The Brothers Grimm also collected the tale in their famous fairy tale compendium.

Etching by George Cruikshank as an illustration for Grimm's 'Aschenputtel.' (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The Brothers Grimm had a, well, grimmer take on the tale This is the version Disney later adapted into its animated classic.Ĭirca 1830: Cinderella, having tried on the glass slipper, produces its fellow. He introduced the glass slipper, the pumpkin, and the fairy godmother (minus the bibbidi bobbidi boo). In Cendrillon, Charles Perrault - a French writer credited with inventing the fairy tale - cast the form that Cinderella would take for the next 400 years. Sixty years later, the Italian tale got a French twist and became the story we know. Instead of a story of requited love, Cenerentola is a story of forced marriage and six very wicked stepsisters.

In the story, a woman named Zezolla escapes the king, who wants to marry her, at two separate celebrations - before he finally catches her at the third one and prevents her from leaving. Cenerentola has all the ingredients of the modern-day tale - the wicked stepmother and stepsisters, the magic, and the missing slipper - but it's darker and just a bit more magical. The first version of Cinderella that bears a significant similarity to the most famous version emerged in the 17th century, when a story called Cenerentola was published in a collection of Italian short stories. In total, more than 500 versions of the Cinderella story have been found just in Europe, and the Cinderella we know best comes from there (France, specifically). Artist: Rackham, from 1939 (Getty) The European version of the story originated in the 17th century Ye Xian's beauty convinces the king to marry her, and the mean stepmother is crushed by stones in her cave home. Like Rhodopis' tale, a monarch comes in possession of the shoe (this time, the shoes have a gold fish-scale pattern) and goes on a quest to find the woman whose tiny feet will fit the shoe. When he finds Rhodopis, he marries her, lifting her from her lowly status to the throne.Īnother one of the earliest known Cinderella stories is the ninth-century Chinese fairy tale Ye Xian, in which a young girl named Ye Xian is granted one wish from some magical fishbones, which she uses to create a gown in the hopes of finding a husband. Taking the shoe drop as a sign from the heavens (literally and metaphorically), the king goes on a quest to find the owner of the shoe. In that ancient story, a Greek courtesan named Rhodopis has one of her shoes stolen by an eagle, who flies it all the way across the Mediterranean and drops it in the lap of an Egyptian king. The first recorded story featuring a Cinderella-like figure dates to Greece in the sixth century BCE. At the center of most Cinderella stories (whether they use that name for their protagonist or not) is one thing: a persecuted heroine who rises above her social station through marriage. The story of overcoming oppression and marrying into another social class to be saved from a family that doesn't love or appreciate you is an incredibly powerful one, too powerful to be contained by the story we all know. There are two faces to Cinderella: there's the European folk tale that evolved into the modern-day story of a girl in a big blue ball gown, and there's the centuries-old plot that has been passed between cultures for millennia. She is a character who weaves together centuries of storytelling and most human cultures.Īnd sometimes her forgotten slipper isn't even glass. The real Cinderella isn't so easily defined. That's the Disney Cinderella, the one from the 1950 animated film and the new remake in theaters right now. She overcomes the adversity of her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, who treat her as their maid, so she can meet and dance with a very handsome prince, then hurry home before the clock strikes midnight and her carriage becomes a pumpkin again.īut that's not the real Cinderella.

She wears a beautiful dress with a shiny headband, glass shoes, and long white gloves. She's a part of the cultural ether, one of those characters we get to know by osmosis.