A Study of Fairy Tales Part 11

Here, while there is free play, the emphasis is on the speeches of rhyme, so that the reaction is largely a language expression. The language expression is intimately related to all varieties of expression of which the child is capable, and may be made to dominate and use any of them, or be subordinated to them.

A most delightful form of creative reaction possible to the child in language expression, is the _formation of original little stories_ similar to the "Toy Stories" written by Carolyn Bailey for the _Kindergarten Review_ during 1915. A story similar to "The Little Woolly Dog" might be originated by the little child about any one of his toys. This would be related to his work with fairy tales because in such a story the child would be imitating his acc.u.mulative tales; and the adventures given the toy would be patterned after the familiar adventures of his tales.

A form of creative reaction, which will be a part of the language return given by the first-grade child from the telling of the tale, will be his _reading of the tale_. When the child re-experiences the life of the story as has been described, his mental realization of it will be re-creative, and his reading the tale aloud afterwards will be just as much a form of re-creative activity as his re-telling of the tale. The only difference is, that in one case the re-creative activity is exercised by thinking through symbols, while in the other case it is employed without the use of a book. This concentration on the reality brings about the proper relation of reading to literature.

It frees literature from the slavery to reading which it has been made to serve, yet it makes literature contribute more effectively toward good reading than it has done in the past.

(2) The instinct of inquiry. No more predominating trait proclaims itself in the child than the instinct of inquiry. Every grown-up realizes his habit of asking questions, which trait Kipling has idealized delightfully in _The Elephant's Child_. We know also that the folk-tale in its earliest beginnings was the result of primitive man's curiosity toward the actual physical world about him, its sun and sky, its mountain and its sea. The folk-tale therefore is the living embodiment of the child's instinct of inquiry permanently recorded in the adventures and surprises of the folk-tale characters.

And because the folk-tale is so pervaded with this quest of the ages in search of truth, and because the child by nature is so deeply imitative, the folk-tale inherently possesses an educational value to stir and feed original impulses of investigation and experiment. This is a value which is above and beyond its more apparent uses.

In the creative reaction to be expected from the child's use of fairy tales the expression of this instinct of investigation unites with the instinct of conversation, the instinct of construction, and the instinct of artistic expression. In fact, it is the essence of creative reaction in any form, whether in the domain of the Industrial Shop, the Domestic Science Kitchen, the Household Arts' Sewing-Room, or the Fine Arts' Studio. To do things and then see what happens, is both the expression of this instinct and the basis of any creative return the child makes through his handling of the fairy tale. In the formation of a little play such as is given on page 149, the instinct of conversation is expressed in the talk of the Trees to the little Bird. But this talk of the Trees also expresses _doing things to see what happens_; each happening to the Bird, each reply of a Tree to the Bird, influences each successive doing of the Bird. After the Story of _Medio Pollito_ all the child's efforts of making Little Half-Chick into a weathervane and of fixing the directions to his upright shaft, will be expressions of the search for the unknown, of the instinct of experiment. After the story of _The Little Elves_, the dance of the Elves to the accompaniment of music will represent an expression of the artistic instinct; but it also represents expression of the instinct for the new and the untried. After the dance is finished the child has seen himself do something he had not done before. This union of the instinct of inquiry with that of artistic expression shows itself most completely in the entire dramatization of a fairy tale.

(3) The instinct of construction. In his industrial work the very youngest child is daily exercising his active tendency to make things. In the kindergarten he may make the toy with which he plays, the doll-house and its furnis.h.i.+ngs, small clay dishes, etc. In the first grade he may make small toy animals, baskets, paper hats, card-board doll-furniture, little houses, book-covers, toys, etc.

Self-expression, self-activity, and constructive activity would all be utilized, and the work would have more meaning to the child, if it _expressed some idea_, if after the story of _Three Bears_ the child would make the Bears' kitchen, the table of wood, and the three porridge bowls of clay, or the Bears' hall with the three chairs. In the Grimm tale, _Sweet Rice Porridge_, after the story has been told and before the re-telling, children would like to make a clay porridge-pot, which could be there before them in the re-telling.

