It’s a story of a poor girl stuck in the cinders who finds love and wealth with a handsome prince. Cinderella. Her tale has leapt beyond literature to everyday use, with the term “Cinderella story” a common part
It’s a story of a poor girl stuck in the cinders who finds love and wealth with a handsome prince. Cinderella. Her tale has leapt beyond literature to everyday use, with the term “Cinderella story” a common part of our language, used when someone goes from “rags to riches.” Cinderella has appeared on television, in movies, and in books for years and has consistently remained popular Classified as a story of “unjust oppression and triumphant reward,” Cinderella is one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales.
The plot is simple: A girl, often dressed in tattered clothes, is made to be the cinder maid when her father remarries a wicked woman. The new stepmother has two daughters she dotes on, and these are poor Cinderella’s “wicked stepsisters.” The poor girl isn’t allowed to go to a ball, but she receives the chance from a fairy, and meets the prince but leaves before he can find out her name. He then tries to find her, led only by a slipper she leaves behind. These are the most common elements of the tale of Cinderella, though you may not know that there are other variations of this story all over the world.
Cinder-Maid shook the tree and the first nut that fell she took up and opened, and what do you think she saw?—a beautiful silk dress blue as the heavens, all embroidered with stars, and two little lovely shoon made of shining copper. And when she had dressed herself the hazel tree opened and from it came a coach all made of copper with four milk-white horses, with coachman and footmen all complete.
The Many Versions of Cinderella Around the World
The story Cinderella has been known by many names. Aschenputtel in German, Cendrillon in French, Cenerentola in Italian. Researchers believe there may be over 800 versions of Cinderella around the world, with origins dating back as far as 850. The earliest documented European version was by Giambattista Basile in his collection Lo cunto de li cunti (The Story of Stories), also known as Stories from the Pentamerone.
Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, Or the Little Glass Slipper
Author Charles Perrault’s Cinderella is probably the most well-known version, and is the version that still inspires adaptations today. Perrault added the fantastical elements we’re familiar with today, and his version still captivates us. The Perrault version, Cendrillon, features the fairy godmother who transforms a pumpkin, mice, a rat, and a lizard into carriage and coachman. She also gives Cinderella a magical dress from rags. This version would inspire filmmakers, with Georges Méliès making Cendrillon in 1899, and animators charming audiences with Walt Disney’s Cinderella in 1950. It’s at the Intermediate level and is read in just 13 minutes.
The Brothers Grimm also have a popular, yet more gruesome, version of Cinderella. The Grimms’ Cinderella, Aschenputtel, features the motherless heroine go from beloved daughter to hated servant when her father takes a new bride. Her father asks what he can bring one day back from the fair, and the two stepdaughters ask for riches, but Aschenputtel only asks for the first branch that knocks her father’s hat. She plants the branch near her mother’s grave, where she weeps so much that a tree grows in the spot. From the tree comes a little white bird who throws down whatever she wishes. The little bird and his friends help her do her chores, and even give her a magnificent dress for the ball. The rest of the Grimms’ Cinderella follows the same pattern as most Cinderella stories, with the prince looking for the maiden who left her slipper – in this story, the slipper is golden, and the stepsisters result to drastic measures to get the slipper to fit. It’s an Intermediate 15 minute read.
This Irish version of Cinderella is authored by M. Damant, and is from Folk-Lore: A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution, and Custom, vol. 6. In this tale, Cinderella is known as Ashey Pelt, and she has a magical black ewe. The ewe tells her to strike a stone three times, and she’ll get what she wishes. Her dream is, of course, to go to a ball, and the magic lasts until midnight. She leaves her silk slipper and the prince is determined to find the girl to whom the footwear belongs. The ewe tells him where he may find the maiden when he visits Ashey Pelt’s home and meets the stepsisters. This Cinderella tale from Ireland is an Easy 2 minute read.
Katie Woodencloak is sometimes referred to as Katie Woodengown. It’s a Norwegian Cinderella tale gathered by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr, also known as Popular Tales from the Norse. Here the Cinderella character, Katie, befriends a dun bull who helps Katie find food and survive her stepmother’s maltreatment. The stepmother plans to kill the dun bull once she realizes the animal helps the girl, but the duo get away. She goes to work in a palace, wearing a wooden cloak the bull gives her, and eventually meets the prince. She teases him and refuses to tell him where she comes from, but he eventually gets her golden shoe. A quest in the kingdom lets him find the maiden whose foot will fit the shoe. For Cinderella fans who want a longer story, the 27 minute Intermediate read is a delight.
The Greek version of Cinderella, Little Saddleslut begins with a ghastly start as Cinderella’s sisters kill her mother to dine on her flesh. Cinderella refuses to join in on the macabre meal and buries her mother’s bones. She sm