"Allerleirauh," or "All-Kinds-of-Fur" in English, is a fairy tale that doesn’t get a lot of hype. It is similar to a lot of old fairy tales; and seems like the darker sister-story to "Cinderella."
"Allerleirauh" is one of my favorite stories because of its peculiarities. It’s dark and twisted, and logic is abandoned as the story progresses. There isn’t a happy ending, and the heroine doesn’t win.
It showcases female vulnerability and patriarchal rule.
It is unique and recycled in a way only a fairytale can seem. And in the end, the moral of the story is veiled and difficult to decipher.
Even I’m not sure what it all means.
The story goes like this:
A dying queen forbids her husband to marry anyone who is not her equal in beauty. After she passes, the king searches the realm but cannot find anyone as beautiful as the deceased queen. Over time, he realizes that his daughter, the princess, is growing to rival the deceased queen’s beauty. So he decides to marry her.
Everyone else in the story, literally every single other person, can see how messed up his plan is, and is horrified.
Appropriately freaked out, the princess gives the king an impossible task before they can marry. According to the original Brother’s Grimm tale, she requests a dress “as golden as the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one that glistens like the stars,” in addition to “a cloak put together from a thousand kinds of pelts and fur."
Somehow, the king is able to procure all of these dresses.
The poor princess decides to run away to escape her twisted fate. She flees with her dresses, the cloak, and three golden objects (all of which she stores in a nutshell because that’s apparently a thing). Unfortunately, the king and his huntsman discover find her in the woods the following morning. She is taken back to the castle and assigned to work in the kitchen.
Apparently, not recognizing the girl you want to marry is a running trend in fairy tales.
When a ball is held at the castle, the princess asks the cook if she may go watch it for a short time. She sneaks away, washes the soot from her face and hands, and goes dancing in her golden dress.
After half an hour has passed, she returns to the kitchen in her fur cloak, conceals her beauty with soot, and then makes the king a soup. She intentionally places one of her golden objects into the soup before the King can eat it.
The king calls summons the cook, demanding to know why the soup is tastier than usual and why there’s a golden ring in his soup. The princess is questioned, but reveals nothing.
This happens two more times. Balls are thrown, the princess washes up and dances with the king, before returning to her disguise and doing weird things to soup.
Why? I don’t know. The girl needs a new hobby.
At this point, the King becomes suspicious. At the third ball, he slips a ring on her finger while they dance, but she somehow doesn’t notice. The dance runs longer than normal, so she throws the cloak over her dress before returning to the kitchen in a hurry. The King gets his big aha Moment, and the princess’ identity is revealed.
