Correspondingly, as this process happened over time, the roles filled by beasts in the early European M ärchen came to be assigned to men and women in later versions of the tales. Early societies (especially Indian tribes) transformed their beast-ancestors (totems) into the figures of human ancestors with similar names. In many older examples of this story (as we have already seen), the fairy godmother role is played by a friendly beast or object.
What is especially interesting about these stories though, is not the archetypal ‘princess’ moments, but how older, generally much more barbaric variations have been bowdlerized by subsequent authors. The test of fitting the owner recurs in Peau d’Ane (another Perrault tale), where a ring, not a slipper is the object, and the same is the case in The Wonderful Birch (a Finnish/Russian variant). The slipper is of red satin in Madame d’Aulnoy’s Finette Cendron (1697) and of plain satin in Joseph Jacob’s Rashin-Coatie (1894). A lot of attention, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been paid to Cinderella’s lost slipper a mark of feminine beauty and daintiness. In 1893, Marian Roalfe Cox, commissioned by the Folklore Society of Britain, produced Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and, Cap o’Rushes, Abstracted and Tabulated with a Discussion of Medieval Analogues and Notes. Some scholars claim that he confused vair (French for ‘fur’) with verre (meaning ‘glass’), which would explain how the famous slipper came to be made of most impractical glass!įolklorists have indeed long studied versions of this tale across cultures. Perrault reported that he was told the story by some anonymous folk-story-tellers, and added the extra details for literary effect. He also established the much loved pumpkin carriage, anthropomorphic animal servants and the little glass slippers, or Le petite Pantoufle de Verre. The French author was the first person to introduce the now ubiquitous Fairy Godmother into the diegesis. This little known collection of fairy tales (little known at the time at least), most likely inspired the adaptation in Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé. The next written version does not appear until 1634 with the Giambattista Basile account of Cenerentola (published in Pentamerone).
Instead, there is a magical fish that helps her, and a golden shoe which leads the Prince to his eventual bride. In the Chinese version, the protagonist is called Yeh-shen, and there is no fairy godmother. How did it travel from first century Greece, to ninth century China (with little evidence of its progress in-between) – and then sink into little known obscurity before appearing in seventeenth century France? This is in itself is nothing surprising, as most folk and fairy tales emerged in the spoken tradition, but what is thoroughly intriguing, is the spread of this idiomatic tale. From the way in which it was written, it is thought that Chinese readers were already familiar with the chain of events. Aside from another retelling by the Roman historian Claudius Aelianus in Varia Historia, few versions appeared until Tuan Ch’eng-shih penned a variant of the tale in ninth century China. It was first recorded by a Greek geographer (Strabo) in the first century BCE. The oral tale of Rhodopis and Her Little Gilded Sandals depicts a Greek slave girl who eventually marries the king of Egypt. The earliest recorded version of the Cinderella story comes from Egypt. But aside from this rough narrative framework, story-tellers around the world have varied the literary details with considerable panache.
The supernatural element comes in the form of a guardian (referred to as the ‘Fairy Godmother’ in the European tradition), who enables Cinderella to be recognized for her true worth. The very basics of the narrative revolve around a kind and just young woman (the Cinderella character), who suffers some form of unjust oppression – usually at the hands of her step-family. It has appeared across many different eras, in many different cultures, and according to varying estimations, there could be anything between 3 different versions of the tale. Origins of Fairy Tales from Around the WorldĬinderella is one of the best-known stories of all time.