School of Humans.
This episode discusses sensitive topics. Please listen with care. My name is Miranda Hawkins. Welcome to the Deep Dark Woods, a podcast about sex, violence and fairy tales. Today's story is Cinderella.
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 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 cold. 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 in this golden shoe. The two sisters were happy to hear this, for they had pretty feet. With their 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, we will no longer have to go on foot. The girl cut off her toe, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pane, 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 two pigeons crying out.
Rickity gool, rickety goo, there's blood in the shoe. The shoe is too tight. The 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 in 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, we 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.
Rickety goo, rickity goo. There's blood in the shoe. The shoe is too tight.
The 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 stockings all red. Then he turned his horse around and took the false bride home. Again. This is not the right one one either, he said. Don't you have another daughter? No, said the man, there's 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 fit her perfectly. When she stood up, the prince looked into her face and recognized 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 to his horse and rode away with her. As they passed the hazel tree, the two white pigeons cried out.
Rickedy goo, rickedy goo. No blood in the shoe.
The shoe's not too tight. The bride is right.
After they cried this out, they both flew down and lit on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and they remained sitting there. When the wedding with the prince was held. The two false sisters came, wanting to gain favor with Cinderella and to share her good fortune. The oldest 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 blue blindness as long as they lived.
Once upon a time.
That's how a lot of fairy tales start. Once upon a time, there was a prince, or once upon a time and a land far away. You could argue it's almost the perfect setup for a magical tale.
Before we get back to.
The story you just heard, there's another once upon a time. I'd like to tell you one you might not be as familiar with. Once upon a Time. There are two brothers who lived during the midst of revolution and wars. Worried their Germanic culture would be lost, they begin collecting and documenting the oral tales of their people. Their first collected works were published in two parts, the first in
eighteen twelve and the second in eighteen fifteen. Their books became wildly popular, second only to the Bible.
The collection of.
Tales would pull the brothers and their siblings out from the throes of poverty. Their desire to preserve their heritage would launch them into generations of fame. This is the legacy of the Brothers grim. My name is Miranda Hawkins. I've been a journalist and producer for.
Almost a decade.
I've worked on shows like Monster, the Zodiac, Killer, Camppell and Awaki and American Shadows. But long before I started writing my own stories and working on others, I read. I read everything in. My favorite stories were fairy tales. Like many people, the stories of Cinderella and snow White that I grew up with were the Disney versions. They had clear, definitive lines of good versus evil, and always had a happy ending. Everything came packaged with a nice,
tidy beough. I remember the first time I ran across an original brother's grim tale. It was Cinderella. It was much darker than i'd anticipated. Instead of the wicked stepsisters trying to shove their foot into the glass slipper and it's simply not working, they cut off parts of their feet.
I was instantly hooked.
I love all things dark and twisted, and here is a story I grew.
Up on, but so much grittier.
These stories didn't quite have the happily ever after ending you'd expect. Next thing I knew. I found myself falling down the rabbit hole and reading all of the original tales, And the more I read, the more I wanted to know. Why were these stories told and re told? Why have they endured for centuries? Where did they come from? And how have they evolved to reflex the society's changes. I believe that stories are the heart of life. They teach
us about ourselves in the world. So what can we learn by taking a deeper dive into some of the most well known tales that have lasted generations. Well, let's find out. To find Cinderella stories and many folk tales, we head to the Arn Thompson Uther Index. It's a system folkloreists use to group and examine tales from different cultures. Since there are so many stories with similar traits, the
system categorizes everything by plot. There are three men to think for the ATU Index, Auntie Arn of Finland, Stif Thompson of the US, and Hans Jorg Uther of Germany. Arn began collecting and documenting all Scandinavian folklore and published his first findings in nineteen ten. The Thompson translated the index to English and added tales from his corner of the world. Finally, Uther updated and added another two hundred and fifty categories and subcategories. Uther also shifted titles to
make the index less sexist. For example, the tale of a sister saving her seven brothers after they'd been transformed into swans or another type of bird changed from the brothers who returned into birds two the maiden who rescues her brothers. Similar to the Dewey decimal system used in libraries, the ATU index has its own system to track down stories. Starting with ATU followed by a number and a title.
