Cinderella

 Hello, everyone!

Thank you, Abigail, for hosting me on Story Anchor. It means so much that you are supporting me in this way!

My name is Erin Hylands, and I am a girl who seeks to write for the One who created words.

Before I get to my post (*spoilers* which is on the history of Cinderella!), I want to share my email list with you.

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What is an email list?

Great question! It’s a list of people I email weekly (though people have done monthly, daily, etc) about writing, life, discounts, and more. You are in the know about everything related to my writing journey!

Why does an email list matter?

Another great question. It matters to me because I am building my platform. My goal is to hit 100 subscribers by April 16.

Why April 16?

You’re asking a lot of great questions! On April 16, I will turn eighteen. At that point, I will begin querying in hopes of traditional publication. But if I don’t have a platform, no agent will take me seriously.

What can I do to help?

I’m glad you asked! First, sign up for my email list. Then share the link with your friends and family!

Thank you, everyone, and may God bless you!

The link: https://author-3.eo.page/f4bw9

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Now, I’m excited to share with you stuff on the history of Cinderella! I’m sure you’re thinking, Erin, the Cinderella story is so overused, let me remind you that there are so many amazing stories out there with that trope!

But Cinderella has been around longer than the Grimm brothers. Far longer, in fact.

My family has a book called Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green. It has tales of mythology and old Egyptian fairy tales. For those of you who have heard of me and my book With Eyes of Blue, you know I have a love for ancient Egyptian history. So I read this book many years ago before I even started With Eyes of Blue.

Well, in this collection is a story passed down in Egyptian history. It’s called “The Girl With the Rose-Red Slippers.” This is the oldest version of Cinderella that I know of, written in first century BC or earlier.

In this story, Rhodipus is a slave who was sold (and, of course, knew Aesop from Aesop’s fables). The man who bought her gave her all sorts of good things, including a pair of rose red slippers. Birds stole a slipper and took it to the pharaoh, who fell in love with the girl because of the slipper.

Most people associate the Grimm brothers as having the first Cinderella tale, but I believe they heard this tale (or perhaps a similar tale) and penned their own version.

In the Grimm version, there are three balls, and a tree that grows on her dead mother’s grave gives Cinderella (or Ashenputtel, in this German version) her gowns and shoes. Later, the evil stepsisters cut off their toes to shove their feet in the shoe. Very gruesome, and very, very grim (if you get the joke).

Of course, since then there have been many versions of Cinderella before and since then.

Walt Disney based his movie Cinderella on a story by Charles Perrault (The Glass Slipper), who lived almost two hundred years before the Grimm brothers. In this movie, there is a much less, shall we say, grim aspect to the story. There is a fairy godmother who gives Cinderella a curfew, a gown, and glass slippers. The stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella, are of course horrible to Cinderella, and they try to wear the shoe, but they don’t cut off their toes to do it. (However, in a sequel to that movie, Lady Tremaine steals the fairy godmother’s wand and makes the shoe fit Anastasia.)

A few years ago, Disney remade the movie into a live action. I enjoyed the movie, but that could have been because when I was nine I had a surgery, and my dad bought me three books for my recovery. One was on the live action Disney Cinderella.

Over the years, I have read a lot of retellings of Cinderella. Some of my favorite include:

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine—Ella is a girl cursed by the fairy Lucinda to be obedient. When her father remarries after her mother dies, Ella is degraded to servitude because she cannot defeat the curse. Despite the curse, she falls in love with Char, prince of the land.

Whatever After: If the Shoe Fits by Sarah Mlynowski— Abby and Jonah go through a magic mirror and meet Cinderella. But when Cinderella sprains her ankle and cannot go to the ball, they must help her make her own happily ever after.

Never After: The Stolen Slippers by Melissa De La Cruz— Filomena and Jack gang up with Hortense and Beatrice (who are the wicked stepsisters only because Cinderella said they were) to stop Cinderella from the evil she is trying to cause.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer— Cinder is a cyborg mechanic, owned by her adoptive family. When her little sister dies from the plague and her stepmother volunteers Cinder for the cyborg draft, Cinder discovers truths about who she is.

These are only a few of the many retellings out there. I myself am also imagining a future project where I retell the story of Cinderella.

That’s all for now, and have a great day!

~ Erin

When she’s not reading, Erin Hylands can be found dreaming up her next story in spite of the notebooks full of half-finished ideas. She seeks to write for the One who created words because He alone deserves the glory. If you visit her, you might have a hard time getting a word in edgewise with her nine younger siblings following you. You can connect with Erin online on her blog that she shares with young author Cari Legere, https://twofriendsonepen.wixsite.com/twofriendsonepen, or her email list, https://author-3.eo.page/f4bw9

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