Cendrillon vs. Aschenputtel: A Close Reading of Cinderella

When you imagine Cinderella, you are most likely thinking of this:

Disney Cinderella 2015

Or possibly of this:

Disney Cinderella 1950

Both delightful in their own way, to be sure, but they do leave out some...interesting...moments from the original versions. Do you remember the oranges and citrons from the prince that Cinderella passed on to her undeserving stepsisters? Or the prince's cunning plan to catch Cinderella by spreading the palace steps with pitch? Or Cinderella escaping the prince by climbing a pear tree, in full ball regalia? Then let me introduce you... 

Cendrillon with a very elegantly
attired fairy godmother

The two versions of Cinderella that are most commonly retold are Perrault's French Cendrillon (originally published in 1697) and Grimm's German Aschenputtel, my own favorite (originally published in 1812). For those unfamiliar with the original versions, here is a link to Cendrillon in English and in French, and here is Aschenputtel in English and in a bilingual version. The Disney movie versions both follow the French version more than the German, but given some of the complaints I've heard about the story, they might have done better to purloin some ideas from both. For instance...the shoes. Why would Cinderella wear glass slippers that fall off when she flees the ball but at the same time fit her feet perfectly and no one else's? Is she too nice and passive to be a good heroine, anyway? And what about that whirlwind romance with the prince - how is that convincing? 

 

Aschenputtel with her doves

Aschenputtel does not sit around crying until her fairy godmother turns up. She tries to convince her stepmother to take her to the ball, but as soon as the others leave without her she runs off to her mother's grave, where two doves throw down a magnificent dress and golden slippers for her to wear - and she is off to the party, presumably by foot since the doves don't bother supplying a coach and horses.

Very pretty, no doubt, but hardly suitable footwear for
tripping off to a ball on foot and then dancing all night
(to say nothing of jumping into dove cotes and climbing trees)

Since the ball lasts for three days - this holds for both versions - Cinderella spends three long evenings with the prince, one-upping the "new and improved" live-action movie, which has only two meetings between Cinderella and the prince before he goes off to find her with the shoe. 

A shadowy Aschenputtel watches from the pear tree
(surprisingly, this scene is hard to find illustrated)

Aschenputtel, although she evidently enjoys the ball, has no intention of being found by the prince; in fact, she eludes him three times, first by climbing into a dovecote (and then slipping back out when his back is turned), and next by climbing a pear tree "as nimbly as a squirrel" (ball gown and all? - a remarkable damsel) and escaping down the other side. 

The third night the prince is getting exasperated with this mysterious lady, and (cleverly, if rather ungallantly) spreads the castle steps with pitch. When Aschenputtel runs down them, her golden slipper gets stuck, and the prince picks it up as she disappears once again. 

"She escaped so quickly that the prince could not follow"

Then it is the prince's turn to show his mettle, announcing that he will marry the owner of the golden slipper, the girl whose foot the slipper fits perfectly (by the law of fairy tales, these two requirements are practically one and the same: the second implies the first). 

Cendrillon pulls out the matching glass slipper
(from the rhymed version illustrated by Walter Crane)

The Disney live action movie neatly splits the difference between the methods of the two versions: as in Cendrillon, a court official leads the search with the shoe, but as in Aschenputtel, the prince is the one who finally finds the slipper's true owner. However, Disney prudently if rather squeamishly leans toward the French version here, leaving out the part from Aschenputtel where each stepsister in turn cuts off part of her foot in order to force it into the slipper. The Aschenputtel prince then nearly leaves with a stepsister twice, only to be called to order by Aschenputtel's doves who point out the blood streaming from the false girl's shoe, and send him back once again to keep searching for the true bride. In Cendrillon there is no such drama: Cendrillon merely pulls out the matching slipper, her godmother reappears and transforms her again, and after a touching (and notably un-bloody) reunion with her stepsisters she rides off to meet the prince in style. 

Aschenputtel has no such transformation from her rags; the prince has only to look into her face (which she has washed clean of ashes) to recognize the lady he has danced with and exclaim "That is the true bride!" 

