Hello, friends, and welcome back to Scholar Minor.
I hope that you are all staying safe and healthy, and I’m so glad that you’re joining me once again.
Popular culture is incredibly dynamic - yet even as trends in art and entertainment come and go, there are still stories and archetypes that have maintained for a surprisingly long time. It is not uncommon in this era of remakes and sequels to find classic fairy tales being retold and reimagined in countless and sometimes baffling ways.
Stories like Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs have been popularized over the years by children’s entertainment, with Disney’s Snow White making waves after its release in 1937.
So thanks for joining for a bite-sized adventure into the weird world of early fairy tales. There is a ridiculous amount to unpack in the volumes compiled by the Brothers Grimm, so I anticipate visiting them again down the road. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy.
Jacob and Wilhem Grimm were German folklorists and linguists, born in the late 18th century and completed much of their work in the early 19th century. Together they collected, organized, and recorded folktales and songs - with additional scholarship devoted to philology - the study of historical language.
While the Grimm brothers, or Bruder Grimm, were German - and much of their content was German in origin - they included the folklore of many other European regions in their efforts, preserving tales from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and even Spain.
While the brothers initially sought out to practice law following the completion of their schooling, they eventually abandoned legal life in favor of folklore studies and preservation. Passionate about preserving the folk traditions from generations past, the brothers released their first collection of stories - Kinder- und Hausmarchen, or "Children's and Household Tales", in 1812.
Together, the brothers would interview friends, acquaintances, and the local peasantry for stories that had been passed down orally. Some of these were very old tales which had originated in pre-Christian tradition, acquiring and combining with Christian symbolism over the centuries. Others were likely more recent - moralistic stories likely written in the medieval period with heavy Christian themes.
While Jacob and Wilhelm compiled the volumes together, Wilhelm was responsible for the majority of the actual editing and writing. In order to make the stories more palatable to his contemporary audience, he would sometimes edit out sexual content or other questionable elements of the original folktales. Though the Brothers’ original goal had been to preserve and compile these stories for a scholarly audience, over time it became clear that children would become an important audience for the tales - and their content was adjusted accordingly.
They would add to their published collections and revise them many times in the following decades. In the 1820s, Kinder- und Hausmarchen was translated into English and released as "German Popular Tales." For this episode, I'll be using one of these English translated versions - as you might expect - published by Crosby and Nichols in 1862. This edition - which contains 2 volumes - is available in full via Google Books.
The folktales recorded by the Brothers Grimm, while familiar in some respects, are tonally miles away from what we are exposed to in popular culture. Many of the stories recorded by the Grimms have thoroughly engrained themselves into childrens’ entertainment - including Snow White, the Frog Prince, Rumpelstiltskin, and the Pied Piper. And one of the most well-known stories recorded by the Grimm brothers was Cinderella. Let’s take a look at this bizarre folktale in its original form.
Cinderella is probably one of the most ubiquitous fairy tales in Western culture. Even though I watched significantly fewer Disney films than my peers did growing up, I do remember making my parents, grandparents, and uncles watch our Cinderella VHS about one hundred times in a row.
The Grimm brothers’ version of Cinderella is absolutely darker and weirder than Disney’s, but in the context of cautionary folktales, it adds up. As we shall see, the original tale is less about Cinderella riding off into the sunset with her prince, and more about its two central messages:
The first is reflected through Cinderella’s behavior directly: be pious and well-behaved, and you will be rewarded. The second, as demonstrated by her step-sisters, is essentially: don’t be greedy and wicked, or terrible gruesome retribution will befall you.
The original story starts in a familiar fashion - Cinderella’s mother dies, advising the young Cinderella: "My dear child, be pious and good, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down upon you from heaven and think of you." Cinderella’s father remarries, and Cinderella’s new wicked stepmother moves in with her own wicked daughters in tow.
Cinderella is stripped of her clothing and status, and forced to wear an old gray cloak and wooden shoes. Her sisters ridicule her mercilessly, and her stepmother forces her to complete impossible tasks - her favorite is scattering dried beans into the ashes from the hearth and making Cinderella fish them all out again. This very odd and creative punishment is mentioned at least three times in the original story.
When she isn’t being forced to huddle in the ashes from the hearth, Cinderella spends her time at her mother’s grave, eventually planting a tree there. She befriends the doves and other birds that call the tree home, and despite her miserable situation, heeds her mother’s instruction: she prays, and prays, and prays.
The birds in the magical tree above her mother’s grave then gain the magical ability to give Cinderella whatever she asks for - perhaps because of her piety, or the influence of her mother’s spirit - it’s a little hard to tell.
The prince’s visit approaches, and the wicked stepmother assigns poor Cinderella, once again, to bean duty. Hopeful that completing the task will allow her to attend the prince’s dance, Cinderella’s bird friends assist her in completing her tasks - but she is still not allowed to attend. In a pretty big change from the modern versions of Cinderella, a fairy godmother never appears to give her a makeover and whisk her off to the ball in a magical chariot.
