After her mother's death, a peasant girl named Karen is adopted while still very young by a rich old lady and grows up vain and spoiled.

After church, Karen cannot resist taking a few dance steps, and off she goes, as though the shoes controlled her, but she manages to stop after a few minutes.

After her adoptive mother becomes ill and passes away, Karen doesn't attend her funeral, choosing to go to a dance instead.

An angel appears to her, bearing a sword, and condemns her to dance even after she dies, as a warning to vain children everywhere.

Karen begs for mercy, but the red shoes take her away before she hears the angel's reply.

Thinking that she has suffered enough for the red shoes, Karen decides to go to church so people can see her.

The angel reappears, now bearing a spray of roses, and gives Karen the mercy she asked for.

His father, who was a shoemaker, was sent a piece of red silk by a rich lady to make a pair of dancing slippers for her own daughter.

Using some valuable red leather along with the silk, he carefully created a pair of shoes only for the rich customer to tell him they were awful.

To which his father replied, "In that case, I may as well spoil my leather too," and he cut up the shoes in front of her.