Perhaps they would make the rice porridge also, and put some in the pot, for little children are very fond of making things to eat, and domestic science has descended even into the kindergarten. After the story of _Chanticleer and Partlet_, children would enjoy making a little wagon and harnessing to it a Duck, and putting in it the c.o.c.k and the Hen, little animals they have made. In the first grade, after the story of _Sleeping Beauty_, children would naturally take great pleasure in making things needed to play the story: the paper silver and gold crowns of the maids and Princess and the Prince's sword.

After the story of _Medio Pollito_, we have noted with what special interest children might make a weathervane, with Little Half-Chick upon it!

(4) The instinct of artistic expression. This is the instinct of drawing, painting, paper-cutting, and crayon-sketching, the instinct of song, rhythm, dance, and game, of free play and dramatization.

(a) One form of artistic creative reaction will be _the cutting of free silhouette pictures_. The child should attempt this with the simplest of the stories which are suited for drawing, painting, or crayon-sketching. He loves to represent the animals he sees every day; and the art work should direct this impulse and show him how to do it so that he may draw or cut out a dog, a cat, a sheep, or a goat; or simple objects, as a broom, a barrel, a box, a table, and a chair.

_The Bremen Town_ _Musicians_, while offering a fine opportunity for dramatization, also might stimulate the child to cut out the silhouettes of the Donkey, the Dog, the Cat, and the c.o.c.k, to draw the window of the cottage and to place the animals one on top of another, looking in the window. The beautiful picture-books ill.u.s.trating his fairy tales, which the child may see, will give him many ideas of drawing and sketching, and help him to arrange his silhouettes. A recent primer, _The Pantomime Primer_, will give the child new ideas in silhouettes. Recent articles in the _Kindergarten Review_ will give the teacher many helpful suggestions along the line of expression. In the May number, 1915, in _Ill.u.s.trated Stories_, the story of "Ludwig and Marleen," by Jane Hoxie, is shown as a child might ill.u.s.trate it with paper-cutting.--A cla.s.s of children were seen very pleasantly intent on cutting out of paper a basket filled with lovely tinted flowers. But how attractive that same work would have become if the basket had been Red Riding Hood's basket and they were being helped by an art-teacher to show peeping out of her basket the cake and pot of b.u.t.ter, with the nosegay tucked in one end. A very practical problem in paper-cutting would arise in any room when children desire to make a frieze to decorate the front wall. _The Old Woman and her Pig, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, The Little Red Hen, The Story of Three Pigs, The Story of Three Bears_, and _Little Top-Knot_, would be admirably adapted for simple work.

(b) _The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean_ is most likely to stir the child's impulse to _draw_. Leslie Brooke's ill.u.s.tration in _The House in the Wood_ might aid a child who wanted to put some fun into his representation. _Birdie and Lena_ or _Fundevogel_, is a story that naturally would seek ill.u.s.tration. Three _crayon-sketches_, one of a rosebush and a rose, a second of a church and a steeple, and a third of a pond and a duck, would be enough to suggest the tale.

(c) The Story of _The Wolf and Seven Kids_, if told with the proper emphasis on the climax of triumph and conclusion of joy, would lead the child to react with a _water-color sketch_ of the dance of the Goat and her Kids about the well. For here you have all the elements needed for a simple picture--the sky, the full moon, the hill-top, the well, and the animals dancing in a ring. After finis.h.i.+ng their sketches the children would enjoy comparing them with the ill.u.s.tration of _Der Wolf und die Sieben Geislein_ in _Das Deutsche Bilderbuch_, and perhaps they might try making a second sketch. This same tale would afford the children a chance to compose a simple tune and a simple song, such as the well-taught kindergarten child to-day knows.

Such are songs which express a single theme and a single mood; as, _The m.u.f.fin Man_ and _To the Great Brown House_; or _There was a Small Boy with a Toot_ and _Dapple Gray_ in _St. Nicholas Songs_. In this tale of _The Wolf and Seven Kids_, the conclusion impresses a single mood of joy and the single theme of freedom because the Wolf is dead.

The child could produce a very simple song of perhaps two lines, such as,--

Let's sing and dance! Hurrah, hurrah!

The Wolf is dead! Hurrah!

