mashed Shoes? Almost anything would have more pizzazz than The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Especially since the twelve of them exhibit no individual characteristics. They're simply a gaggle of girls who wreck their shoes with dancing. The twelve pairs of shoes matter more than the princesses do. Only the eldest and the youngest ever speak.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There was once a king who had twelve daughters, one more beautiful than the next.
--I don't like these kind of family comparisons. It doesn't foster good relations between siblings.

They slept in a room with their beds side by side, and in the evening when they went to bed the king locked the door behind them.
In the morning, though, when he opened it, he saw that their shoes were danced to shreds and no one could understand how this had happened.
--me neither, but I'm glad the girls figured out how to escape a father who locked them up every night. And look at that fancy collection of shoes!

The king made a proclamation that whoever could discover where his daughters danced in the night would have one of them for a wife, and after his death would inherit the throne. However, if a person came forward and discovered nothing after three days and nights, that person would be put to death.
--I suppose that's one way to make sure only serious (or stupid) contenders come forward.

In little time a prince arrived to undertake the challenge. He was made welcome and in the evening led to a room outside the bedroom where the princesses slept. A bed was made for him, and so that he could watch where they went, the doors were left open.
But the prince fell sound asleep, and when he woke in the morning the twelve pairs of shoes were worn through with holes from dancing.
The same happened on the second and third night, and so he was beheaded without mercy.
Others came to try their luck and lost their lives to the wager.
So it happened that a poor soldier, who was wounded and could no longer serve his country, found himself on the road to the city where the king lived.
He met an old woman who asked where he was going.
"I don't really know," he said. And as a joke added, "I wouldn't mind finding out where those princesses wreck their shoes dancing so I could become king."
--he would also get one of the dance-besotted princesses for a wife, but that doesn't seem to be an incentive

"That's not so hard," the old woman said. "Don't drink the wine they bring you in the evening and pretend you're sound asleep." Then she gave him a cloak. "When you wear this, you'll be invisible and can follow the twelve princesses."
This good advice made the soldier decide to go to the palace and undertake the challenge.
--more than the advice, I'm thinking the cloak will do the trick

He was welcomed as the others had been and brought royal clothing.
--maybe he didn't have formal wear in his soldier's duffel bag and they wanted him to look nice at supper?

In the evening, when he was brought to the room outside the bedroom, the eldest daughter brought him a cup of wine. He'd tied foam under his chin and let the wine soak it up so that he didn't drink a drop.
--I'm trying to visualize this and can't, but I didn't write it; I'm only translating.

He lay down and after a while began snoring as if sound asleep.
The twelve princesses heard him and laughed. The eldest said, "What a fool. He could have saved his life too."
--it's the first she's spoken and already I don't like her

They got up and opened their wardrobes, brought out their magnificent clothes, preened before the mirrors and looked forward to the dance. Only the youngest said, "You're all so happy but I feel uneasy. I'm sure something bad will happen tonight."
"You're such a goose," said the eldest. "You're always afraid. Have you forgotten how many princes have already tried and failed? I didn't even have to bring that soldier a sleeping potion. He's such a lout he would never have woken."
--the eldest princess seems made of the same stuff as her father who locks up his daughters and chops off heads. Or is the eldest princess like this because of her father? A chicken and egg argument.

When the princesses were ready, they checked on the soldier who had closed his eyes and didn't move, and they believed they were quite safe.
The eldest went to her bed and knocked on it. It sank into the earth
--the word is Erde--earth--not floor

