Last week ABC National Radio ran an interview I did a few years ago with the wonderful Richard Fidler. I always get masses of messages and emails afterwards, many querying me about some aspect of the fascinating history of fairy tales.
This was one of them:
Hello Kate,
I am listening to you right now on ABC's Conversation with Richard Fidler. Could you please clarify why you, and many, think that Cinderella's slipper is made of glass. My understanding is that it was a mistake in translation.
I
thought that Perrault made this slipper out of "vair" [vɛʀ] which is the squirrel fur and not out of "verre" [vɛʀ] (glass)
Any thoughts?
Kindest regards,
Tristan
This was my reply to him:
In answer to your question regarding whether or not Perrault’s slippers were made of glass or fur, I can reassure you that they were definitely and unequivocally glass.
Let me explain to you how the misconception arose.
Charles Perrault published the story of "Cendrillon: ou la Petite Pantoufle de verre" (Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper) in 1697.
It was not the first Cinderella story, by any means. The earliest clearly recognisable Cinderella motifeme (which means an interconnected chain of tale motifs that make up a recognisable fairy tale) was ‘Ye Xian’ which was first published about 850 AD – so almost 850 years before Perrault. Ye Xian’s slippers were golden – and most Cinderella variants repeat this motif, all the way down to the Grimm brothers’ version ‘Aschenputtel’ in 1812.
However, Perrault’s retelling of the tale is the best known and most influential, partly because of the sheer magical impossibility of the glass slipper. There is no mistake, no mistranslation. He wrote "pantoufles de verre," i.e. glass slippers many times throughout the story.
However, there is a persistent myth that Cendrillon’s slippers were actually made of fur - it’s a myth I regularly and patiently have to debunk.
Honore de Balzac was the one who began it all. In La Comédie humaine: Sur Catherine de Médicis, published between 1830 and 1846, he noted that the word for glass "verre" is a homonym for "vair" which means squirrel fur, for many years a luxury item that only the aristocracy were permitted to wear, according to French sumputuary laws. Balzac wondered if Perrault had misheard the word, while transcribing the story from some anonymous oral storyteller, and that the slipper was meant to be made of fur.
This theory of Balzac’s was later seized upon by Freudian psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettleheim, author of ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ in 1975, who liked to think it indicated an Oedipal conflict at the heart of the tale – the fur slipper standing in for a vagina and the foot, not to put too fine a point upon it, as a penis.
However, there is absolutely no evidence of a fur slipper in any Cinderella variant – and there are hundreds of Cinderella Tale Types all around the world.
Marian Roalfe Cox – who did the first major academic work on the Cinderella tale type - found only six versions with glass shoes. Many had shoes that were not described, most had shoes that were small or dainty, and quite a few had golden, silver, or jewelled shoes.
Cox believed that other versions with glass slippers were inspired by Perrault’s ‘Cendrillon’, but other academics have wondered if there was an older oral version that featured glass slippers which Perrault drew upon. There is no written record of any glass slipper before Perrault, however, which means most fairy tale scholars believe he invented it. Glass was at the time rare and precious, which was why Louis XIV had the Hall of Mirrors installed at the Palace of Versailles.
Folklorists Iona Opie and Peter Opie disagree, saying: ‘It was (Perrault’s) genius … to see how much more effective in the story would be a shoe of glass, a shoe which could not be stretched, and a shoe in which the foot could be seen to fit. There is no doubt he himself intended the shoe should be of glass.’
Alan Dundes says: ‘One could add only that from a symbolic as opposed to a literal perspective, glass is perfectly appropriate. Glass is a standard symbol of virginity. It is fragile and can be broken only once. In Jewish wedding ritual, the groom crushes a glass under his foot for good luck.’
And as Rebecca-Anne do Rozario points out, squirrel fur was only fashionable in medieval France. No-one at the court of the Sun King would be seen dead wearing fur slippers, let along at a royal court!
If you’d like to study further, try these wonderful books:
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 1975.
Marian Rolfe Cox, Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap O'Rushes, 1893.
Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario, Fashion in the Fairy Tale Tradition: What Cinderella Wore, 2018.
Alan Dundes, ed. Cinderella: a Casebook.
Heidi Anne Heiner, Cinderella Tales Around the World, 2012
The Blurb (from Goodreads): Marry In Haste
Major Calbourne Rutherford returns to England on the trail of an assassin, only to find he’s become Lord Ashendon, with the responsibility for vast estates and dependent relatives. Cal can command the toughest of men, but his wild half-sisters are quite another matter. They might just be his undoing.
When he discovers that Miss Emmaline Westwood, the girls’ former teacher, guides them with ease, Cal offers her a marriage of convenience. But strong-minded and independent Emm is neither as compliant nor as proper as he expected, and Cal finds himself most inconveniently seduced by his convenient wife.
