I always thought that the plot of this song as I knew it in English (in what was none of the "top of the pops" versions but the "children's version") was incomplete (cf. "Just Plain Folks"): and I always thought she was jilting the shoemaker, not just waltzing away in joy.   As the translation from French above makes it clear, it is a faily close version of Andersen's "The Red Shoes" (cognate with the folktale mentioned above: see also, probably by pure accident the student video of the song on the www, where the girl's feet are mutilated, albeit before she gts the shoes). This makes it clear why there is a Danish translation of the song: it is "their" story... I would like to render the remaining stanzas to fit the standard English translation, but I suppose copyright rules would render this forbidden.

Somehow, I will bet that there must have ben a German translation/recorded interpretation of this, as well one in Chinese...

Sanjay Sircar