Instead, Cinderella returns to her mother’s grave, asking the magical birds there for a beautiful dress and shoes to wear to the dance.They oblige, and provide her with three outfits for the three nights of festivities at the castle. The prince falls in love with her, but she runs away each time. In a very strange turn of events, the prince in the original fairytale covers the road to her home in pitch so that one of her shoes gets stuck while she makes her escape.
The prince narrows down Cinderella’s location and the shoe-trying on scene is one that will definitely stick with you. Her stepmother has one of her daughters cut off her toes in order to fit into the shoe, and the other cuts off part of her heel. Both times the prince doesn’t notice this somehow until Cinderella’s birds sing to him, "Backwards peep, backwards peep, there's blood upon the shoe; The shoe's too small, and she behind is not the bride for you."
Cinderella’s foot, obviously, fits into the now bloodied magical slipper and is taken away to become the prince’s bride. We are told that "the wedding was celebrated with great festivities, and the two sisters were smitten with blindness as a punishment for their wickedness."
If you are a fairytale fan, I highly recommend checking out some of the lesser-known tales that the brothers recorded. One of my favorites is called either “The Evil Spirit and His Grandmother” or “The Devil and His Grandmother”. It is truly, truly bonkers and well worth a read.
I highly recommend that you all check it out, so I don’t want to give away the ending. In the tale, three soldiers desert from their army and are offered an escape by the Devil or Evil Spirit - though in exchange, they must turn over their souls to him in seven years time, unless they can solve his riddle.
Strangely, the soldiers enlist the help of the Devil’s grandmother, who lives in a cave, to trick the Devil and win back their souls. This story would be well in keeping with our previous discussions of mischievous Devils - if you're interested, I recommend checking out Episode 24 of Scholar Minor "The Irish Devil."
In several of our prior Scholar Minor episodes, we discussed aetiological myths - or, mythological stories created to explain natural phenomena and behavior. Humans used mythology to find reason behind occurrences they could not otherwise understand in an effort to feel more in-control of the world around them.
Anthropology suggests that folktales, while obviously related to mythology, have somewhat different motivations - and the stories preserved by the Brothers Grimm provide an excellent example for us. Turn-of-the-century German-American anthropologist Franz Uri Boas, one of the fathers of the discipline, pioneered what is referred to as the "mirror" concept.
As described by Simon J. Bronner in The Meaning of Folklore, the mirror concept suggests that "folklore is invaluable as a reflection of a particular culture's condition and values." While aetiological myths were intended to help find explanation and meaning, folktales are in many ways representative of a culture's priorities and insecurities.
If we use the Brothers' version of Cinderella as an example, there are several elements of the story that allow us to draw conclusions about the society in which the folktale was born - and if we include Wilhelm's Christianized additions - about the society in which the folktale was edited and rewritten.
Cinderella is rewarded for her modesty and piety. The supernatural force in the story - whether it be God or the spirit of her deceased mother - literally showers Cinderella with expensive material goods and gifts her magical bird attendants in approval of her meek demeanor. From this, we can conclude that submission - not just as a female, but as a Christian - was incredibly important in the society from whence this folktale emerged.
Cinderella's cruel stepmother and stepsisters, even before the prince's arrival, are depicted as obsessed with the acquisition of wealth and popularity. Of course, the introduction of the prince into the story makes their greed even more evident as they are willing to permanently disfigure their bodies in the hopes of marriage to a wealthy man. As Cinderella's stepmother observes before encouraging her daughters to cut off parts of their own feet for the opportunity, "if you are queen you need not go any longer on foot."
It seems extremely likely that the stepmother and stepsisters are reflective of Christian ideology, particularly post-Martin Luther Christianity, in that their preoccupation with wealth distracts them from piety and prayer - which Cinderella is rewarded for.
Whether this Christian imagery was present for a long time in the Cinderella folktale, or was included closer to the era of the Brothers Grimm, will remain a bit of a mystery. But it is nonetheless a great example of folktales reflecting the morals and values of a society: a historical mindset, frozen in time.
It’s just too bad that most modern Cinderella stories still find her awfully reliant upon the prince to save her from her woes. I wonder what the popularity of Disney’s Cinderella says about us?
Thanks for joining me for this quick introductory adventure into the weird world of fairytales. There are many, many more stories collected by the Brothers Grimm that would be interesting to learn about and pick apart - so don’t worry, we’ll be returning to them again soon.
I hope that you enjoyed listening, and as always I am incredibly grateful for all of you. After falling a couple episodes behind, the Scholar Minor channel on YouTube has been updated for your listening and sharing convenience. If you haven’t already subscribed to Scholar Minor, please consider doing so - it’s available wherever you find your podcasts.
You can also find them on my website, www.ursaminorcreations.com, with some additional content. The site will be updated soon with some new blog articles - but balancing my personal life has been taking a little bit more plate spinning than usual, so thank you in advance for all your patience.
Stay safe, take care, and I’ll talk to you all again very soon.