A few days ago we talked about the original story of "Sleeping Beauty", offering what is known as the first written version and explaining, in a summary, some places of history that show that as a children's story could not be published.
Today we talk about the history of Cinderella, that neither would it be too suitable for children if we had to explain the first versions.
Cinderella's story is considered the most popular fairy tale there is. Charles Perrault wrote it in the seventeenth century, but it is believed that at the time the author put it on paper it could have been a thousand years since history passed from generation to generation, both in written and oral form.
Charles Perrault made the story we know today possible
The cinderella we all know is the work of the aforementioned writer, who tells the stories of a young girl who manages to attend a real dance thanks to the help of a kind fairy godmother.
If it had not been for him, the story that would have remained to be read by all (or to have died in oblivion), is a Scottish version, in which the girl receives the name of Rashin Coatie.
In this story the three stepsisters of the girl force him to wear rags. It does not have a fairy godmother, but a magical ram that, discovered by the stepmother, is tied and roasted.
Rashin Coatie, afflicted by the loss of her ram and eager to go to a royal dance, makes a wish before the bones of the ram, requesting a nice new dress to go with. The wish is granted and, dressed in a luxurious outfit, goes to the dance where he captivates the prince. When he came home running loses a beautiful satin shoe.
As the prince is captivated by his beauty, he decides to go in his search with the shoe as the only proof and the word is spreading that the prince will marry the lady who proves to own it. The stepmother decides then cut your eldest daughter's toes. However, he realizes that it is still not enough, that the shoe still will not fit, and also cuts his heel.
The prince (who must have been half blind, I imagine), accepts the ugly stepsister, since the shoe is doing well, but later a bird confesses that the hidden foot in the shoe is incomplete and that the beautiful girl who is Looking for answers to the name of Rashin Coatie. The prince marries her and they live happily.
Around with the happy shoe
In various old European versions of the story, the shoe turned out to be satin, leather or leather. In the French story that inspired Perrault, it was leather and it was the author who decided to transform the shoe into a shoe and change the material for glass, to be transparent and to be unalterable. This detail gained so much strength in the story that the title ended up being: "Cinderella or the crystal shoe."
Giambattista Basile also made his own
Before Perrault wrote his story, Giambattista Basile, the Neapolitan writer who wrote the version of "Sleeping Beauty" we talked about in the previous post, showed the world his own version of the story, with a Cinderella called Zezolla, victim of abuse since childhood.
This story begins with an unhappy girl who plans the murder of her evil stepmother, an act she ends up doing by breaking her neck (come on, Cinderella could be considered a child killer). Unfortunately for the protagonist, the father ends up marrying a woman even worse than the previous one, who far from coming alone appears at home with six daughters of the most evil, who force Zezolla to work all day at home and in the kitchen .
The magic fairy or the ram does not exist in this version, since the magic comes from a magic tree, more specifically a palm tree, which helps the girl to go to the royal dance with luxurious clothes, a white horse and twelve pages. At midnight the girl disappears leaving an empty shoe as the only sign of her existence.
And the first written version could come from China
It is believed that The oldest version of this story appears in a Chinese book written between 850 and 850 A.D.. The girl, named Yeh Shen, is mistreated by her stepmother and daughter, as evil as those of the other versions, which force her to draw water from very deep and dangerous wells. In addition, to torture her, they make her wear very small shoes while doing her homework, making her feet so small that her real name is left behind to adopt the aforementioned Yeh Shen, which means Lotus Feet.
The girl keeps a magic fish three meters long in a pond next to her house but the stepmother, who ends up knowing the secret of her stepdaughter, pretends to be her, putting on her clothes, cheats the fish and kills him, to then cut it up and serve it at home once the young woman's tears.
Thus comes the moment of the dance and Yeh Shen, eager to be able to go, makes a wish before the thorns of the fish, fulfilled instantly.
The girl goes to the party, where there is no prince in love as it is constant in the other versions. However, the spell has an expiration time and when running away loses a golden shoe, which by chance, ends up in the hands of the richest merchant in the province, who ends up selling it to the King. He decides to meet the owner of such a valuable shoe, because he decides that it will be his queen. Start a search in which the stepsister amputates her feet so that the shoe enters her, without success.
One night, Yeh Shen enters the palace to retrieve the shoe, but they discover her without believing that a maid could be the owner. The King, who thinks the same (appearances deceive), is amazed when, when putting on both shoes, the girl's rags become beautiful clothes worthy of a queen. The King falls in love with her and they get married and the stepmother and her daughter are locked in a cave until an avalanche of stones ends with them.
