Cinderella

Cinderella's father is alive, and her stepsisters mutilate their feet to fit into the golden shoe.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
This episode discusses sensitive topics. Please listen with care. My
name is Miranda Hawkins. Welcome to the Deep Dark Woods,
a podcast about sex, violence and fairy tales. Today's story
is Cinderella.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
When evening came, Cinderella wanted to leave, and the prince
tried to escort her, but she ran away from him
so quickly that he could not follow her. The prince, however,
had set a trap. He had the entire stairway smeared
with pitch. When she ran down the stairs, her left
slipper stuck in the pitch. The prince picked it up.

(01:01):
It was small and dainty and of pure cold. The
next morning he went with it to the man and
said to him, no one shall be my wife except
for the one whose foot fits in this golden shoe.
The two sisters were happy to hear this, for they
had pretty feet. With their mother standing by, the older

(01:22):
one took the shoe into her bedroom to try it on.
She could not get her big toe into it, for
the shoe was too small for her. Then her mother
gave her a knife and said, cut off your toe.
When you are queen, we will no longer have to
go on foot. The girl cut off her toe, forced
her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pane, and went

(01:42):
out to the prince. He took her on his horse
as his bride, and rode away with her. However, they
had to ride past the grave, and there on the
hazel tree sat two pigeons crying out.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Rickity gool, rickety goo, there's blood in the shoe. The
shoe is too tight. The bride is not right.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Then he looked at her foot and saw how the
blood was running from it. He turned his horse around
and took the false bride home again, saying that she
was not the right one, and that the other sister
should try on the shoe. She went into her bedroom
and got her toes in all right, but her heel
was too large. Then her mother gave her a knife
and said, cut a piece off your heel. When you

(02:26):
are queen, we will no longer have to go on foot.
The girl cut a piece off her heel, forced her
foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out
to the prince. He took her on his horse as
his bride, and rode away with her. When they passed
the hazel tree, the two pigeons were sitting in it,
and they cried out.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Rickety goo, rickity goo. There's blood in the shoe. The
shoe is too tight.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
The bride is not right.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
He looked down at her foot and saw how the
blood was running out of her shoe, and how it
had stained her white stockings all red. Then he turned
his horse around and took the false bride home. Again.
This is not the right one one either, he said.
Don't you have another daughter? No, said the man, there's

(03:14):
only a deformed little Cinderella from my first wife. But
she cannot possibly be the bride. The prince told him
to send her to him, but the mother answered, oh no,
she is much too dirty.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
She cannot be seen.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
But the prince insisted on it, and they had to
call Cinderella.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
She first washed her.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down
before the prince, who gave her the golden shoe. She
sat down on a stool, pulled her foot out of
the heavy wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper,
and it fit her perfectly. When she stood up, the
prince looked into her face and recognized the beautiful girl

(03:57):
who had danced with him. He cried out she is
my true bride. The stepmother and the two sisters were
horrified and turned pale with anger. The prince, however, took
Cinderella to his horse and rode away with her. As
they passed the hazel tree, the two white pigeons cried out.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Rickedy goo, rickedy goo. No blood in the shoe.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
The shoe's not too tight. The bride is right.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
After they cried this out, they both flew down and
lit on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other
on the left, and they remained sitting there. When the
wedding with the prince was held. The two false sisters came,
wanting to gain favor with Cinderella and to share her
good fortune. The oldest sister walked on their right side

(04:46):
and the younger on their left side, and the pigeons
pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards, as
they came out of the church, the older one was
on the left side and the younger one on the
right side, and then the pigeons pecked out the other
eye from each of them. And thus for their wickedness
and falsehood, they were punished with blue blindness as long

(05:07):
as they lived.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Once upon a time.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's how a lot of fairy tales start. Once upon
a time, there was a prince, or once upon a
time and a land far away. You could argue it's
almost the perfect setup for a magical tale.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Before we get back to.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
The story you just heard, there's another once upon a time.
I'd like to tell you one you might not be
as familiar with. Once upon a Time. There are two
brothers who lived during the midst of revolution and wars.
Worried their Germanic culture would be lost, they begin collecting

(05:54):
and documenting the oral tales of their people. Their first
collected works were published in two parts, the first in
eighteen twelve and the second in eighteen fifteen. Their books
became wildly popular, second only to the Bible.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
The collection of.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Tales would pull the brothers and their siblings out from
the throes of poverty. Their desire to preserve their heritage
would launch them into generations of fame. This is the
legacy of the Brothers grim. My name is Miranda Hawkins.

