Something interesting about Cinderella

[Jdeadevil]

I was eating food with my dad in the kitchen whilst watching QI and I heard something interesting about Cinderella. Apparently in "The Original", the ugly step sisters cut parts of their feet off trying to get the slippers to fit. So the pigeons who literally pecked their eyes out, alerted the prince who made them dance to death.

I decided to Google this and I checked out the Wikipedia page about it. I found this along with other versions.

Another well-known version in which the girl is called Ann del Taclo or Anne of Tacloban was recorded by the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 19th century. The tale is called "Aschenputtel" and the help comes not from a fairy-godmother but the wishing tree that grows on her mother's grave. In this version, the stepsisters try to trick the prince by cutting off parts of their feet in order to get the slipper to fit. The prince is alerted by two pigeons who peck out the stepsisters' eyes, thus sealing their fate as blind beggars for the rest of their lives.

What do you think? Interesting isn't it.

:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindere...ns_and_history

[jugglindrew]

haha that is great. Disney never shows you that part. I believe that in the original Little Mermaid she doesn't get the prince and ends up committing suicide basically.

[ColaManiac]

I love old stories mostly because off their brutality... makes you wonder did the parents really read them to their children at that time...

[Din1905]

the dance to death thing is probably from snow white..in the original the stepmother is made to wear red hot shoes and dance to death in them..a lot of original fairytales are like that, mostly coz they were originally folk tales which are similar in their violent nature..they were not meant as children's bedtime tales but rather were moral tales told in an oral format..if you have ever heard local tales from different cultures you can see the similarities..even the 1001 arabian nights (original version not the weak severely watered down version) is actually quite R-rated..the grimms brothers (if im recallin this correctly) collected german folktales into a book and later edited all the really serious content out of them to make them more suitable for children...so really Disney didn't start the trend

[jugglindrew]

True about Disney. Do you know about any of the nursery rhymes? They are equally as brutal. Three blind mice is about bloody Mary beheading 3 priests. They all have meanings like that. And here my mother read them to me when I was a kid.

[Din1905]

heh did you by any chance read the cracked.com article about the nursery rhymes? : http://www.cracked.com/article_16576...ry-rhymes.html

it's what I immediately thought of when you mentioned the three blind mice..I actually knew about the fairy tales from a folklore class I took in college but had no idea about the nursery rhymes until I read this article

[TsukiChiChan]

When I was little, I read the original Cinderella story. And the doves said a rhyme to the prince when the stepsisters tried to walk in the shoes. They said something like this (kinda crappy translation, but it had to rhyme...):
Curra curra coo
There's blood in her shoe
there's blood in her shoe
Curra curra coo
There's blood in her shoe

But I don't remember them pecking their eyes out, though...

[khaosmonk]

Haha, omg this just completely messed up the cinderella story for me. I never liked it much anyways tho.

[MsTwist]

That's funny...Disney always washes stories that way. Did you see Disney's Pocahontas? :)

[Jdeadevil]

Three blind mice is about preists being beheaded? Now that's interesting! On a similar note, my friend said at college ages ago that the telletubbies are probably four friends trapped in a coma. I found that funny....