Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
This week we look at my favourite version of
Cinderella from my childhood. This version is called Aschenputtel and was collected by
the Brothers Grimm and published in
their Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children
and Household Tales) in 1812.
I liked this version much better than the Perrault
version for several reasons. The first being she is a stronger protagonist. In
the Perrault version Cinderella is incredibly passive saying things like “I am
not worthy to go to the ball” and then cries and waits for someone to fix her
problems. In this version she does cry and pray a lot, but she still plays an
active role in her destiny. She goes to her mother’s grave, sits beneath the
hazel tree she has watered with her tears, and asks for what she needs. A white
bird (perhaps a dove representing the soul of her mother) throws down whatever
she needs.
In this version we also see the introduction of
impossible tasks. The stepmother plays "mind games" that are meant to tease the
poor girl and get her hopes up about going to the festival. She throws a bowl
of lentils into the ashes and tells the poor girl if she can pick them out
within two hours she can go to the festival. Our resourceful heroine calls on
“all the birds of the sky” to come in and peck the lentils from the ashes and
return them to the bowl. When she completes the task the stepmother does it
again, giving her a one hour deadline this time and two bowls of lentils to
sift from the ashes. Again, she completes the impossible task, but the
stepmother still refuses to take the girl to the festival saying that she would
be embarrassed to be seen with the cinder covered girl.
If this were the Perrault version, she would sit down
defeated in the kitchen and wait for someone to come over and solve her
problems. In the Grimm’s version, she runs out to her mother’s grave and asks
for help. A beautiful dress of silver and gold is thrown down to her and off
she goes to the festival. Each night of the festival she is given a different
dress, even more beautiful than the last, and each night she decides when she
leaves (no random curfew.) She chooses not to be found by the prince by hiding
in the pigeon coop and up a pear tree. On the last night of the festival the
prince smears the steps with pitch to catch her, but she merely leaves her
solid gold slipper behind. I often thought as a child how awkward it would be
for other guests arriving or leaving the party to have the entranceway covered
in sticky resin. This scene with the pitch on the stairs features in the
musical Into the Woods and we will look closer at this at a later date.
Lastly, the bits that appealed to me the most were the
parts involving mutilation. I was a blood-thirsty sort of child. When the
golden slipper is being brought house to house the stepsisters mutilate
themselves to fit into the shoe--one cuts off her toe and the other cuts off
her heel. When the prince sees that the shoe fits, he just pops the stepsister
on his horse and rides away without looking up to see the identity of the
person actually wearing the shoe. When they pass the grave of Cinderella’s
mother two pigeons call out, “There is blood in the shoe! The bride is not
right!” Twice he does this (TWICE!) without bothering to look up at the face of
the person wearing it and say “Hey, this is not my true love.” He just looks to
see if the shoe fits and rides away. It is only when Cinderella tries it on
that he raised his gaze above her feet and looks at her face, recognises her
and says, “She is my true bride.” This always annoyed me as it made the prince look careless and quite frankly a bit stupid, but this will be rectified in next week's tale.
It was only upon revisiting this tale for the blog that I noticed the fact that he says T"his is not the right one, either. Don't you have another daughter?" when he returns the second sister to the house. The fact that he he uses the term THIS and not SHE really speaks volumes about how women were viewed as property as he refers to her as an object and not a person.
I also felt slightly grossed out thinking about having to wear a shoe that two other people had recently bled into. That's just unsanitary.
Then there is the revenge part. Perrault who loves to
moralise has Cinderella forgive the stepsisters for their wicked behaviour and
gets her to find them good husbands. In this tale pigeons fly down at the
wedding and peck out the stepsister’s eyes, so they were “punished with
blindness for as long as they lived.”
It’s good to be friends with birds.
A
rich man's wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near,
she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, "Dear child, remain
pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look
down on you from heaven and be near you." With this she closed her eyes
and died.
The
girl went out to her mother's grave every day and wept, and she remained pious
and good. When winter came the snow spread a white cloth over the grave, and
when the spring sun had removed it again, the man took himself another wife.
This
wife brought two daughters into the house with her. They were beautiful, with
fair faces, but evil and dark hearts. Times soon grew very bad for the poor
stepchild.
"Why
should that stupid goose sit in the parlour with us?" they said. "If
she wants to eat bread, then she will have to earn it. Out with this kitchen
maid!"
They
took her beautiful clothes away from her, dressed her in an old gray smock, and
gave her wooden shoes. "Just look at the proud princess! How decked out
she is!" they shouted and laughed as they led her into the kitchen.
There
she had to do hard work from morning until evening, get up before daybreak,
carry water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides this, the sisters did
everything imaginable to hurt her. They made fun of her, scattered peas and
lentils into the ashes for her, so that she had to sit and pick them out again.
In the evening when she had worked herself weary, there was no bed for her.
Instead she had to sleep by the hearth in the ashes. And because she always
looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.
One
day it happened that the father was going to the fair, and he asked his two
stepdaughters what he should bring back for them.
"Beautiful
dresses," said the one.
"Pearls
and jewels," said the other.
"And
you, Cinderella," he said, "what do you want?"
"Father,
break off for me the first twig that brushes against your hat on your way
home."
So
he bought beautiful dresses, pearls, and jewels for his two stepdaughters. On
his way home, as he was riding through a green thicket, a hazel twig brushed
against him and knocked off his hat. Then he broke off the twig and took it
with him. Arriving home, he gave his stepdaughters the things that they had
asked for, and he gave Cinderella the twig from the hazel bush.
Cinderella
thanked him, went to her mother's grave, and planted the branch on it, and she
wept so much that her tears fell upon it and watered it. It grew and became a
beautiful tree.
Cinderella
went to this tree three times every day, and beneath it she wept and prayed. A
white bird came to the tree every time, and whenever she expressed a wish, the
bird would throw down to her what she had wished for.
Now
it happened that the king proclaimed a festival that was to last three days.
All the beautiful young girls in the land were invited, so that his son could
select a bride for himself.
When the two stepsisters heard that they too had
been invited, they were in high spirits.
They
called Cinderella, saying, "Comb our hair for us. Brush our shoes and
fasten our buckles. We are going to the festival at the king's castle."
Cinderella
obeyed, but wept, because she too would have liked to go to the dance with
them. She begged her stepmother to allow her to go.
"You,
Cinderella?" she said. "You, all covered with dust and dirt, and you
want to go to the festival? You have neither clothes nor shoes, and yet you
want to dance!"
However,
because Cinderella kept asking, the stepmother finally said, "I have
scattered a bowl of lentils into the ashes for you. If you can pick them out
again in two hours, then you may go with us."
The
girl went through the back door into the garden, and called out, "You tame
pigeons, you turtledoves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me
to gather:
The good ones go into the pot,
The bad ones go into your crop."
Two
white pigeons came in through the kitchen window, and then the turtledoves, and
finally all the birds beneath the sky came whirring and swarming in and lit
around the ashes. The pigeons nodded their heads and began to pick, pick, pick,
pick. And the others also began to pick, pick, pick, pick. They gathered all
the good grains into the bowl. Hardly one hour had passed before they were
finished, and they all flew out again.
The
girl took the bowl to her stepmother, and was happy, thinking that now she would
be allowed to go to the festival with them.
But
the stepmother said, "No, Cinderella, you have no clothes, and you don't
know how to dance. Everyone would only laugh at you."
Cinderella
began to cry, and then the stepmother said, "You may go if you are able to
pick two bowls of lentils out of the ashes for me in one hour," thinking
to herself, "She will never be able to do that."
The
girl went through the back door into the garden, and called out, "You tame
pigeons, you turtledoves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me
to gather:
The good ones go into the pot,
The bad ones go into your crop."
Two white pigeons came in through the kitchen window, and then the turtledoves, and finally all the birds beneath the sky came whirring and swarming in and lit around the ashes. The pigeons nodded their heads and began to pick, pick, pick, pick. And the others also began to pick, pick, pick, pick. They gathered all the good grains into the bowls. Before a half hour had passed, they were finished, and they all flew out again.
The
girl took the bowls to her stepmother, and was happy, thinking that now she
would be allowed to go to the festival with them.
But
the stepmother said, "It's no use. You are not coming with us, for you
have no clothes, and you don't know how to dance. We would be ashamed of
you." With this she turned her back on Cinderella and hurried away with
her two proud daughters.
Now
that no one else was at home, Cinderella went to her mother's grave beneath the
hazel tree, and cried out:
Shake
and quiver, little tree,
Throw gold and silver down to me.
Then the bird threw a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver. She quickly put on the dress and went to the festival.
Her
stepsisters and her stepmother did not recognise her. They thought she must be
a foreign princess, for she looked so beautiful in the golden dress. They never
once thought it was Cinderella, for they thought that she was sitting at home
in the dirt, looking for lentils in the ashes.
The
prince approached her, took her by the hand, and danced with her. Furthermore,
he would dance with no one else. He never let go of her hand, and whenever
anyone else came and asked her to dance, he would say, "She is my dance
partner."
She
danced until evening, and then she wanted to go home. But the prince said,
"I will go along and escort you," for he wanted to see to whom the
beautiful girl belonged. However, she eluded him and jumped into the pigeon
coop. The prince waited until her father came, and then he told him that the
unknown girl had jumped into the pigeon coop.
The
old man thought, "Could it be Cinderella?"
He
had them bring him an axe and a pick so that he could break the pigeon coop
apart, but no one was inside. When they got home Cinderella was lying in the
ashes, dressed in her dirty clothes. A dim little oil-lamp was burning in the
fireplace. Cinderella had quickly jumped down from the back of the pigeon coop
and had run to the hazel tree. There she had taken off her beautiful clothes and
laid them on the grave, and the bird had taken them away again. Then, dressed
in her grey smock, she had returned to the ashes in the kitchen.
The
next day when the festival began anew, and her parents and her stepsisters had
gone again, Cinderella went to the hazel tree and said:
Shake and quiver, little tree,
Throw gold and silver down to me.
Then
the bird threw down an even more magnificent dress than on the preceding day.
When Cinderella appeared at the festival in this dress, everyone was astonished
at her beauty. The prince had waited until she came, then immediately took her
by the hand, and danced only with her. When others came and asked her to dance
with them, he said, "She is my dance partner."
When
evening came, she wanted to leave, and the prince followed her, wanting to see
into which house she went. But she ran away from him and into the garden behind
the house. A beautiful tall tree stood there, on which hung the most
magnificent pears. She climbed as nimbly as a squirrel into the branches, and
the prince did not know where she had gone. He waited until her father came,
then said to him, "The unknown girl has eluded me, and I believe she has
climbed up the pear tree.
The
father thought, "Could it be Cinderella?" He had an axe brought to
him and cut down the tree, but no one was in it. When they came to the kitchen,
Cinderella was lying there in the ashes as usual, for she had jumped down from
the other side of the tree, had taken the beautiful dress back to the bird in
the hazel tree, and had put on her grey smock.
On
the third day, when her parents and sisters had gone away, Cinderella went
again to her mother's grave and said to the tree:
Shake
and quiver, little tree,
Throw gold and silver down to me.
This time the bird threw down to her a dress that was more splendid and magnificent than any she had yet had, and the slippers were of pure gold. When she arrived at the festival in this dress, everyone was so astonished that they did not know what to say. The prince danced only with her, and whenever anyone else asked her to dance, he would say, "She is my dance partner."
When
evening came Cinderella wanted to leave, and the prince tried to escort her,
but she ran away from him so quickly that he could not follow her. The prince,
however, had set a trap. He had had the entire stairway smeared with pitch.
When she ran down the stairs, her left slipper stuck in the pitch. The prince
picked it up. It was small and dainty, and of pure gold.
The
next morning, he went with it to the man, and said to him, "No one shall
be my wife except for the one whose foot fits this golden shoe."
The
two sisters were happy to hear this, for they had pretty feet. With her mother
standing by, the older one took the shoe into her bedroom to try it on. She
could not get her big toe into it, for the shoe was too small for her. Then her
mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut off your toe. When you are queen
you will no longer have to go on foot."
The
girl cut off her toe, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went
out to the prince. He took her on his horse as his bride and rode away with
her. However, they had to ride past the grave, and there, on the hazel tree,
sat the two pigeons, crying out:
Rook di goo, rook di goo!
There's blood in the shoe.
The shoe is too tight,
This bride is not right!
Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was running from it. He turned his horse around and took the false bride home again, saying that she was not the right one, and that the other sister should try on the shoe. She went into her bedroom, and got her toes into the shoe all right, but her heel was too large.
Then
her mother gave her a knife, and said, "Cut a piece off your heel. When
you are queen you will no longer have to go on foot."
The
girl cut a piece off her heel, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the
pain, and went out to the prince. He took her on his horse as his bride and
rode away with her. When they passed the hazel tree, the two pigeons were
sitting in it, and they cried out:
Rook di goo, rook di goo!
There's blood in the shoe.
The shoe is too tight,
This bride is not right!
He looked down at her foot and saw how the blood was running out of her shoe, and how it had stained her white stocking all red. Then he turned his horse around and took the false bride home again.
"This
is not the right one, either," he said. "Don't you have another
daughter?"
"No,"
said the man. "There is only a deformed little Cinderella from my first
wife, but she cannot possibly be the bride."
The
prince told him to send her to him, but the mother answered, "Oh, no, she
is much too dirty. She cannot be seen."
But
the prince insisted on it, and they had to call Cinderella. She first washed
her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the prince, who
gave her the golden shoe.
She sat down on a stool, pulled her foot out of the
heavy wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper, and it fitted her perfectly.
When
she stood up the prince looked into her face, and he recognised the beautiful
girl who had danced with him. He cried out, "She is my true bride."
The
stepmother and the two sisters were horrified and turned pale with anger. The
prince, however, took Cinderella onto his horse and rode away with her. As they
passed by the hazel tree, the two white pigeons cried out:
Rook
di goo, rook di goo!
No blood's in the shoe.
The shoe's not too tight,
This bride is right!
After they had cried this out, they both flew down and lit on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there.
When
the wedding with the prince was to be held, the two false sisters came, wanting
to gain favour with Cinderella and to share her good fortune. When the bridal
couple walked into the church, the older sister walked on their right side and
the younger on their left side, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of
them. Afterwards, as they came out of the church, the older one was on the left
side, and the younger one on the right side, and then the pigeons pecked out
the other eye from each of them. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood,
they were punished with blindness as long as they lived.
And if you want to read it in German then you can read
it {HERE}.
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