(06:33):
I've been a journalist and producer for.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Almost a decade.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
I've worked on shows like Monster, the Zodiac, Killer, Camppell
and Awaki and American Shadows. But long before I started
writing my own stories and working on others, I read.
I read everything in. My favorite stories were fairy tales.
Like many people, the stories of Cinderella and snow White
that I grew up with were the Disney versions. They

(06:59):
had clear, definitive lines of good versus evil, and always
had a happy ending. Everything came packaged with a nice,
tidy beough. I remember the first time I ran across
an original brother's grim tale. It was Cinderella. It was

(07:19):
much darker than i'd anticipated. Instead of the wicked stepsisters
trying to shove their foot into the glass slipper and
it's simply not working, they cut off parts of their feet.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
I was instantly hooked.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
I love all things dark and twisted, and here is
a story I grew.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Up on, but so much grittier.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
These stories didn't quite have the happily ever after ending
you'd expect. Next thing I knew. I found myself falling
down the rabbit hole and reading all of the original tales,
And the more I read, the more I wanted to know.
Why were these stories told and re told? Why have
they endured for centuries? Where did they come from? And

(08:03):
how have they evolved to reflex the society's changes. I
believe that stories are the heart of life. They teach
us about ourselves in the world. So what can we
learn by taking a deeper dive into some of the
most well known tales that have lasted generations. Well, let's

(08:24):
find out. To find Cinderella stories and many folk tales,
we head to the Arn Thompson Uther Index. It's a
system folkloreists use to group and examine tales from different cultures.
Since there are so many stories with similar traits, the
system categorizes everything by plot. There are three men to

(08:47):
think for the ATU Index, Auntie Arn of Finland, Stif
Thompson of the US, and Hans Jorg Uther of Germany.
Arn began collecting and documenting all Scandinavian folklore and published
his first findings in nineteen ten. The Thompson translated the
index to English and added tales from his corner of

(09:09):
the world. Finally, Uther updated and added another two hundred
and fifty categories and subcategories. Uther also shifted titles to
make the index less sexist. For example, the tale of
a sister saving her seven brothers after they'd been transformed
into swans or another type of bird changed from the

(09:31):
brothers who returned into birds two the maiden who rescues
her brothers. Similar to the Dewey decimal system used in libraries,
the ATU index has its own system to track down stories.
Starting with ATU followed by a number and a title.
The ATU index breaks collected tales into seven main types,

(09:54):
animal tales, tales of magic, religious tales, realistic tales, anecdotes
and jokes, formula tales, and my favorite category name tales
of the stupid ogre giant devil. From those seven major
tale types, it breaks down into smaller tale types. For example,

(10:15):
today's story is found under tales of magic subtale type
the persecuted heroine. And as a quick side note, many
of the stories in the ATU index originate in Europe
and the western part of Asia. Folklorets across the world
are trying to fix us to include stories missing from Africa, Asia,

(10:36):
and South America. One article I've found says that even
the well known Arabian night stories might not be included either.
As much as these stories are categorized, studied, and told
and retold.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Let's first ask what makes a folk tale of folk tale?

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think One of my favorite aspects of making the
show was learning about folklorists, people who study fairy tales
and folklore for a living. Throughout the series will be
hearing from different people in the field. Every person will
have their own perspective, as there's no definitive takeaway on
stories themselves. Doctor Lynn McNeil is a professor of folklore

(11:25):
at Utah State University in the English Apartment. She has
also made appearances on national television to discuss folklore and
is the author of several books. And she said, what
is important to know about folklore is this fundamental truth.