(d) It is a little difficult to get down to the simplicity of the little girl who will play her own tune upon the piano and sing to it just the number of the house in which she lives, repeating it again and again. But the child can _compose little songs_ that will please him, and he can use, too, in connection with the tales, some of the songs that he knows. The first-grade child could work into _Snow White and Rose Red_, "Good morrow, little rosebush," and into _Little Two-Eyes_ a lullaby such as "Sleep, baby, sleep." Later in _Hansel and Grethel_ he may learn some of the simple songs that have been written for Hansel and Grethel to sing to the birds when they spend the night in the wood. In _Snow White_ he may learn some of the songs written for the children's play, _Snow White_. In connection with music, the kindergarten child learns to imitate the sounds of animals, the sound of bells, whistles, the wind, etc. All this will cause him to react, so that when these occur in his stories he will want to make them.

(e) One of the forms of creative reaction possible to the child as a variety of expression, which has received attention most recently, has been handled by Miss Caroline Crawford in _Rhythm Plays of Childhood_; and by Miss Carol Oppenheimer in "Suggestions Concerning Rhythm Plays," in the _Kindergarten Review_, April and May, 1915. Here again the fairy tales cannot be excelled in abundant situations for rhythm plays. The sea, the wind, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars--all nature is rich in suggestion of rhythms. The social situations furnish the rhythm of simple housekeeping tasks. In _Snow White and Rose Red_ there are the rhythms of fis.h.i.+ng and of chasing animals. In _The Elves_ we have the rhythm of shoe-making and in _The Straw Ox_, the rhythm of spinning. The story of _Thumbelina_, after its eight episodes have been re-told by the children, might very attractively be re-told in eight rhythms, each rhythm expressing a single episode. And for the oldest children, a union of the oral re-telling by individual children with the retelling in rhythms by all the children, would give much pleasure and social exhilaration.

Thumbelina in her Cradle, Thumbelina and the Toad, Thumbelina and the Swallow and Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers--these at once suggest a cradle rhythm, a toad rhythm, the flight of birds, and a b.u.t.terfly dance. Because the rhythm is a lyric form it must be remembered that the part of a story suited to a rhythm play is always a part characterized by a distinct emotional element. In the performance of rhythm plays the point is to secure the adjustment of music, motion, and idea.

(f) Many of the fairy tales might arouse in the child a desire _to originate a game_, especially if he were accustomed to originate games in the regular game work. A modification of the game of tag might grow from _Red Riding Hood_ and a pleasant ring game easily might develop from _Sleeping Beauty_. In fact there is a traditional English game called "Sleeping Beauty." An informal ring game which would be somewhat of a joke, and would have the virtue of developing attention, might grow from _The Tin Soldier_. The Tin Soldier stands in the center while the circle is formed of Jack-in-the-boxes, with lids closed. The Tin Soldier turns round and round slowly, and when he stops looks steadily at a certain Jack-in-the-box, whereupon the Jack must bob up and retort, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The Jack and Soldier then change places. Any Jack failing to open when looked at forfeits his place in the ring. Some games derived from folk-tales were given in the _Delineator_, November, 1914. These could not be used by the youngest without adaptation; they suggest a form of fun that so far as I know has been undeveloped.

(g) The artistic creative return of the child may sometimes take the form of _objectification or representation_. _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_ is a model of the literary fairy tale which gives a stimulus to the child to represent his fairy tale objectively. As straightforward narrative it ranks high. Its very first clause is the child's point of view: "There were five and twenty tin soldiers"; for the child counts his soldiers. Certainly the theme is unique and the images clear-cut.

It makes one total impression and it has one emotional tone to which everything is made to contribute. Its message of courage and its philosophy of life, which have been mentioned previously, are not so insignificant even if the story does savor of the sentimental. Its structure is one single line of sequence, from the time this marvelous soldier was stood up on the table, until he, like many another toy, was thrown into the fire. The vivid language used gives vitality to the story, the words suit the ideas, and often the words recall a picture or suggestion; as, "The Soldier _fell headlong,"_ "_trod_,"

"came down in _torrents_," "boat _bobbed_," "_spun_ round," "_clasped_ his gun," "boat _shot_ along," "_blinked_ his eyes," etc. The method of suggestion by which an object is described through its effect on some one else, produces a very pleasing result here. You see the steadfast look of the Tin Soldier's eyes when the Jack-in-the-box says, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The position of the Soldier in the street is given through the exclamation of the little boys who see him--"Look! there lies a Tin Soldier, let us give him a sail in the gutter!"

