Episode 4. Cinderella.
Cinderella, from a book of Germany fairytales c. 1919. Courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the tale of Cinderella, the Disney version or it’s many other adaptions. It’s a tale of rags to riches, loneliness to love, dreams to reality.
In the popularised Disney version of Cinderella, we first meet our Princess in the dank basement of a mansion. Cinderella, having lost her father, is living with her step-mother and two step-sisters. I won’t go too in depth on this version of the story as I’m sure it’s been beaten into all of us over the years. Cinderella finds friendship and solace in the animals that share her home and property and in the guidance of a magical fairy Godmother who can grant her every wish, with conditions of course. It is with the help of these creatures and people that she is able to attend the royal ball to meet her Prince Charming. Like any fairy tale, it isn’t all smooth sailing, but it does come with a happy ending. This time.
Cinderella must leave the ball by midnight, lest her dress turn to rags and her coach turn back to a pumpkin. As she is rushing out of the door and down those tricky steps, she loses a shoe: a glass slipper.
The prince, not remembering Cinderella’s face, apparently, trawls the village to find the woman who the shoe fits. The step-sisters try it, of course, but their feet are too large. It isn’t until he slides the slipper onto Cinderella’s foot that he knows he has met his princess. They go on to live happily ever after, usually with the step-family facing mild consequences.
All in all, a nice story that wraps up quite neatly.
All of these bits and pieces of the popular Disney tale come from different sources. The earliest version of Cinderella is the ancient Greek story of Rhodopis, written around 7 BC. It tells of a Greek courtesan who was bathing when an eagle snatched a sandal from her maid and carried it to Memphis. While the King was administering justice, the eagle dropped the sandal into his lap. He was stirred by the beautiful shape of the sandal and went on a quest to find the woman who wore it. When she was found, she was brought to Memphis and became the King’s wife.
It was in a French retelling in Cenrillion by Perrault in 1697 that the glass slipper, the pumpkin and the fairy-godmother were introduced. This story is most similar to that of the Disney version we most often see.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Good Nightmare story if the tale and its ending were all roses, no thorns. That’s why today we will look at the Brothers Grimm version of the much loved fairy-tale.
The story begins in a town that is ravaged by a plague. The moment we meet Cinderella, she is sitting by her mother’s death bed. Her mother tells Cinderella that if she is to remain good and kind, God will protect her, before she passes away. Cinderella visits her mother’s grave every day until one year later, her father marries another woman.
Cinderella’s new step-mother brings with her two step-daughters, both fair of face but dark of heart. They take away Cinderella’s gowns and force her to wear a grey bed gown and banish her to the kitchen where she is forced to work from dawn ’til dusk. They create messes for Cinderella in order to make her work more difficult, pouring lentils into the ash of the fireplace being one of their favourite tricks. They would make Cinderella spend hours upon hours sorting the lentils from the ash before she would be allowed to do anything else. They mock and tease her and through it all, Cinderella remains good and kind. She continues to visit her mother’s grave every day and prays to God that she will see her life improve.
One day, her father visits a fair. He has promised his three daughters gifts. The two step-daughters request luxurious items but Cinderella only asks for the first branch to knock his hat off on the way. He brings back a twig of hazel for her as promised which she plants at her mother’s grave. She goes on to visit the grave and to pray there three times a day and waters the hazel twig with her tears. It grows into a large, glowing hazel tree where a white bird comes to visit her each day.
Cinderella tells her wishes to the bird, and the bird throws down to her whatever she wishes for.
The King, deciding it is time for his son, the Prince, to choose a wife, holds a festival that will last three days. He invites all of the beautiful maidens in the own for the Prince to meet, including the step-sisters. Cinderella begs to be allowed to attend the festival but her step-mother denies her wish, saying she does not have beautiful shoes or a gown to wear. Cinderella insists despite this and her step-mother relents, in a way. She throws a pot of lentils into ashes and tells Cinderella she may attend if she can clean this mess in two hours. An impossible task for one young woman.
Cinderella sings while she cleans and a flock of doves are drawn to her to help her. She cleans the mess in less than the two hours given. Her step-mother only redoubles her efforts and throws a larger dish of lentils to the ground. Again, Cinderella manages to quickly clean the mess but the step-mother whisks away her daughters and husband regardless and leaves Cinderella behind.
Alone, she visits her mother’s grave and asks the bird who grants her wishes to give her a beautiful gown and to clothe her in silver and gold. The bird drops down a silver dress and silk shoes. She heads to the festival and dances with the prince. When sunset comes, she leaves and the prince escorts her home. She escapes him and hides inside the pigeon coop. When the prince requests her father to chop it down so he may find her, he sees she has already escaped.
The following day, she again visits the festival in grander clothing and dances with the prince. This time, when he takes her home she climbs a pear tree to escape him. Her father is asked to chop down the tree to find her but when the tree comes down, she is already gone.
On the third day, she appears at the festival in gold slippers. The prince is determined to keep her. He has the staircase smeared in pitch so that she cannot escape. She loses track of time and runs down the stairs and back home. One of her shoes is stuck in the pitch and this is where the prince picks it up and proclaims that he will marry the maiden whose foot fits the golden slipper.
The prince visits Cinderella’s house the next day and tries the slipper on the eldest step-sister. Her mother had advised her to cut off her toes to fit her foot into the slipper. While riding with her, shoe safely on her foot, two doves from Heaven come down to tell the prince that the woman’s foot is bleeding. He returns to the house and tries the shoe on the other sister. However, she shoe only fits because she has cut away a part of her heel. Again, he is fooled and again he is advised by the doves that she is bleeding.
He returns to the house once more and asks if there are any other maidens residing there. Cinderella’s father mentions a kitchen-maid, not adding that this young lady is also his daughter. Cinderella cleans herself up and tries on the slipper and it is then that the prince realises that she is the woman he had fallen in love with.
The two marry, as in most fairy-tales. Though when walking down the aisle with her step-sisters as her bridesmaids, the doves from heaven fly down and peck the left eye of one and the right eye of the other for trying to fool the prince. At the end of the wedding, Cinderella and the prince leave together and the doves fly down again, striking the sisters’ remaining eyes and blinding them as punishment.
Not exactly the happy and polished ending we have come to expect.
The father in this story is no less evil than the step-sisters and mother for allowing the abuse to go on. It is considered in some theories that he is dominated by his new wife and is too meek to stand up to her. In other theories and tellings of the story, he is actively a part of the abuse himself.
I would definitley recommend reading the Grimm’s version of Cinderella, and would like to recommend the film Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore. It’s one of my favourite representations. Let me know your favourite Cinderella story, below!
Good Nightmare 