Speaker 5 (11:41):
It's meant to change over time. It's meant to change
to stay relevant.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Here's how she explained folk tales to me. Folklore is
all cultural expression that is shared through word of mouth.
So folk tales are the stories that are learned and
shared and generated collectively from person to person through time
and plays. Folk tales adapt to the environment they are
being told in, so that means we can use these

(12:08):
tales as a barometer for cultural difference, cultural similarity, and cultural.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
Change, invoking a sense that we're talking back to something,
we're responding to something prior. And of course, scholars of
literature and film would say the same thing. Any new
contemporary film is responding to its predecessors, to the films
that came before it, But in fairy tales, we're doing
it in this really specific and direct way, because it's

(12:35):
a genre that by definition adapts and evolves.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
So what about Cinderella or, as she was originally called
in The Brother's grim Tail, Ashen Poodle, which roughly translates
to ashen dirty girl. What you heard at the beginning
of the episode was the second half of the original
Brother's grim Tail, and in their version, the father was
still alive and stood by while the stepmother in steps

(13:05):
sisters treated Cinderella as they did before.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
One of his.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Travels, the father asked his three daughters what gifts they
would like. The two stepsisters of Corus wanted clothes and jewelry,
but Cinderella one of the first twig that brushed her
father's hat on his way home. Cinderella then plants a
twig at her mother's grave. The twig is watered by
Cinderella's tears and ends up growing into a beautiful tree.

(13:33):
When she is not allowed to go to the ball,
Cinderella goes to the tree to ask for a gown
and shoes so she can make it to the dance.
Each time the birds granted her wish, she dashed off
to dance with the prince, and each time the prince
was smitten and dance with only Cinderella. Every night Cinderella returned,
she would give back the gown and slippers. That was

(13:56):
until the third night, when she lost one of her shoes.
It wasn't glass, though, it was gold. And now we've
come full circle to the brother's grim story of Cinderella.
As for where the story originated from, that's another question entirely.

Speaker 5 (14:14):
Did it begin in China? Did it begin in Egypt
and move as humans moved and shared their stories through
time and space all the way up until now. Or
are those story elements a persecuted young woman, a mechanism
of recognition, a deceased mother helping her child from the afterlife.

(14:35):
Are those story elements so basic to human experience that
that story, or something resembling it cropped up in multiple places,
all at once or at different times, and grew from
there And the truth is we don't know.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Initially, my research showed that the first recorded version of
Cinderella dates back more than two thousand years. It was
documented by Herodotus. He was a Greek historian and geographer
who is best known for writing histories of the Greco
Persian Wars. But like many of us, Herodotus couldn't resist

(15:11):
a good tale. He was even accused of making up
stories for entertainment. In the Herodotus version, Cinderella was named Rodopus,
which means either rosy cheeked or rosy eyed. To be clear,
rosy idrifers having sparkly eyes, not bloodshot. Rhodopus is then

(15:32):
again mentioned at a later date by the Greek geographer
Strabo of Amasia. He is the one who is credited
with first writing the tale down Rhodapus was kidnapped from
her home in Greece and sold as a slave in Egypt. There,
the other slave girls made fun of her because she
looked different.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Where the other.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Women had bronze skin and straight, dark hair, Rhodipus was
light skinned with golden curls. At night, she would go
to the banks of the river and dance for her
animal friends. On one such night, an old man spotted
her dancing and thought she deserved a beautiful pair of shoes,

(16:13):
so he had gold sandals made and delivered to Rhodopus.
Not long after, a falcon steals one of her sandals,
flies across a Mediterranean and drops it in the lap
of an Egyptian pharaoh. The pharaoh takes us as a
sign from the gods and crosses land and sea to
find the owner.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Of the shoe.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
When the pharaoh finally finds Rhodapus, they get married. There's
a theory that Rhodapus is based on a true story,
but in that story, Rhodopus became a well regarded courtesan
who tricked a man to fall in love with her
and buy her freedom.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
When he did, she left.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Him, and his sister was furious, and supposedly that man's
sister was none other than the famous Sapphos. However, when
historians sit with the timeline of the story of Rhodapus
and this courtisan, it doesn't quite add up. Another early