Emm knows they didn’t marry for love, yet beneath her husband’s austere facade, she catches glimpses of a man who takes her breath away. As pride, duty and passion clash, will these two stubborn hearts find more than they ever dreamed of?
My Thoughts:
Anne Gracie writes charming, warm-hearted Regency romances which never fail to make me laugh. They are the perfect reading for a cold, wet weekend when I was feeling worn-out and tired, overwhelmed by work and all that is going on in the world and in my life. I had read the first two books before, but had been waiting for the final book in the series to be released. I read them over the course of a long weekend – they are like chicken soup for the soul.
Marry In Haste is the first book in the series and tells the story of a British soldier-turned-spy who unexpectedly finds himself hampered with a title, a vast estate, numerous aged retainers and a handful of wilful half-sisters and a niece who never do what they are told. Floundering helplessly, he turns to their former school teacher for help. But Miss Emmaline Westwood has her own dreams, and turning governess is not one of them. Life has other plans for her, however, and soon the mismatched couple are marrying for convenience’s sake, much to the disapproval of his irascible Aunt Agatha, who must always have the last word.
Marry in Scandal is the story of one of his sisters, Lily, who struggles with dyslexia (though that word had not yet been invented). Her inability to read lands her in deep trouble; she is kidnapped by a cad who intends to force her into marriage. Lily manages to escape, and is helped to get home by one of her brother’s best friends, but the ensuing scandal means they must marry. Lily is in love with her new husband, but is afraid he resents her and does not care for her. She must find some way to understand him, while not letting him know that she cannot read, a handicap of which she is deeply ashamed.
Marry in Secret is centred on the older sister Rose, who married her childhood sweetheart in secret just before he was sent away to fight in the Napoleonic wars, only for him to be killed soon after. She has nursed her grief silently for all these years, and is about to marry a cold remote duke for the sake of practicality when her first husband turns up alive.
Marry in Scarlet, the last in the series, has their strong-willed unconventional niece George – who is the same age as her aunts – falling in love with the duke despite all her best intentions.
The four books are all very readable, with lots of humour and pathos, and the added delight of featuring cameo appearances from well-beloved characters from another of Anne Gracie’s Regency romance series, The Chance Sisters. I particularly love Anne Gracie’s sparkling dialogue – just delightful!
You might also like to read my review of The Passion of the Purple Plumeria by Lauren Willig:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/vintage-book-review-the-passion-of-the-purple-plumeria-by-lauren-willig
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
I wish I was away in Ingo, Far across the sea, Sailing over the deepest waters, Where love nor care can trouble me...
Sapphire's father mysteriously vanishes into the waves off the Cornwall coast where her family has always lived. She misses him terribly, and she longs to hear his spellbinding tales about the Mer, who live in the underwater kingdom of Ingo. Perhaps that is why she imagines herself being pulled like a magnet toward the sea. But when her brother, Conor, starts disappearing for hours on end, Sapphy starts to believe she might not be the only one who hears the call of the ocean.
My Thoughts:
I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long, but only picked it up this month because I was doing a talk on retellings of mermaid tales, and thought I should catch up on recent additions to the genre. I am so glad I did – I loved this book! It’s a very simple story – after a girl’s father disappears and is believed drowned, she finds her brother beginning to be drawn irresistibly to the sea as well. In time, the girl (whose name is Sapphire) learns of the mysterious realm of Ingo, the world of the mermaids that lies in the depths of the ocean. Its enchanting siren song is dangerous, however, and Sapphire will find it hard to escape its spell. What lifts this novel out of the ordinary, however, is the beauty of the writing. Helen Dunmore is a poet as well as an Orange Prize-winning novelist for adults. Her writing is both lyrical and deft, and I’m looking forward to the rest in the series.
You might also like to read my review of Uprooted by Naomi Novik:
BOOK REVIEW: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
In a small Western Queensland town, a reserved young woman receives a note from one of her vanished brothers—a note that makes question her memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure.
A beguiling story that proves that gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun, Flyaway introduces readers to Bettina Scott, whose search for the truth throws her into tales of eerie dogs, vanished schools, cursed monsters, and enchanted bottles.
In these pages Jennings assures you that gothic delights, uncanny family horror, and strange, unsettling prose can live—and even thrive—under a burning sun.
Holly Black describes as “half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth.” Flyaway enchants you with the sly, beautiful darkness of Karen Russell and a world utterly its own.