and they stepped through the opening, one after the other, the eldest first.
The soldier, who had been watching, didn't hesitate. He swung the cloak around himself and followed the youngest princess down the stairs. Halfway down, he stepped on the edge of her dress. She cried out, "What's that? Something's caught my dress!"
"Don't be so silly," the eldest said. "There was a hook on the wall."
They continued down the stairs until they were at the bottom where there was a magnificent alley of trees that had leaves of silver that gleamed and shimmered.
The soldier thought he should take proof with him and broke off a twig. The tree made a tremendous crack and the youngest princess said, "Did you hear that? Something isn't right."
The eldest said, "Those are cries of joy because soon our princes will be free."
They came to another alley of trees where the leaves were of gold, and finally to a third alley where the leaves were of glittering diamonds. In both, the soldier broke off a twig and each time the tree cracked with such a groan that the youngest princess shrieked. The eldest still insisted the sounds were cries of joy.
They came to a lake where there were twelve small boats, and in each sat a handsome prince. Each princess stepped into a boat. The soldier followed the youngest into hers.
The prince said, "The boat seems heavier today. It's taking all my strength to row it."
"Why should that be?" said the princess. "The air feels so close too. I feel hot."
Across the water stood a beautifully lit-up castle where trumpets and drums were making merry music. The princes moored their boats, and each led his princess inside where they began dancing.

The soldier danced invisibly along, and if someone held a cup of wine, he drank from it, so that it was empty when they lifted it. 

--this, like the sponge under the chin, is hard to visualize. Unless, of course, he had a straw. 

Okay, I just looked this up: straws date back to prehistoric times. Obviously not the plastic straw as we know it, but hollow reeds were used for sucking up liquid. It is possible the soldier who had an invisible cloak also had some form of straw. After all, he was equipped with a sponge. 

The youngest princess was alarmed when she saw that her cup, from which she hadn't drunk, was empty, but again the eldest calmed her. 

The princesses danced until three in the morning when their shoes were worn through and they had to stop. The princes rowed them across the water again, and this time the soldier sat in the first boat with the eldest. On the bank the princesses took leave of their princes and promised to come again the next night. The soldier ran ahead and lay in his bed, and as the twelve exhausted princesses slowly climbed the stairs, he snored so loudly they could all hear him, and they said, "We don't have to give ourselves any worries about him."

They took off their fine clothes, put them away, set their danced-to-shreds shoes under their beds and lay down. 

In the morning the soldier decided to say nothing so he could follow and watch them again, which he did for a second then a third night. Everything proceeded as on the first night. Every night the princesses danced until their shoes were worn to holes.  

--I would start to get bored, but I'm not a princess. Also, one must never underrate the attraction of the forbidden.

The third time the soldier brought a cup away with him as proof. 

When the hour came that he was supposed to give his answer, he took the three twigs and the cup and went to the king. The twelve princesses stood behind the door and listened. The king said, "Where did my twelve daughters wreck their shoes in the night?"

"With twelve princes in an underground castle." The soldier recounted all he'd seen and brought out his signs of proof. 

The king called his daughters and asked if the soldier spoke the truth. When they saw their secret had been discovered and lying wouldn't help, they confessed to everything. 

--I expected that at least the mouthy eldest daughter would put up some resistance, maybe try to discredit the soldier, object to his supposed articles of proof. This doesn't make for any drama. The princesses are discovered and they surrender. Or maybe the Grimms brothers decided it was time to end the story. 

The king asked the soldier which daughter he wanted for a wife. 

--my guess would be the youngest because he's already stepped on her dress and drunk from her cup, but the soldier isn't reading from a Hollywood script. Or perhaps he's looking forward to years of domestic revenge for being called a lout. The German, by the way, in the event you're travelling and need it, is Lümmel. 

"I am no longer so young myself, so give me the eldest."

The wedding took place on the very same day and he was promised that he would inherit the throne upon the king's death. 

The princes were cursed for as many days again as they had danced with the twelve princesses. 

THE END

I announce the end because the objective of the story is so unclear, you might not know the story is finished. I turned the page myself, expecting something else to happen. It bothers me that ten of the twelve princesses never made a peep except for a collective laugh. Why include twelve princesses if they serve no purpose in themselves? For the crowd effect? The two who spoke were no more than stereotypes. What must the eldest have been thinking when she had to marry a man she thought a lout? Or maybe her opinion improved when she saw he'd succeeded where the others had failed.  

Questions, questions. 

I don't believe this story is about the princesses at all.  It's about the shoes. 

Which brings me back to my objection to the English version of the title.