(17:10):
version of Cinderella is about a young Chinese girl named
Yashen that was written sometime between six hundred and nine
hundred eighty during the Tong dynasty. Yashen's father was a
cave chief who had two wives, and each wife bore
him a daughter, not long after Yashin was born, her

(17:31):
mother died, and soon after so did her father, the chief.
The stepmother was insanely jealous of her new stepdaughter's beauty
and kindness. Because of this, the stepmother would give Yashin
the most difficult chores. Yashin's only friend was a golden fish.
The stepmother ended up finding out about the fish and

(17:53):
killing it.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yashin was devastated, but an old.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Man told Yashin to keep the bones and make wishes
with them when she most needed it. When the Spring
festival came up, a time when people hoped to meet
who they were going to marry, Yashen's stepmother told her
to stay home. So Yashin used her magical fishbones to
turn her rags into a beautiful gown, a cloak with

(18:19):
kingfisher feathers, and slippers woven in golden threads that looked
like fish scales. But like most stories, there was a
warning don't lose the slippers. Unfortunately, in order to avoid
being caught by her stepmother, Yashin had to flee the
festival and lost a slipper Immediately, her gown and cloak

(18:43):
returned to rags, and when she got back to her home.
The spirit of the fishbones was gone, although the slipper remained.
Yashin had lost her only friend. Later, a villager found
the lost slipper and sold it to a merchant, who
then took it to the king. The king marveled at

(19:03):
the slipper and realized he lust meet the woman it
belonged to. He realized it would take too long to
search for her. Instead, he had the slipper put on
display at the place where it was found for maidens
to try it on.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
He waited all.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Day, but it fit no one, including yashen stepmother and stepsister. Then,
when the night was in its latest hour, the king
spotted yea Shen taking the slipper. At first, he thought
she was stealing it, until he saw how beautiful and
kind her face was. The king cracked her down and
married Yashen. As for the stepmother and stepsister, they were

(19:46):
forced to stay home in the caves, and later it
was said they were crushed to death by flying stones.
Fish are considered a symbol of prosperity. During this era,

(20:06):
people began keeping karp and a mutation change to carp
scales from silver to gold. Then people began to breed
the fish for the Golden Scales. An argument could be
made that not only was a fish alluding to Yushin's
prosperity in marrying the king, but also the prosperity of
the dynasty leading up to.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
The Tong dynasty.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
The collapse of the Han dynasty in two twenty a
d had left China divided for three hundred years. The
Sui dynasty then unified China, paving the way for the
Tong dynasty. Tong is considered one of the greatest empires,
not only because it was the Golden Age of arts
and culture, but also because it was a dynasty ruled

(20:54):
by benevolent leaders with economic growth and successful political endeavors.
It wasn't until the seventeenth century that the broad outlines
of the version of Cinderella we're most familiar with originated.
This time the story would be from France. When I

(21:15):
first started looking into Cinderella, I thought the Disney version
I grew up with was based on the Brother's Grim,
But it's not Disney pulled from the sixteen ninety seven
French story The Little Glass Slipper, written by Charles Perraut.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Pireaut had created his own spin on.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
A darker Italian story of a woman named Zizzola. Zazzola,
or as a title of the story, is called The
Cat Cinderella, was written by John Battista Bazille in sixteen
thirty four. In The Cat Cinderella, Zazzola already has a
wicked stepmother who is married to her father, who is

(21:53):
a prince. Zizzola's governess convinces a girl to kill her
stepmother so the governess can marry the prince. Instead, Zizzola
murders her stepmother by dropping the life of the largest
dress trunk on the woman's neck.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
And breaking it.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
After she tricks her father into marrying the governess.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
For a few days, things.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Are well, and during this time a dove from the
Island of the Fairies visits Zola and tells her that
if she ever needs anything, just come to the fairies
for help. Well, it wasn't long until the governess turned

(22:36):
out to be just as wicked. She brings forward six
daughters she had been hiding and slowly demotes Zola to
the place of a servant. Zizola becomes the Cat Cinderella
because she's no better than an animal. Later, the prince
goes on a trip and asks his stepdaughters what they