The setting in this story is a table in a sitting-room and the playthings on the table. The characters are two playthings. After the first telling of this story the child naturally would like to represent it. The story has made his playthings come alive and so he would like to make them appear also. This is a tale in which representation, after the first telling, will give to the child much pleasure and will give him a chance to do something with it cooperatively. He can reproduce the setting of this tale upon a table in a schoolroom. Each child could decide what is needed to represent the story and offer what he can. One child could make the yard outside the castle of green blotting-paper. Another child could furnish a mirror for the lake, another two toy green trees, one two wax swans, one a box of tin soldiers, another a jack-in-the-box, while the girls might dress a paper doll for a tinsel maid. The teacher, instructed by the cla.s.s, might make a castle of heavy gray cardboard, fastening it together with heavy bra.s.s paper-fasteners and cutting out the door, windows, and tower. It is natural for children to handle playthings; and when a story like this is furnished the teacher should not be too work-a-day to enter into its play-spirit. After the representation objectively, the re-telling of the tale might be enjoyed. The child who likes to draw might tell this story also in a number of little sketches: _The Jack-in-the-box, The Window, The Boat, The Rat, The Fish_, and _The Fire_. Or a very simple little dramatic dance and song might be invented, characterized by a single mood and a single form of motion, something like this, sung to the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush, etc":--

Here we come marching, soldiers tin, soldiers tin, soldiers tin, Here we come marching, soldiers tin, On one leg steady we stand.

(Circle march on one leg).

This could easily be concluded with a game if the child who first was compelled to march on two legs had to pay some penalty, stand in the center of the ring, or march at the end of the line.

(h) Creative reaction as a result of listening to the telling of fairy tales, appears in its most varied form of artistic expression in _free play and dramatization_. It is here that the child finds a need for the expression of all his skill in song and dance, construction, language, and art, for here he finds a use for these things.

In free play the child represents the characters and acts out the story. His desire to play will lead to a keenness of attention to the story-telling, which is the best aid to re-experiencing, and the play will react upon his mind and give greater power to visualize. Nothing is better for the child than the freedom and initiative used in dramatization, and nothing gives more self-reliance and poise than to act, to do something.--We must remember that in the history of the child's literature it was education that freed his spirit from the deadening weight of didacticism in the days of the _New England Primer_. And we must now have a care that education never may become guilty of crus.h.i.+ng the spirit of his freedom, spontaneity, and imagination, by a dead formalism in its teaching method.--The play develops the voice, and it gives freedom and grace to bodily movements. It fixes in the child mind the details of the story and impresses effectively many a good piece of literature; it combines intellectual, emotional, artistic, and physical action. The simplest kindergarten plays, such as _The Farmer, The Blacksmith_, and _Little Travelers_, naturally lead into playing a story such as _The Sheep and the Pig_ or _The Gingerbread Man_. _The Mouse that Lost Her Tail_ and _The Old Woman and Her Pig_ are delightful simple plays given in _Chain Stories and Playlets_ by Mara Chadwick and E. Gray Freeman, suited to the kindergarten to play or the first grade to read and play. Working out a complete dramatization of a folk-tale such as _Sleeping Beauty_, in the first grade, and having the children come into the kindergarten and there play it for them, will be a great incentive toward catching the spirit of imaginatively entering into a situation which you are not. This is the essential for dramatization.

_Johnny Cake_ is a good tale to be played in the kindergarten because it uses a great number of children. As the kindergarten room generally is large, it enables the children who represent the man, the woman, the little boy, etc., to station themselves at some distance.

