Most of us know the Disney version of Cinderella: a young woman, down on her luck, magically transforms into the belle of the Royal Ball and wins the Prince’s heart. There are glass slippers, pumpkin carriages, and fairy godmothers—but that wasn’t always the case. The story of Cinderella has seen countless iterations, but all have been well-loved in their time and have at least hints of the fairy tale we see today.
History of a Fairy Tale
The earliest Cinderella story was written nearly 2,000 years ago. In it, an eagle steals the sandal of a young Greek woman and drops it in the lap of the Egyptian king. Seeing this as a sign from the heavens, he sends his men to find the sandal’s owner so he can make her his wife.
Many other versions of the story exist across cultures, including the Chinese story of Ye Xian, the Vietnamese story of Tấm and Cám, and the medieval French story Le Fresne. Each version includes different recognizable elements: a virtuous young woman mistreated by her step-family; magical intervention that enables her to attend a festival or royal ball; a lost slipper or another identifying item; and her eventual marriage to royalty.
On the Page
In 1697, French author Charles Perrault published Cendrillon, which is the model for some of the familiar details of the modern story: the fairy godmother who transforms a pumpkin to a carriage and mice into horses, and bestows the iconic glass slipper on our heroine. If Perrault’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the father of the fairy tale genre, and gave us The Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, and Puss in Boots.
Two other settings (much darker in their retellings) are the Italian Cenerentola, published in 1634, and the Brothers Grimm rendition from 1812, titled Aschenputtel. These versions are ripe with dramatic irony and incorporate more violence and mayhem than the others.