The daughter tried to make the wedding impossible by asking for three dresses, one as golden as the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one as dazzling as the stars, and a mantle made from the fur of every kind of bird and animal in the kingdom.
The third ball, she went in the star dress, and the king slipped a golden ring on her finger without her noticing it and ordered that the last dance go longer than usual.
When the king questioned her, he caught her hand, seeing the ring, and when she tried to pull it away, her mantle slipped, revealing the dress of stars.
Among variants of this tale, the threat of enforced marriage to her own father, as here, is the usual motive for the heroine's flight, as in "The She-Bear", "Donkeyskin", and "The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter",[5] or the legend of Saint Dymphna, but others are possible.
[6] The motif of a father who tries to marry his own daughter is overwhelmingly found in fairy tales of this variety, ending with the three balls, but it also appears in variants of "The Girl Without Hands".
[11] When the motive is the enforced marriage, many modern tales soften it, by representing the daughter as adopted (as in Andrew Lang's version of "Donkeyskin" for The Grey Fairy Book), the marriage as put forth and urged by the king's councillors rather than the king himself, or the entire notion being a fit of madness from which he recovers in time to attend the wedding.
The heroine does not always have to flee persecution; Tattercoats is denied permission to go to the ball because her grandfather had sworn never to look at her, but he has not driven her off.
[12] Germanist and folklorist Theodor Vernaleken [de] collected an Austrian tale titled Besenwurf, Bürstenwurf, Kammwurf ("Besom-cast, Brush-cast, Comb-cast").
After his wife dies, he tells his daughter he plans to travel around the world to find a woman with a similar birthmark, but, failing that, he will go back and marry her.
She smears her face with black powder, hides the golden cross under a rag, and finds work in another kingdom, as prince Adolf's kitchen maid.
One day, prince Adolf holds a grand ball at the castle, and Adelheid goes to his chambers to take off his boots, but he throws a besom at her.
[14] In a Swiss tale collected by Johannes Jegerlehner with the title Der Drächengrudel, a man lives with his daughter Seline next to a neighbouring couple.
Seline laughs at the proposal, but, realizing he is serious, and her own father seems inclined to agree, she tries to delay the wedding by asking for three dresses: one shining like the midday sun, one like a full moon, and the third like the stars in the sky.
She trades clothes with a beggar woman, and goes to find work as a king's servant in the kitchen, where she is given the mocking name Drächengrudel.
The princess is the one, and asks her father for three dresses (one trimmed with silk roses, one with golden flowers and one with diamonds) and a cloak made of the fur of every animal.
[16] Cox summarized another Swedish manuscript version titled Kråknäbbäkappan ("The Crowbill-cloak"): to delay her father's wedding plans to marry her, the princess asks for three dresses (star, moon and sun) and a cloak of crow skins and bills; she then escapes to another kingdom, where she works for a king in the kitchen.
An old woman advises her to go to church every Sunday, wearing one of her dresses; he third time, she lets a shoe loose so that the king may find her.
Her dead mother appears to her and advises her to ask for three dresses (one like the stars, one like the moon and one like the sun), and for a cloak made of every possible fur.
[18] In a fourth Sweden version, archived in manuscript form at Uppsala, Kråk-Pelsen ("The Crow-Cloak"), the princess asks her father for three dresses (sun, moon and stars), and her faithful servants kill and skin crows to fashion a cloak for her.
[19] In another Sweden variant, titled Tusen-pelsen ("Thousand-cloak"), the king plans to marry his own daughter, but the heroine asks him for a cloak made of a thousand patches, then for three dresses (star, moon, sun), and a ship that sails on land and water.
[20] In a Swedish variant published by J. Sundelad (also summarized by Roalfe Cox), Pelsarubb, after the queen dies, the king decides to marry his own daughter.
[21] Finnish folklorist Oskar Hackman summarized a Finnish-Swedish variant in his publication Finlands svenska folkdiktning.
The lady wears the crowskin cloak, takes the dresses and flees to another kingdom, where she works for a queen and her son.
One day, the king holds a ball at the castle, and the girl wears the silver dress to attend it, and the prince notices her.
After the ball, the king falls ill and the girl prepares a food, and drops a golden hair inside it.
The princess tries to delay her father's mad plan by asking three dresses: one as golden as the sun, the other as shining silver as the moon, and the third dazzling as the stars, and for a fourth outfit, made by a thousand furs provided by the animals of the kingdom.