My Thoughts;
Kathleen Jennings is an Australian writer and illustrator, best known for her beautiful fairy-tale inspired art. She actually created the exquisite cover of The Silver Well, the collection of historical fantasy stories that I co-wrote with Kim Wilkins a few years ago. I have the original of one of her illustrations for that book hanging on the wall in my study. Having known her for years, I was keen to read her first novel, Flyaway, which is being released later this year.
It’s the story of a young woman named Bettina who lives with her mother in a small country town in the north of Australia. Her father and two brothers disappeared some time ago, and Tina is haunted by their absence. Her mother exerts a subtle but unbreakable control over her; their lives seem highly ordered and perfect on the surface but dark currents lurk below. The town seems to exist on the edge of something strange and terrifying and supernatural – there are stories of schools swallowed by invasive plants, powerful shape-shifting monsters that roam in the bush, and people mysteriously vanishing. Tina sets out on a road trip with her two former best friends to try and solve the mystery of her missing brothers, but her own lost memories and the eeriness of the setting create an atmosphere of ambiguity and mistrust, so that the reader is never quite sure who to trust.
The result is a dark & delicate fairy-tale-infused mystery set in a hot, dry, dingo-howl haunted Australian landscape - such a fresh voice & intriguing tale!
Get Your Copy of Flyaway HereYou might also like to read my review of The River Wife by Heather Rose;
BOOK REVIEW: The River Wife by Heather Rose
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
When Madge Bettany decides to start a school in the Austrian Alps, little does she realize how such a small idea will so completely change her life.
Now, in this classic series of books, first published in the 1920s, join the Chalet School's first pupil, Joey Bettany, as she forges strong bonds of friendship with girls from Europe and America. Independent, intelligent, resourceful, and bold--the girls of Chalet School make each new term and adventure.
My Thoughts:
Elinor Brent-Dyer was an extraordinarily prolific author who wrote more than 100 books in total, many of them in the famous Chalet School series about a 1930s girls’ school set in the Austrian Tyrol. I’ve been collecting them for years and had been searching for this one in particular – the rare The Chalet School in Exile, set during the Nazis’ Anschluss of Austria. The girls of the school fall foul of the Gestapo after trying to save an old Jewish man from being beaten to death, and have to escape Austria on foot through the Alps. It’s an extraordinarily vivid snapshot of a time and a place, and one of the few children’s books of the era to deal directly with the terror of the Nazis. I read it when I was about 10, and it made a deep impression on me at the time. An original first edition hardback with the original dust-jacket showing a SS officer confronting the girls is worth over $1,000 (though this is cheap compared to the almost $4,000 you need to fork out for a first edition copy of the first book in the series, The School at the Chalet). I however bought my copy from Girls Gone By publishers which re-issue the rarer editions at a much more affordable price (and feature the famous dustjacket as well).
You might also like to read my review of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-the-secret-garden-by-frances-hodgson-burnett
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
The plot centers round Mary Lennox, a young English girl who returns to England from India, having suffered the immense trauma by losing both her parents in a cholera epidemic. However, her memories of her parents are not pleasant, as they were a selfish, neglectful and pleasure-seeking couple. Mary is given to the care of her uncle Archibald Craven, whom she has never met. She travels to his home, Misselthwaite Manor located in the gloomy Yorkshire, a vast change from the sunny and warm climate she was used to. When she arrives, she is a rude, stubborn and given to stormy temper tantrums. However, her nature undergoes a gradual transformation when she learns of the tragedies that have befallen her strict and disciplinarian uncle whom she earlier feared and despised. Once when he's away from home, Mary discovers a charming walled garden which is always kept locked. The mystery deepens when she hears sounds of sobbing from somewhere within her uncle's vast mansion. The kindly servants ignore her queries or pretend they haven't heard, spiking Mary's curiosity.
The Secret Garden appeals to both young and old alike. It has wonderful elements of mystery, spirituality, charming characters and an authentic rendering of childhood emotions and experiences. Commonsense, truth and kindness, compassion and a belief in the essential goodness of human beings lie at the heart of this unforgettable story. It is the best known of Frances Hodgson Burnett's works, though most of us have definitely heard of, if not read, her other novel Little Lord Fauntleroy.
The book has been adapted extensively on stage, film and television and translated into all the world's major languages. In 1991, a Japanese anime version was launched for television in Japan. It remains a popular and beloved story of a child's journey into maturity, and a must-read for every child, parent, teacher and anyone who would enjoy this fascinating glimpse of childhood. One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911."
My Thoughts:
Every year on my birthday I re-read a beloved old children’s book, one I haven’t read for a while. I take a while choosing it, gazing at the antique dresser in my front hall where they take pride of place, pulling down one or another, turning over the pages, re-discovering and remembering. Then I choose one, find somewhere warm and comfy, and settle down to read. It’s my favourite birthday ritual.