(22:56):
would like.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
The response is riches.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Then, as a snub, he asks Zola if she wants anything.
She tells them a gift from the fairy isle. But
on top of asking for the gift, she also tells
him that if he doesn't follow through, he will never
be able to find his way home.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Lo and behold.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
When he tries to sail back, he can't, So he
follows through on his promise to his daughter. The fairies
gave her a date tree. The date tree ends up
producing a fairy who asks Zzola what she wants.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Zizzola says to leave any.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Time without her sister's knowing, so the fairy gives her
a phrase to whisper to the tree whenever she wants
to leave, and a phrase to whisper when she returns.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
To undo the magic.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
On one feast day, Zazola waits until everyone leaves and
then goes to the date tree and makes her wish.
She has given a gown and slippers and a royal procession.
This happens three times over, each time grander than the last.
Absolutely smitten by her beauty and charm, the king wants
to learn who Zola is. He has a servant follow her,

(24:10):
but all three times Zzola shakes a servant off her
trail by tossing out gold and jewels. It's the third
time she shakes off the servant that she loses her
shoe by tossing it out. The king decides to hold
another feast, declaring all maidens must attend. He planned on
having all the maidens try the shoe. The prince, Zizola's

(24:33):
father tells the king his daughter hasn't been attending because quote,
she is a sorry, worthless creature, not fit to take
her place at the table where you eat. But the
king insists that she should be the first on the list,
since that's what he's decreed.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
When it's z.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Zola's turn to try the slipper on it, quote jumps
to her foot like a moth of flame. Zizzola is
zen crowned and the other people are told to obey
her as queen. The Zelee has an extra element to
him version though at the very end, the stepsisters, who
are heartbroken and angry, confessed to their mother he is mad,

(25:13):
who would oppose the stars. It's as if what happened
was faded. It's easy to see how Perot's version was
able to build upon Bazilli's story. The foundations of Cinderella
most of us are familiar with are there, but Pero
just made them more magical, including the pumpkin turned carriage,

(25:33):
the fairy Godmother, and the glass slipper. At its core,
these tales of Cinderella are all about class reinforcing hierarchies
embedded in society, although some propose that it's a cautionary
tale about the consequences of mistreating children. However, in more

(25:56):
recent adaptations, Cinderella has evolved to reflect more modern sensibilities.
During the brother's grim time, it was typical for stepmothers
to be portrayed as wicked. Stepmothers were historically common due

(26:19):
to mothers dying during childbirth. This pitted stepmothers against their
stepchildren because of the intricacies of inheritance laws. Common knowledge
says that inheritance was passed down through male lineage. However,
if there were no male heirs or their father didn't
have a brother, money and land would sometimes be passed

(26:40):
down to the daughter. In cases where there was more
than one daughter, money and property would be split equally. Historically,
there was little opportunity for economic mobility. Inheritance was key
to maintaining social status. So if the stepmother had a
son and that was the only son, there wasn't a problem,

(27:00):
but you can see how it would cause a riff otherwise.
So at its heart, Cinderella is about class and how
people can rise through the ranks or fall to their ruin.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
We see a lot of themes of the restoration of
the right way that things are meant to be happening here.
Cinderella is very often pitched as a rags to riches story,
and in some iterations it is, but in the most
common iterations of Western Europe it is a riches to
rags to riches story.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
One of the easiest ways to maintain class or rise
in the ranks was to marry. That's why one of
the best ways to ensure marriage was to be beautiful
and pure of heart.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
It is right that Cinderella have her wealth restored because
she is good and virtuous and young and beautiful. And
so we see all of those traits of positivity being
tied together and even at times leading directly to an
emphasis of the negativity on the other side of the spectrum.
After Cinderella gets married, the beautiful doves that accompany her