There are some dangers in dramatization which are to be avoided:--

(1) _Dramatization often is in very poor form_. The result is not the important thing, but the process. And sometimes teachers have understood this to mean, "Hands off!" and left the children to their crude impulses, unaided and unimproved. When the child shows _what_ he is trying to do the teacher may show him _how_ he can do what he wants to do. By suggestion and criticism she may get him to improve his first effort, provided she permits him to be absolutely free when he acts.--The place of this absolute freedom in the child's growth has been emblazoned to the kindergarten by the Montessori System.--Also by partic.i.p.ating in the play as one of the characters, the teacher may help to a better form. Literature will be less distorted by dramatization when teachers are better trained to see the possibilities of the material, when through training they appreciate the tale as one of the higher forms of literature, and respect it accordingly. Also it will be less distorted by dramatization when the tales selected for use are those containing the little child's interests, when he will have something to express which he really knows about. Moreover, as children gain greater skill in expression in construction, in the game, in song, in dance, and in speech, the parts these contribute to the play will show a more perfected form. Each expression by the child grows new impressions, gives him new sensory experiences. Perhaps if the high school would realize the possibilities in a fairy tale such as _Beauty and the Beast_, work it up into really good artistic form, and play it for the little children, much would be gained not only towards good form in dramatics, in both the elementary school and the high school, but towards unifying the entire course of literature from the kindergarten to the university. Using Crane's picture-book as a help, they might bring into the play the beauty of costume and scenery, the court-jester, and Beauty's pages. Into the Rose-Garden they might bring a dance of Moon Fairies, Dawn Fairies, Noon, and Night who, in their symbolic gauzy attire, dance to persuade Beauty to remain in the Beast's castle. There might be singing fairies who decorate the bushes with fairy roses, and others who set the table with fairy dishes, singing as they work:--

See the trees with roses gay.

Fairy roses, fairy roses, etc.

Elves and Goblins might surround the Beast when dying. The change of scene from the simple home of Beauty to the rich castle of the Beast, and the change of costume, would furnish ample opportunity for original artistic work from older students. For the little child it is good to see the familiar dignified with art and beauty; and for the older student the imagination works more freely when dealing with rather simple and familiar elements such as the folk-tale offers.

_Cinderella_, like _Beauty and the Beast_, offers abundant opportunity to the high school student for a play or pantomime which it would be good for the little people to see. The stately minuet and folk-dances of different peoples may be worked into the ball-scene. And here, too, the beautiful picture-books will suggest features of costume and scenery.

(2) _Dramatization may develop boldness in a child_. The tendency is to use children with good dramatic ability continually for leading parts, even when the children choose the parts. This fault may be counteracted by distinguis.h.i.+ng between work for growth and one or two rather carefully prepared plays to be given on special occasions. It is also counteracted by looking well to the social aspect of the play, by introducing features such as the song, dance, or game, where all have a part, or by adding attractive touches to less important parts, so that while a character may still be leading it will have no reason to feel over-important. This danger is not prominent until after the first grade.

(3) _Dramatization may spoil some selections_. Beautiful descriptions which make a tale poetic are not to be represented, and without them a tale is cheapened. Such is the case with _The King of the Golden River_ and _The Ugly Duckling_. Care should be exercised to choose for dramatization only what is essentially dramatic and what is of a grade suited to the child. Tales suited to the little child are largely suited for dramatization.

(4) _Dramatization has omitted to preserve a sequence in the selections used from year to year_. A sequence in dramatization will follow naturally as the tales offered from year to year show a sequence in the variety of interests they present and the opportunities for growth and activity they offer. Plays most suited to the kindergarten are those which do not require a complete re-telling of the story in the acting, so that the child need not say so much.

Such are stories like _The Old Woman and Her Pig, Henny Penny, The Foolish Timid Rabbit, Little Tuppen, Three Billy-Goats_, _Johnny Cake_, and _Billy Bobtail_. When the course of literature in the elementary school gets its content organized, the sequence of dramatization will take care of itself.

Dramatization has one rather unusual virtue:--

(1) _Dramatization may be used to establish a good habit_. An indolent child may be given the part of the industrious child in the play. At first the incongruity will amuse him, then it will support his self-respect or please his vanity, then it will prove to him the pleasure of being industrious, and finally stimulate the desire to be that which before he was not. It may build a habit and, if repeated, fortify one. This is the true "Direct Moral Method." The so-called "Direct Moral Method," advocated by Dr. Gould, an English educator, which in telling a story separates the moral from the tale to emphasize it and talk about it, leaves the child a pa.s.sive listener with only a chance to say "Yes" or "No" or a single word in answer to the moral questions. It is unnatural because it directs the child's attention away from the situation, action, and people which interest him. It does not parallel life in which morals are tied up with conduct. One must ask, "According to this method what will the child recall if his mind reverts to the story--courage, or the variety of images from the number of short-stories told to impress the abstract moral idea of courage?" Dramatization like life represents character in the making and therefore helps to make character.