The ATU index breaks collected tales into seven main types, animal tales, tales of magic, religious tales, realistic tales, anecdotes and jokes, formula tales, and my favorite category name tales of the stupid ogre giant devil. From those seven major tale types, it breaks down into smaller tale types. For example, today's story is found under tales of magic subtale type the persecuted heroine. And as a quick side note, many of the stories in the ATU index originate in Europe
and the western part of Asia. Folklorets across the world are trying to fix us to include stories missing from Africa, Asia, and South America. One article I've found says that even the well known Arabian night stories might not be included either. As much as these stories are categorized, studied, and told and retold.
Let's first ask what makes a folk tale of folk tale?
I think One of my favorite aspects of making the show was learning about folklorists, people who study fairy tales and folklore for a living. Throughout the series will be hearing from different people in the field. Every person will have their own perspective, as there's no definitive takeaway on stories themselves. Doctor Lynn McNeil is a professor of folklore at Utah State University in the English Apartment. She has also made appearances on national television to discuss folklore and
is the author of several books. And she said, what is important to know about folklore is this fundamental truth.
It's meant to change over time. It's meant to change to stay relevant.
Here's how she explained folk tales to me. Folklore is all cultural expression that is shared through word of mouth. So folk tales are the stories that are learned and shared and generated collectively from person to person through time and plays. Folk tales adapt to the environment they are being told in, so that means we can use these tales as a barometer for cultural difference, cultural similarity, and cultural.
Change, invoking a sense that we're talking back to something, we're responding to something prior. And of course, scholars of literature and film would say the same thing. Any new contemporary film is responding to its predecessors, to the films that came before it, But in fairy tales, we're doing it in this really specific and direct way, because it's a genre that by definition adapts and evolves.
So what about Cinderella or, as she was originally called in The Brother's grim Tail, Ashen Poodle, which roughly translates to ashen dirty girl. What you heard at the beginning of the episode was the second half of the original Brother's grim Tail, and in their version, the father was still alive and stood by while the stepmother in steps sisters treated Cinderella as they did before.
One of his.
Travels, the father asked his three daughters what gifts they would like. The two stepsisters of Corus wanted clothes and jewelry, but Cinderella one of the first twig that brushed her father's hat on his way home. Cinderella then plants a twig at her mother's grave. The twig is watered by Cinderella's tears and ends up growing into a beautiful tree. When she is not allowed to go to the ball, Cinderella goes to the tree to ask for a gown and shoes so she can make it to the dance.
Each time the birds granted her wish, she dashed off to dance with the prince, and each time the prince was smitten and dance with only Cinderella. Every night Cinderella returned, she would give back the gown and slippers. That was until the third night, when she lost one of her shoes. It wasn't glass, though, it was gold. And now we've come full circle to the brother's grim story of Cinderella. As for where the story originated from, that's another question entirely.
Did it begin in China? Did it begin in Egypt and move as humans moved and shared their stories through time and space all the way up until now. Or are those story elements a persecuted young woman, a mechanism of recognition, a deceased mother helping her child from the afterlife. Are those story elements so basic to human experience that that story, or something resembling it cropped up in multiple places, all at once or at different times, and grew from there And the truth is we don't know.
Initially, my research showed that the first recorded version of Cinderella dates back more than two thousand years. It was documented by Herodotus. He was a Greek historian and geographer who is best known for writing histories of the Greco Persian Wars. But like many of us, Herodotus couldn't resist a good tale. He was even accused of making up stories for entertainment. In the Herodotus version, Cinderella was named Rodopus, which means either rosy cheeked or rosy eyed. To be clear,
rosy idrifers having sparkly eyes, not bloodshot. Rhodopus is then again mentioned at a later date by the Greek geographer Strabo of Amasia. He is the one who is credited with first writing the tale down Rhodapus was kidnapped from her home in Greece and sold as a slave in Egypt. There, the other slave girls made fun of her because she looked different.
