Disturbed by the cost of buying them new shoes, their father promises to reward any man who can discover their secret: the first to succeed will have his pick of the daughters as a wife, but any who fail will be executed. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” is a Grimm Fairy Tale relating how twelve princesses managed to sneak out of their castle every night to dance the night away. In the early modern era, the idea of rings, caps, or cloaks of invisibility found their way into European fairy tales. It hints at both sides of the issue: the possibility (invisibility could raise a shepherd to a king) and the horror (even a king has no defense against an invisible man), and can be read as both a tale of fantasy and horror. In this revealing story, a shepherd discovers a ring of invisibility that he uses to seduce the Queen of Lydia and murder the king. Some the earliest references come from Greek and Roman mythology – such as the “Ring of Gynges” spoken of by Plato. Invisibility in literature is as old as history itself.
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