The Real Cinderella: How Grimm's Tale Differs from Disney's

You already know Cinderella: the girl with the glass slipper, the fairy godmother, and the pumpkin that turns into a carriage. But that version was written down by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault in 1697 — and it isn't the oldest one. Nearly two hundred years later, in Germany, two brothers named Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected a very different telling of the same story from local storytellers. In their version, there is no fairy godmother at all.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to: - Name three ways the Grimm version of Cinderella differs from the Disney movie - Explain what a "folk tale" is and why the same story can have many different versions - Identify the countries and approximate dates connected to two different Cinderella tellings - Describe how a magic hazel tree, not a fairy godmother, helps Cinderella in the Grimm version

A story that gets passed down by word of mouth, changing a little each time it's retold, is called a folk tale. Cinderella-type stories exist all over the world. A Chinese version called "Yeh-Shen" was written down around 850 CE — over 800 years before Perrault's French version. An even older Greek story about a girl named Rhodopis was recorded by the geographer Strabo around 2,000 years ago. Folklorists (people who study folk tales) have found more than 500 different Cinderella-type stories from cultures around the globe. That's what makes Cinderella one of the most retold stories in human history.

In the Grimm brothers' telling, Cinderella plants a small hazel twig on her mother's grave and waters it with her tears until it grows into a tree. A white bird comes to live in the branches, and whenever Cinderella wishes for something, the bird drops it down to her — including the beautiful dresses and shoes she wears to the festival. There's no fairy godmother, no pumpkin carriage, and no glass slipper turning to normal at midnight. Instead, birds help Cinderella sort good lentils from bad ones when her stepmother gives her an impossible chore.

In both versions, the prince searches the kingdom for the girl whose foot fits the shoe. But the Grimm version doesn't end sweetly for everyone. When the stepsisters try on the shoe, it doesn't fit — and as they ride off with the prince, birds sing out to warn him that something is wrong, so he looks more closely and realizes a mistake has been made. Only when Cinderella tries the shoe does it fit perfectly. The Grimm brothers were collecting stories that grown-ups in German villages told each other, and those stories often included consequences for unkind behavior — a detail Disney's 1950 film softened for its young audience.