This year I chose The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published in 1910. I have a few different editions of it, but my favourite is a gorgeous big hardback illustrated by Inga Moore. Her art is so beautiful and so perfect for the story.
The Secret Garden has one of the most intriguing and unusual first lines ever:
“When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.”
Mary is not a sympathetic character – she is thin, sour-faced, and selfish. Born and raised in India, she has lost both her parents in a cholera epidemic. She does not grieve very hard, though, for they were both distant and unloving. She is sent to live at her uncle’s house, Misselthwaite Manor, which is located in the wilds of Yorkshire. It is cold and damp and misty, and she is all alone. She wanders about the huge house and garden, talks to a few of the servants, and one night hears a child sobbing somewhere in the house.
A gardener tells her about a secret garden, hidden away somewhere in the grounds. It belonged to her uncle’s wife, and she loved and nurtured it so that it was always full of flowers. But one day she dies there, and Mary’s uncle locked the garden up and hid the key. No-one has seen it since.
The idea of a secret garden fascinates Mary, and she longs to find it. One day a robin shows her the way. As the garden begins to wake and come back to life, so does Mary. She discovers she has a cousin hidden away in the house, and shares the secret with him. Along with the delightful Yorkshire boy, Dickon, they work together in the garden and both are transformed and healed by the magical workings of nature. I love this book so much – I think it’s one of the things that gave me such a deep love of gardens which has been a source-well of joy all my life.
You might also like to read my writing blog journal on F.H. Burnett:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/writing-journal/spotlight-on-author-frances-hodgson-burnett
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
For Britain's counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable-a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor.
The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent: Catherine Blake, a beautiful widow of a war hero, a hospital volunteer - and a Nazi spy under direct orders from Hitler to uncover the Allied plans for D-Day...
My Thoughts:
I love a good spy thriller, particularly when its set during World War II, and Daniel Silva did not disappoint. The unlikely spy of the title is an amiable history professor and he is on the track of a ruthless Nazi spy working undercover in Great Britain in the lead-up to D-Day. This is more a novel of psychological suspense than an action-packed page-turner, but I enjoyed seeing the action from all sides, and found the historical details fascinating.
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
In 2005, Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was more intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. "I knew there was nothing to be gained from arguing over the past," Iger writes. "The only thing that mattered was the future, and I believed I had a clear idea of the direction Disney needed to go." It came down to three clear ideas: 1) Create the highest quality content Disney could produce. 2) Embrace and adopt technology instead of fighting it. And 3) Think bigger--think global--and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.
Twelve years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and Iger is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our time.
Now, he's sharing the lessons he's learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees--taking big risks in the face of historic disruption; learning to inspire the people who work for you; leading with fairness and communicating principles clearly. This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as a studio supervisor at ABC. It's also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the evolving Star Wars myth.
My Thoughts:
I don’t read many business books, but a friend of mine recommended this to me and I was interested in the story of how Bob Iger was able to reinvent the Disney brand so dramatically. This book is part-memoir and part-entrepreneurial guidebook – both were interesting though I would have liked a little more of the former and less of the latter.
Bob Iger became the CEO of the Walt Disney Company at a very challenging time. The nephew of Walt Disney had made a vote of no confidence in the existing CEO, there’d been a major board reshuffle, profits were down and many thought Disney’s movies was old-fashioned, cloyingly sweet, and conservative in their values.
Twelve years later, Disney had somehow managed to re-position itself as the largest media company in the world, having joined forces with many of its most feared competitors including Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. The story of how Bob Iger affected this transformation is truly inspirational – basically he believes in innovating and taking risks, inspiring through strong leadership, ensuring a fair, just workplace, knowing your core brand but being prepared to seek new markets, and having belief in yourself (he is certainly reaping the rewards of this belief, apparently earning a staggering $65.7 million annual salary – though this is not, of course, mentioned in the book).
It gave me a lot to think about!
You might also like to read Phospheresence by Julia Baird:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-phosphorescence-by-julia-baird
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
In this inimitable, beloved classic—graceful, lucid and lyrical—Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares her meditations on youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment as she set them down during a brief vacation by the sea. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.
With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.
The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.
After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research
My Thoughts:
After reading and enjoying Melanie Benjamin’s wonderful novel about the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh in The Aviator’s Wife, I was inspired to go back and read ‘Gift from the Sea’, the most famous of Lindbergh’s numerous books. It’s a small, delicate and wise book, full of meditations on the life of women. I first read it when I was sixteen, and am now thinking I shall pass it on to my daughter at the same age.
You might also like to read my review of Philosophy In The Garden by Damon Young:
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW: Philosophy In The Garden by Damon Young
