Cinderella

The wife of a rich man fell ill, and as she felt her end approaching she called her only daughter to her bedside. “Dear child, be good and pious, and God will always help you, and I will look down on you from heaven.” Then she closed her eyes and died. Every day the girl went out to her mother’s grave and wept. When winter came, the snow laid a white cloth over the grave, and when the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man took another wife.

The new wife brought two daughters with her, beautiful and fair of face but vile and black of heart. Hard times began for the poor stepchild. They took away her pretty clothes, dressed her in an old grey smock and wooden shoes, and laughed: “Look at the proud princess, how fine she is!” She had to work from before sunrise, carrying water, lighting fires, cooking and washing, and the sisters mocked her and scattered peas and lentils into the ashes so she would have to sit and pick them out. At night she had no bed, but lay down by the hearth among the cinders. Because she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Aschenputtel, or Cinderella.

Once, when the father was going to the fair, he asked what he should bring back. The stepsisters wanted fine dresses, pearls and jewels. Cinderella said, “Father, break off the first twig that brushes your hat on the way home.” He brought her a hazel twig. She planted it on her mother’s grave and wept so much that her tears watered it, and it grew into a beautiful tree. Three times a day she sat beneath it, and each time a little white bird came and threw down whatever she wished for.

Now the king announced a festival lasting three days, to which all the beautiful young women in the land were invited so that his son could choose a bride. Cinderella begged to go. Her stepmother poured a bowl of lentils into the ashes. “If you pick them all out in two hours, you may come.” Cinderella ran to the garden and called, “You tame pigeons, you turtledoves, all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me pick: the good ones go into the pot, the bad ones go into your crop.” The birds came flocking, pick, pick, pick, and in less than an hour the work was done. The stepmother then tipped two bowls into the ashes; the birds finished in half an hour. Still she said: “It’s no use. You have no clothes and you can’t dance. We would be ashamed of you.” And off she went with her two proud daughters.

Cinderella went to the hazel tree on her mother’s grave and cried, “Shake and quiver, little tree, throw gold and silver down over me.” The bird threw down a gown of gold and silver and slippers embroidered with silk. At the festival not even her stepfamily recognised her; they took her for a foreign princess. The prince danced with no one else. When she slipped away in the evening, he followed, but she hid in a dovecote, and later in a pear tree, and each time escaped. On the third night the bird gave her a dress more splendid than any before and slippers of pure gold. This time the prince had the palace steps smeared with pitch, and as she fled, her left slipper stuck fast.

The next morning the prince declared that he would marry only the woman whose foot fit the golden slipper. The elder stepsister could not get her big toe in, so her mother handed her a knife: “Cut it off. When you are queen you won’t need to walk.” She forced her foot in, swallowed the pain and rode away with the prince. But then two doves in the hazel tree sang out, “Look back, look back, there’s blood in the shoe! The shoe’s too small; the true bride waits for you.” He saw the blood and brought her back. The second sister cut off part of her heel, and the doves gave her away too.

“Have you no other daughter?” asked the prince. “Only a little stunted kitchen maid from my late wife,” said the father. “She can’t possibly be the bride.” But the prince insisted. Cinderella washed her face and hands, bowed, and slipped her foot into the golden shoe; it fit as if made for her. When she looked up, the prince recognised the girl he had danced with. “This is the true bride!” As they rode past the hazel tree, the doves sang that there was no blood in the shoe, and flew down to settle on her shoulders.

At the wedding the false sisters came to win her favour and share in her good fortune. But as they walked beside her to the church, the doves pecked out one eye from each of them, and on the way back, the other. And so, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness for the rest of their days.