Where the other.
Women had bronze skin and straight, dark hair, Rhodipus was light skinned with golden curls. At night, she would go to the banks of the river and dance for her animal friends. On one such night, an old man spotted her dancing and thought she deserved a beautiful pair of shoes, so he had gold sandals made and delivered to Rhodopus. Not long after, a falcon steals one of her sandals, flies across a Mediterranean and drops it in the lap
of an Egyptian pharaoh. The pharaoh takes us as a sign from the gods and crosses land and sea to find the owner.
Of the shoe.
When the pharaoh finally finds Rhodapus, they get married. There's a theory that Rhodapus is based on a true story, but in that story, Rhodopus became a well regarded courtesan who tricked a man to fall in love with her and buy her freedom.
When he did, she left.
Him, and his sister was furious, and supposedly that man's sister was none other than the famous Sapphos. However, when historians sit with the timeline of the story of Rhodapus and this courtisan, it doesn't quite add up. Another early version of Cinderella is about a young Chinese girl named Yashen that was written sometime between six hundred and nine
hundred eighty during the Tong dynasty. Yashen's father was a cave chief who had two wives, and each wife bore him a daughter, not long after Yashin was born, her mother died, and soon after so did her father, the chief. The stepmother was insanely jealous of her new stepdaughter's beauty and kindness. Because of this, the stepmother would give Yashin the most difficult chores. Yashin's only friend was a golden fish. The stepmother ended up finding out about the fish and killing it.
Yashin was devastated, but an old.
Man told Yashin to keep the bones and make wishes with them when she most needed it. When the Spring festival came up, a time when people hoped to meet who they were going to marry, Yashen's stepmother told her to stay home. So Yashin used her magical fishbones to turn her rags into a beautiful gown, a cloak with kingfisher feathers, and slippers woven in golden threads that looked like fish scales. But like most stories, there was a
warning don't lose the slippers. Unfortunately, in order to avoid being caught by her stepmother, Yashin had to flee the festival and lost a slipper Immediately, her gown and cloak returned to rags, and when she got back to her home. The spirit of the fishbones was gone, although the slipper remained. Yashin had lost her only friend. Later, a villager found the lost slipper and sold it to a merchant, who
then took it to the king. The king marveled at the slipper and realized he lust meet the woman it belonged to. He realized it would take too long to search for her. Instead, he had the slipper put on display at the place where it was found for maidens to try it on.
He waited all.
Day, but it fit no one, including yashen stepmother and stepsister. Then, when the night was in its latest hour, the king spotted yea Shen taking the slipper. At first, he thought she was stealing it, until he saw how beautiful and kind her face was. The king cracked her down and married Yashen. As for the stepmother and stepsister, they were forced to stay home in the caves, and later it was said they were crushed to death by flying stones.
Fish are considered a symbol of prosperity. During this era, people began keeping karp and a mutation change to carp scales from silver to gold. Then people began to breed the fish for the Golden Scales. An argument could be made that not only was a fish alluding to Yushin's prosperity in marrying the king, but also the prosperity of the dynasty leading up to.
The Tong dynasty.
The collapse of the Han dynasty in two twenty a d had left China divided for three hundred years. The Sui dynasty then unified China, paving the way for the Tong dynasty. Tong is considered one of the greatest empires, not only because it was the Golden Age of arts and culture, but also because it was a dynasty ruled by benevolent leaders with economic growth and successful political endeavors.
It wasn't until the seventeenth century that the broad outlines of the version of Cinderella we're most familiar with originated. This time the story would be from France. When I first started looking into Cinderella, I thought the Disney version I grew up with was based on the Brother's Grim, But it's not Disney pulled from the sixteen ninety seven French story The Little Glass Slipper, written by Charles Perraut.
Pireaut had created his own spin on.
A darker Italian story of a woman named Zizzola. Zazzola, or as a title of the story, is called The Cat Cinderella, was written by John Battista Bazille in sixteen thirty four. In The Cat Cinderella, Zazzola already has a wicked stepmother who is married to her father, who is a prince. Zizzola's governess convinces a girl to kill her stepmother so the governess can marry the prince. Instead, Zizzola murders her stepmother by dropping the life of the largest dress trunk on the woman's neck.
And breaking it.
After she tricks her father into marrying the governess.
For a few days, things.
Are well, and during this time a dove from the Island of the Fairies visits Zola and tells her that if she ever needs anything, just come to the fairies for help. Well, it wasn't long until the governess turned out to be just as wicked. She brings forward six daughters she had been hiding and slowly demotes Zola to the place of a servant. Zizola becomes the Cat Cinderella because she's no better than an animal. Later, the prince goes on a trip and asks his stepdaughters what they would like.
The response is riches.
Then, as a snub, he asks Zola if she wants anything. She tells them a gift from the fairy isle. But on top of asking for the gift, she also tells him that if he doesn't follow through, he will never be able to find his way home.
Lo and behold.
When he tries to sail back, he can't, So he follows through on his promise to his daughter. The fairies gave her a date tree. The date tree ends up producing a fairy who asks Zzola what she wants.
Zizzola says to leave any.
Time without her sister's knowing, so the fairy gives her a phrase to whisper to the tree whenever she wants to leave, and a phrase to whisper when she returns.
To undo the magic.
On one feast day, Zazola waits until everyone leaves and then goes to the date tree and makes her wish. She has given a gown and slippers and a royal procession. This happens three times over, each time grander than the last. Absolutely smitten by her beauty and charm, the king wants to learn who Zola is. He has a servant follow her, but all three times Zzola shakes a servant off her trail by tossing out gold and jewels. It's the third time she shakes off the servant that she loses her
shoe by tossing it out. The king decides to hold another feast, declaring all maidens must attend. He planned on having all the maidens try the shoe. The prince, Zizola's father tells the king his daughter hasn't been attending because quote, she is a sorry, worthless creature, not fit to take her place at the table where you eat. But the king insists that she should be the first on the list, since that's what he's decreed.
When it's z.
Zola's turn to try the slipper on it, quote jumps to her foot like a moth of flame. Zizzola is zen crowned and the other people are told to obey her as queen. The Zelee has an extra element to him version though at the very end, the stepsisters, who are heartbroken and angry, confessed to their mother he is mad, who would oppose the stars. It's as if what happened was faded. It's easy to see how Perot's version was
able to build upon Bazilli's story. The foundations of Cinderella most of us are familiar with are there, but Pero just made them more magical, including the pumpkin turned carriage, the fairy Godmother, and the glass slipper. At its core, these tales of Cinderella are all about class reinforcing hierarchies embedded in society, although some propose that it's a cautionary
tale about the consequences of mistreating children. However, in more recent adaptations, Cinderella has evolved to reflect more modern sensibilities. During the brother's grim time, it was typical for stepmothers to be portrayed as wicked. Stepmothers were historically common due to mothers dying during childbirth. This pitted stepmothers against their stepchildren because of the intricacies of inheritance laws. Common knowledge
says that inheritance was passed down through male lineage. However, if there were no male heirs or their father didn't have a brother, money and land would sometimes be passed down to the daughter. In cases where there was more than one daughter, money and property would be split equally. Historically, there was little opportunity for economic mobility. Inheritance was key
to maintaining social status. So if the stepmother had a son and that was the only son, there wasn't a problem, but you can see how it would cause a riff otherwise. So at its heart, Cinderella is about class and how people can rise through the ranks or fall to their ruin.
We see a lot of themes of the restoration of the right way that things are meant to be happening here. Cinderella is very often pitched as a rags to riches story, and in some iterations it is, but in the most common iterations of Western Europe it is a riches to rags to riches story.
One of the easiest ways to maintain class or rise in the ranks was to marry. That's why one of the best ways to ensure marriage was to be beautiful and pure of heart.