Ill.u.s.trations of creative return. Let us look now at a few tales ill.u.s.trating the creative return possible to the child. _The Country Mouse and the City Mouse_ is an animal tale that offers to the kindergarten child a chance to prove how intensely he enters into the situation by the number of details he will improvise and put into his dramatization in representing life in the country and life in the city. The good feast atmosphere in this tale pleases little children and suits it to their powers. It is a fine tale to _unite the language expression and dramatization_. It is especially suited to call forth reaction from the child also in the form of _drawing or crayon sketching_. Here it is best for the child to attempt typical bits.

Complete representation tires him and it is not the method of art, which is selective. The field of corn and two mice may be shown in the country scene; and a table with cheese, some plates filled with dainties, and two mice in the city scene. Here again this return relates itself to the presentation of the tale as literature. For if the story has been presented so as to make the characters, the plot, and the setting stand out, the child naturally will select these to portray in a sketch. In his expression the child will represent what he chooses, but the teacher by selecting from among the results the one which is of most value, leads him to a better result in a following attempt. It is the _teacher's selection among the results of activity_ that brings about development. Freedom with guidance is no less free, but it is freedom under that stimulation which helps the child to make more of himself than he knew was possible.--The kindergarten would proclaim to the Montessori System the place of _guidance of freedom_ in the child's growth.

_The Elves and the Shoemaker_ offers to a first grade a pleasing opportunity for the _fairy tale to unite with the dramatic game_. One child may act as narrator, standing to tell the story from the beginning to the end of the evening's conversation, "I should like to sit up tonight and see who it is that makes the shoes." At this point, noiselessly a dozen or more Elves may troop in, and seating themselves sing and act the first part of the _Dramatic Game of Little Elves_, one form of which is given by Miss Crawford. After they have st.i.tched, rapped, and tapped quickly, and the shoes are made, they depart hurriedly. The narrator now continues the story, telling how the Shoemaker and his wife made little clothes for the Elves, ending with what happened on Christmas Eve, when they put the gay jackets and caps on the table and hid in the corner to watch. At this point the Elves come in a second time, donning their new clothes; and sing and dance the second part of the dramatic game. As they dance out of sight the narrator concludes the story. If the primary children made these clothes or if the kindergarten children bought them at Christmas time to give to the poor, the play[3] would take on a real human value.

_Sleeping Beauty_, another tale suited to the first grade, is admirably adapted for dramatization.--In all this work the children do the planning but the teacher directs their impulses, criticizes their plans, and shows them what they have done. She leads them to see the tale in the correct acts and scenes, to put together what belongs together. _Sleeping Beauty_ naturally outlines itself into the ten main incidents we have noted before. If the story has been presented according to the standards given here, the children will see the story in those main incidents. In the dramatization they might work together narration of the story and the dramatic game, _Dornroschen_. A wide circle of children might be the chorus while the players take their places in the center of the circle. The narrator, one of the circle, stands apart from it as he narrates. The version here used is the McLoughlin one, ill.u.s.trated by Johann and Leinweber.

_Sleeping Beauty_

_Place: Castle_. King, Queen, and courtiers take their places within the circle. The circle moves to waltz step, singing stanza I, of the dramatic game:--

The Princess was so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, etc.

At the conclusion of stanza I, the circle stops, the narrator steps forth and tells the story to the end of the words, "one had to stay at home."

_Scene i. The Feast_. Twelve fairies enter, each presenting her gift and making a speech. The wicked thirteenth comes in and p.r.o.nounces her curse, and the twelfth fairy softens it to sleep. The King proclaims his decree, that all spindles in the land be destroyed.

_Scene ii. The Attic_. Princess goes to the attic. Old lady sits spinning. Princess p.r.i.c.ks herself and falls asleep.

Narration begins with "The King and Queen who had just come in fell asleep," and ends with "not a leaf rustled on the trees around the castle." At the close of the narration, the circle moves, singing stanza _5_ of the dramatic game:--

A great hedge grew up giant high, giant high, giant high, etc.

_Scene ii. The Castle Grounds_. The Prince talks to an old Man outside the castle. The Prince comes to the hedge, which parts, and he enters. The Prince wakens the Princess and the rest of the castle. The narrator then closes with "By and by the wedding of the Prince ... to the end of their lives they lived happy and contented." The courtiers then form into couples, and the circle, in couples, follow the courtiers.

The Prince and Princess lead in a slow waltz while all sing stanza 10 of the dramatic game: