Cinderella, perhaps the world’s best-known children’s story, has its origins in folklore. The version immortalized by Disney was first published in Charles Perrault’s 1697 book Stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals, also known as Tales of Mother Goose. (Yes, Mother Goose was a man!) There are said to be over 1,000 variants of the story across the world. Perrault took the original framework, which has been around since the days of the pharaohs, and added the three elements for which his version is famous today: a fairy godmother, a pumpkin-carriage, and glass slippers.
Our source for Cinderella was an English version of the Perrault story published in The Blue Fairy Book, one of a series of twelve collections of folk and fairy tales for children edited by Andrew Lang. This is the first book in the series, and was first published in 1889. The book contains translations of seven Perrault stories, but omits an important aspect of each: Perrault’s morals. For Cinderella, these are:
Moral 1: Beauty in a woman is a rare treasure that will always be admired. Graciousness, however, is priceless and of even greater value. This is what Cinderella’s godmother gave to her when she taught her to behave like a queen. Young women, in the winning of a heart, graciousness is more important than a beautiful hairdo. It is a true gift of the fairies. Without it nothing is possible; with it, one can do anything.
Moral 2: Without doubt it is a great advantage to have intelligence, courage, good breeding, and common sense. These, and similar talents come only from heaven, and it is good to have them. However, even these may fail to bring you success, without the blessing of a godfather or a godmother.
Perrault’s source is said to be the story Cenerentola from the The Pentamerone, an Italian collection of folktales published in 1636.
Cinderella Original Text / PDF (2,456 words)
Cenerentola Original Text / PDF (2,570 words)
Brothers Grimm Version
The Brothers Grimms’ Cinderella story, Aschenputtel (Little Ash Girl), was published in 1812, over a hundred years after Perrault. Our source was Grimms’ Household Tales, translated by British writer Margaret Hunt. The book, which was first published in 1884, contains all 200 Grimm folktales plus 10 legends. This is tale No. 21. Here the father is still alive but not a very nice guy, and the step-mother encourages the sisters to cut off part of their foot to fit into the (golden) slipper with the practical advice: when thou art Queen thou wilt have no more need to go on foot. Rather than being forgiven as in the Perrault version, the errant sisters have their eyes pecked out and live the rest of their days in blindness!
Aschenputtel Original Text / PDF (2,631 words)
Similar Stories
Typical Cinderella plots involve most if not all of six elements: a young protagonist mistreated by family; desire to attend an important event; magical help to get there; fine clothes and appearance; falling in love; and an identifying item. The antagonists are most commonly female relatives, as in the Perrault and Grimm stories and another early version on our website, Tam and Cam from Vietnam. If the antagonist is male, he is often a father with incestuous desires. Examples of this form on our website are Cap O’ Rushes from England and Donkey Skin, also from Perrault.
The first written record of a Cinderella plot is Yeh-Shin (Ye Xian), aka The Chinese Cinderella. It appeared around 850 AD, some 800 years before the first European account. The key element in the story is a pet fish with big eyes and, as it turns out, magic bones. As might be expected, this story is strikingly similar to several other Asian versions, including the first section of Tam and Cam.
Yeh-Shin Original Text / PDF (1,910 words)