It is right that Cinderella have her wealth restored because she is good and virtuous and young and beautiful. And so we see all of those traits of positivity being tied together and even at times leading directly to an emphasis of the negativity on the other side of the spectrum.
After Cinderella gets married, the beautiful doves that accompany her on her wedding day fly over to her sisters and peck out their eyes like they are blinded and maimed by the same magical helpers that assisted Cinderella into her beautiful marriage and wedding and life as royalty.
Now.
Newer adaptations have two different shifts. One is what is considered to be a woman's success, and two is how the stepmother and stepsisters are perceived.
Cinderella gives us a way to talk about womanhood that lets us have a shared starting point to move from.
Let's circle back to the wildly popular Walt Disney film released in nineteen fifty. Disney's adaptation pulled from Perrot's story because it was more in line with America's notion that a woman's success was that she married well, could stay at home, didn't have to work, and had a well kept house. It's also pretty cut and dry about who was right and who was wrong. This still lines up
pretty strongly with the values from the earlier tales. But then you have stories like Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which is told from Iris's point of view.
She is one of the stepsisters.
In this adaptation, it's not so much Cinderella versus her stepsisters and stepmother, but outside power as the sisters are fighting against. The book is sympathetic towards a stepmother and stepsisters and shows that there could be more to the story. In twenty twelve, Marissa Meyer wrote a book titled Cinder. It was the first in the Lunar Chronicle series. The adaptation is about a cyborg who goes on this journey
to help save the population from a plague. In the end, Cinder and the crew that joins her along the way, including Prince Kai, saved the day. Although Prince Kai and Cender feel deeply about each other, they don't initially end up together. Cinda wants to help Luna, where she's from, form a democracy and gets stabilized, but she does tell the Prince she will be his empress once she's in
a place to step down. In the twenty twenty one Amazon primary make, Cinderella has big dreams of designing dresses to sell at her own dress shop. Yes, she does meet the Prince and they fall for each other, but Cinderella is offered a job as a personal seamstress and tells the prince he can come with her, but she's taking the job. The prince agrees, gives up his right to rule the kingdom, and both he and Cinderella sail
off so she can follow her dreams. It's a large jump from the nineteen fifties notion of what it means to be a successful woman. Also in this movie, Cinderella forgets the stepsisters and stepmother. She understands and isn't mad at them. The examples go on, but what we can see is that what it is to be a woman and how women relate to each other is reflected and how the Cinderella story has been told.
And one interesting thing that folklorists are doing increasingly is looking at how children actually perceive and talk about these characters that they encounter through fairy tales through popular media. And it's not always in the baseline way that we expect. Young girls don't just see Cinderella and say I want to be a princess who marries a prince I barely
know who's rich. Young girls will see Cinderella and want to play as Cinderella and have adventures and want to do different things or overcome the stepsisters in different ways.
As doctor McNeil also points out, there's a reason Cinderella continues and will continue to change with time.
I mean, princesses as a model from fairy tales are likely going nowhere right pop Culturally. It's an idea that we love, whether it's on a historic front or a fantasy front.
And by retelling Cinderella, we recast who we are today and understand who.
We used to be.
And so when we manifest these stories in ways that are relevant to us today, we are intrinsically commenting on all the different ways they were relative in the past. And that's really powerful, because that's not something we can do with that same sense of intent or purpose. When we tell a holy new story.
Cinderella, a tale of class, pain, hope, and sometimes magic. Every iteration has something to add, a kernel of its own truth to share. And there is one simple fact to this story that has survived centuries. Almost everyone can find something relatable to the persecuted heroine. There are more brothers grim tales waiting to be explored. Take my hand and let me lead you through.
The deep dark woods.
Next time we follow the breadcrumbs to a witch's House the Deep Dark Woods is a production of School Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It was created, written, and hosted by me Miranda Hawkins. This episode was produced by Mike hal June with senior producer Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Maya Howard.
Stories are voiced by Julia Christgau.
Theme song was composed by Jesse Niswang, who also sound designed and mixed this episode. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and you can follow along with the show on Instagram at School of Humans.