This German retelling of Aschenputtel does not specify the
stepsisters' fate, but the illustration hints at the merciless original

Cinderella's stepsisters also receive an extremely different ending in the French and the German versions -- both fates have such potential for controversy that it is perhaps no wonder Disney decided to ignore the stepsisters altogether after Cinderella walks out. Cendrillon charitably (if somewhat unbelievably) forgives them, embraces them, and then brings them with her to the palace and secures them marriages with "two great lords of the court." Aschenputtel's stepsisters receive the other extreme, of justice rather than mercy: as they accompany her to and from the wedding, Aschenputtel's doves peck out their eyes and they are doomed to physical blindness that mirrors their spiritual blindness to virtue. Harsh, perhaps, but that is the story. And although the Disney version ends with Cinderella and the prince in wedded bliss, both original versions end with the fate of the stepsisters -- and so shall I. 

"Turn and peep, turn and peep/no blood is in the shoe
The shoe is not too small for her/the true bride rides with you!"

Yours etc.

Liv Quicksilver

Le fils du roi la prit pour la mener danser
"The King's son led her out to dance"

Das ist meine Tänzerin
"She is my partner"

Why Tolkien Did Not Invent Elvish

When "Tolkien" and "constructed languages" are under discussion, I often hear remarks like "Tolkien invented the language Elvish that appears in The Lord of the Rings." But this is regrettably imprecise (not to say inaccurate). [NB: If tengwar and Telerin are part of your active vocabulary, you have my permission to go.] Tolkien actually conceived of an entire family of languages spoken by the Elves; two of these, Sindarin and Quenya, were well developed and are what we might think of as "Elvish". The other languages of the Elves were more conceptual than anything else - Tolkien invented a rough grammar and phonetic structure for them that showed how they were linked to one another historically (after all, his specialty was historical linguistics or 'philology'), but very little vocabulary exists for them. Tolkien also sketched in languages spoken by the other races in Middle Earth: The Lord of the Rings includes words and phrases in Khuzdul (the language of the Dwarves), Entish, and the Black Speech used by Sauron in the inscription inside the One Ring. But his two principal languages have a nearly complete grammar structure and extensive vocabulary, and are each so distinctive and beautiful that it is well worth being properly introduced to each one so that you may recognize them in the future.

Sindarin is the language Elves would use for everyday purposes and conversation. Also called "the grey-elven speech," Sindarin is inspired by Welsh, and is found throughout The Lord of the Rings, where it is used not only by Elves but also by the Dunedain (such as Aragorn), Gandalf, and a few of the hobbits.  Here is an example (The Fellowship of the Ring, Many Meetings):

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

silivren penna míriel

o menel aglar elenath!

Na-chaered palan-díriel

o galadhremmin ennorath,

Fanuilos le linnathon

nef aear, sí nef aearon!

Glorfindel's greeting to Aragorn: 

Ai na vedui, Dúnadan! Mae govannen!

Quenya is the language that Tolkien described as "Elvish Latin," and in The Lord of the Rings it is sometimes called "the high-elven speech" or "the Ancient Tongue." It would be used by the Elves for ceremonial occasions and "high matters of lore and song" rather than for everyday speech, and had a more ancient history than Sindarin. Quenya is inspired by Finnish, as well as Latin and Greek, with a heavily inflected grammar structure and vowel-heavy vocabulary. The longest example of Quenya written by Tolkien is the farewell song that Galadriel sings to the Fellowship, a lament called Namárië (The Fellowship of the Ring, Farewell to Lorien). Here is the first stanza:

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,

yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!

Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier

mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva

Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar

nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni

ómaryo airetári-lírinen.

"Now she sang in the ancient tongue of the Elves beyond
the Sea...fair was the song, but it did not comfort him."

If you compare the two texts, you can see that Sindarin words tend to end with consonants and contain very few diacritical marks, while Quenya words tend to end with vowels and contain more vowels in general. In this text sample, Sindarin contains many more consonant pairs like th, gl, lb, dhr, and ch, while Quenya rarely has two successive consonants and uses the letter y much more often; the difference in letter frequency and combinations helps the two languages look distinct from each other. To me, Sindarin looks more familiar, like a language you could pronounce even if you can't understand the words, while Quenya seems more alien, with more unusual phonetic combinations. 

Are you inspired to reread The Lord of the Rings with an eye to those odd bits of other languages Tolkien scatters so liberally? If you begin to get a feel for the sound and look of Sindarin as opposed to Quenya, you will not only be able to tell them apart yourself and impress your friends, but (I hope) will join me in raising one eyebrow at those less well informed writers who go around announcing Tolkien's invention of that non-existent language "Elvish."

Yours etc.

Liv Quicksilver