A mother sick and knowing she would soon die, so she called to her
daughter and told her that she would watch over her from heaven.
The mother died and the father remarried. He married a woman with
two beautiful daughters but their hearts were black.
They took all of the girl’s pretty things away and made her into
a kitchen-wench. She had to work all day and she had to sleep in
the cinders. This made her dirty and that is how she got her name,
Cinderella.
Her father one day went to the fair and asked his two stepdaughters
what they wanted from the fair. They wanted dresses and jewels.
All Cinderella wanted was the first branch that knocked off his hat on
his way home. He gave the hazel twig that knoced off his to Cinderella.
She planted the branch on her mother’s grave. Her tears watered the
branch and it grew into a tree. Every day Cinderella sat at the tree
crying and whatever she wished for, a bird would give to her.
The King gave orders for a festival that lasted three days, so
his son would find a wife. When the two sisters found out about the
festival they called to Cinderella to help them get ready. Cinderella
wanting to go asked her stepmother if she could. Her stepmother twice
poured dishes of lentils into the ashes and told her, “If you can pick
them all out in one hour you can go.” Cinderella called upon the
birds two times to help her and they did. They picked out all the
lentils in time. Delighted, Cinderella showed this to her stepmother
and asked if she could go to the festival. She asked again if she
could go but her stepmother said no, because she had no clothes.
Cinderella went to the tree and asked for a dress for the festival.
The bird threw down the dress and silver slippers. She went to the
festival and the prince fell for her. They danced the night away
and when it was time for Cinderella to go she had to escape the prince.
Cinderella did this for two more days and each day brought a more beautiful
dress and golden slippers. On the last day when it was time for Cinderella
to leave her golden slipper got stuck on the stairs because the prince
had smeared them with pitch.
Grimm's
Cinderella leaving her slipper behaind.
Found on National geographic web page.
The prince would only marry the girl who fit the slipper. The
first sisters tried it on but she had to cut off her big toe. The
second sister had to cut her heal off to get the shoe on. Both times
the prince rode off to the palace and both times a bird cried out look
at the blood in her shoe. Each time the prince took the sister back.
The prince asked the father if there was anyone else. He said, “only
the kitchen wench my first wife left behind.”
Cinderella came out to try on the slipper and it fit. They
rode off and one more time the bird cried out but this time the bird told
the prince that he had the right girl. The two married and when they
did, Cinderella’s two stepsisters came to share in her good fortune.
However two pigeons pecked out their eyes as punishment for their wickedness
and falsehood.
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