(28:05):
on her wedding day fly over to her sisters and
peck out their eyes like they are blinded and maimed
by the same magical helpers that assisted Cinderella into her
beautiful marriage and wedding and life as royalty.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Now.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Newer adaptations have two different shifts. One is what is
considered to be a woman's success, and two is how
the stepmother and stepsisters are perceived.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Cinderella gives us a way to talk about womanhood that
lets us have a shared starting point to move from.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Let's circle back to the wildly popular Walt Disney film
released in nineteen fifty. Disney's adaptation pulled from Perrot's story
because it was more in line with America's notion that
a woman's success was that she married well, could stay
at home, didn't have to work, and had a well
kept house. It's also pretty cut and dry about who

(29:08):
was right and who was wrong. This still lines up
pretty strongly with the values from the earlier tales. But
then you have stories like Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an
Ugly Stepsister, which is told from Iris's point of view.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
She is one of the stepsisters.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
In this adaptation, it's not so much Cinderella versus her
stepsisters and stepmother, but outside power as the sisters are
fighting against. The book is sympathetic towards a stepmother and
stepsisters and shows that there could be more to the story.
In twenty twelve, Marissa Meyer wrote a book titled Cinder.

(29:47):
It was the first in the Lunar Chronicle series. The
adaptation is about a cyborg who goes on this journey
to help save the population from a plague. In the end,
Cinder and the crew that joins her along the way,
including Prince Kai, saved the day. Although Prince Kai and

(30:07):
Cender feel deeply about each other, they don't initially end
up together. Cinda wants to help Luna, where she's from,
form a democracy and gets stabilized, but she does tell
the Prince she will be his empress once she's in
a place to step down. In the twenty twenty one

(30:28):
Amazon primary make, Cinderella has big dreams of designing dresses
to sell at her own dress shop. Yes, she does
meet the Prince and they fall for each other, but
Cinderella is offered a job as a personal seamstress and
tells the prince he can come with her, but she's
taking the job. The prince agrees, gives up his right

(30:49):
to rule the kingdom, and both he and Cinderella sail
off so she can follow her dreams. It's a large
jump from the nineteen fifties notion of what it means
to be a successful woman. Also in this movie, Cinderella
forgets the stepsisters and stepmother. She understands and isn't mad

(31:09):
at them. The examples go on, but what we can
see is that what it is to be a woman
and how women relate to each other is reflected and
how the Cinderella story has been told.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
And one interesting thing that folklorists are doing increasingly is
looking at how children actually perceive and talk about these
characters that they encounter through fairy tales through popular media.
And it's not always in the baseline way that we expect.
Young girls don't just see Cinderella and say I want

(31:45):
to be a princess who marries a prince I barely
know who's rich. Young girls will see Cinderella and want
to play as Cinderella and have adventures and want to
do different things or overcome the stepsisters in different ways.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
As doctor McNeil also points out, there's a reason Cinderella
continues and will continue to change with time.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
I mean, princesses as a model from fairy tales are
likely going nowhere right pop Culturally. It's an idea that
we love, whether it's on a historic front or a
fantasy front.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
And by retelling Cinderella, we recast who we are today
and understand who.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
We used to be.

Speaker 5 (32:23):
And so when we manifest these stories in ways that
are relevant to us today, we are intrinsically commenting on
all the different ways they were relative in the past.
And that's really powerful, because that's not something we can
do with that same sense of intent or purpose. When

(32:43):
we tell a holy new story.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Cinderella, a tale of class, pain, hope, and sometimes magic.
Every iteration has something to add, a kernel of its
own truth to share. And there is one simple fact
to this story that has survived centuries. Almost everyone can
find something relatable to the persecuted heroine. There are more

(33:17):
brothers grim tales waiting to be explored. Take my hand
and let me lead you through.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
The deep dark woods.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Next time we follow the breadcrumbs to a witch's House
the Deep Dark Woods is a production of School Humans
and iHeart Podcasts. It was created, written, and hosted by
me Miranda Hawkins. This episode was produced by Mike hal

(33:50):
June with senior producer Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Maya Howard.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Stories are voiced by Julia Christgau.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Theme song was composed by Jesse Niswang, who also sound
designed and mixed this episode. If you enjoyed the show,
please leave a review and you can follow along with
the show on Instagram at School of Humans.