Cinderella is a well known fariytale with many adaptations including Andy Tennant's Ever After (1998) and Disney's Cinderella but Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm's original telling of this tale isn't how I recall... Blood and gruesome scenes overlayed my mind as the tale concluded.
"The maiden cut the toe off, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the King's son...."

"The maiden cut a bit off her heel, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the King's son..."
The Grimm brothers have a reputation which I hadn't remembered upon reading their version of Cinderella. I was slightly shocked at how the representation was so different from that of fairy godmothers and magical pumpkin carriages which I had grown up with. Although many aspects of Cinderella are common, some are vastly different.

Once I read the Grimm's Cinderella, I went on to research about the Grimm brothers themselves. They were born into a large German family and throughout their lives collected folk law for the people of Hesse which was where they lived for a time. Their collecting was influenced by close friends who were romantics and by the importance and value to preserve German culture as France was very influential during this period of history.

I discovered that Aschenputtel is the German translation of Cinderella. Both mean; 'One that unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect' which is a summary of the plot itself. What I also found interesting was that the 'glass' slipper was not in fact glass in the Grimm's tale but simply a beautiful golden shoe. Throughout my continued research this week variations of the shoes' material reappeared in different versions of the fairytale. Some said that the slipper was made out of squirrel fur. One solution to the confusion was in translation. Vair, from Charles Perrault's version where the shoes were 'pantoufles en vair' meaning 'slippers of white squirrel fur', was lost from the French language so it was changed to verre which means glass.

For next week I plan to continue my research into the authors of each appropriation, begin to analyse both Ever After and the Grimm's Cinderella as well as continuing to add to the content of my website.






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    Kirsty Maye

    Who doesn't love a good old fairy tale romance? I know I absolutely adore them! So when thinking of texts for my English task only one thing came to mind...Grimm Fairytales! This blog is to highlight the development of my website and to reflect my ideas and thoughts.