August 1, 2019 • 27 mins
We've all heard the story of Cinderella -- it's one of the world's most popular fairy tales! However, this story exists in multiple versions across the world. Join the guys as they explore the ancient tale of Ye Xian -- the Chinese Cinderella.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Once
(00:27):
upon a Time. You yes, you decided to tune into
Ridiculous History. We're so glad you did. We're gonna do
something a little bit different today. Hi, I'm ben. Hey,
I'm no. It's true. We are going to have a
little bit of ridiculous story time and then we're gonna
go back afterwards and um have a little discussion. Actually
do an episode. Christ is an episode, but it's it's
(00:48):
all okay, Yeah, it'll become clear what we're trying to
go for here and never fear our our our better.
Third super producer Casey Pegram is here. We're not up
to some weird high jinks without them. Uh So, without
further ado, you already said once upon a time, We
already said once upon a time. So uh nol, why
don't we Why don't we tell the story together? Would
(01:08):
you like to start? Sure? This is the story of
e Shian. Long ago, there was a community of cave
dwellers in China called the Woodong, and they had a
chief whose name was Woo, and he had two wives
and a daughter by each of the wives. Uh Ye
Sean was Woo's daughter. Um and she was of course
(01:29):
extremely beautiful, kind, gentle, intelligent, gifted, She had many skills.
She could make pottery, she was a poet. Then she
had a half sister named June Lee, who was uh
the opposite of those things. She was cruel, she was selfish,
she was vain. So ye Shian was the daughter of
Wu's first wife, and she died when Hi was just
(01:52):
a baby. Who's second wife, who was the mother of
the cruel, selfish sister, was a classic wicked stepmother kind
of situation. She was envious of all the attention that
Wou lavished upon Yeshion, and she wanted her daughter to
be the top daughter. Ah ha. Some of us may
be saying, this story sounds a little familiar. Listen along
(02:16):
and tell us how many familiar tropes you can spot,
and bonus points if you can guess which story this is,
we'll tell you at the end. Back to the story. Unfortunately,
for Ye Shan, her father also passes away. Wu dies
from a local plague. Wo has no sons, so a
new chieftain is appointed to take his place. Ye Shan's
(02:38):
family is reduced to poverty. She has to become a
lowly servant. She finds work as the employee of the
same stepmother and envious sister who have hated her all
her life. She's burdened with chores, abuse, and housework, but
she still retains her inner beauty, her cleverness, and you know,
(03:00):
she's still very popular because everybody likes her. She makes
friends with a mysterious, stunning, just exquisite, tin foot long
fish in a lake near her home. This fish has
golden eyes and scales, and the fish you see is
no ordinary fish. It is a guardian spirit sent to
(03:21):
her by her own mother from beyond the grave, who
never forgot about her daughter. It's true. Um and uh
Yehan takes solace in her visits with this giant golden fish,
who apparently talks quite a lot as well. And one day, unfortunately,
June Lee, the unkind step sister, follows ye Shian to
(03:44):
the lake where she discovers her talking to the fish,
and Um, she just doesn't want her sister stepsister to
have any anything nice, any happiness, because she runs back
tells her mother what she's seen, and then the evil
stepmother comes back and confronts Ye Sean and stabs the
fish in the heart, killing it. Instantly and cooks it
(04:05):
up for she and her less remarkable daughter's dinner, and
of course Ye Shan is absolutely crushed. This was her
one glimmer of happiness that was keeping her spirit alive,
this magical, you know, talking creature sent from on high
by her dead mother. But then, as as happens in
many Chinese folk tales, we're going to have the appearance
(04:28):
of an ancestor in the form of an old, wizened
man with a white beard who could have possibly been
her maternal grandfather. He's dressed in robes, and he appears
to her and tells her, hey, it's cool. Even though
the fish, your fishy friend, has been decimated and devoured
by these gluttonous, disgusting people. Uh, the spirit remains, and
(04:52):
all you have to do is take the bones of
the fish and bury them in the ground in four
separate pots. Classic and has to hide each one under
her bed at the four corners. And then the spirit
also tells her that these bones she can keep talking
to them. It's a little morbid. I'm not going to
talk back. But what they will do, gentle listeners, is
(05:13):
grant her wishes. Once every year, people get together and
celebrate the New Year festival. This is an auspicious time.
This is also the time of year for young maidens
to meet potential husbands. Now, the stepmother, who is still
very much in play and very much a pill, doesn't
want to spoil her own daughter's choices. This is the
(05:36):
unpleasant daughter, so she makes her stepdaughter, Yes, stay home
and clean their house, which is also a cave by
the way, so she pictures she's on her knees scrubbing,
you know. And after her step family has left for
the big festival, Yeshan makes a silent wish to the bones,
(05:56):
and then she finds herself clothed in magnificent ramiant in
a gown of sea green silk, a cloak of kingfisher feathers,
and a pair of golden slippers. She goes to the festival,
so he shan't hot foots it to the festival, where
she is the belle of the ball. Everyone admires her
and she becomes a sensation immediately. But then when she
(06:18):
notices that her wicked step family are there as well,
and she worries about being made, she equally hot foots
it back home, and in her haste she trips and
loses one of the golden slippers that is left behind
and the only evidence of this remarkable woman that graced
this New year's celebration. The Fishbones, by the way, are
(06:40):
not on speaking terms with the Sean at this point,
because the bones had warned her not to lose even
one of her slippers. She falls asleep, despondent under a tree.
Her step family comes back from the festival and they're
talking about this mysterious beauty, this real smoke show who
appeared at the festival, but they don't know that they're
(07:01):
talking about Yeshan. The golden slipper is found by a
local peasant. There is a big fine for him. He
trades it and it's passed on to various people until
it reaches the hands of the nearby king of the
Tohan Islets. This is a powerful kingdom covering many thousands
of small islands. The king is fascinated by the small
(07:22):
size of this shoe, and he issues the search, saying
find the maiden and whose foot will fit in the shoe,
and if they find her, he proclaims he will marry
that girl. The search goes on without much luck until
it reaches a community of cave dwellers. Of course, no
one's foot will fit inside the slipper except Yeshi, but
(07:45):
she is not allowed to come. Of course, her wicked
step family would not allow it. So she gets there
late to try to get the slipper back so she
can earn her way back into the good graces of
the four pots of fishbones. Um, and she is accused
of trying to steal the slipper right so um. She
has taken before the king and she's forced to make
(08:06):
her case, and she says, look, this is what happened.
I was abused of horrible home life, and then I
befriended this giant golden fish, and my evil stepmother's dad
been in the heart and then they ate it. In
the spirit of my ancestor told me to put the
fishbones into these four pots, and then I lost the slipper,
and YadA, YadA, YadA. And the King, you know, clearly
not fazed by any of these bizarre details, is actually
(08:28):
struck by her goodness and her kindness and her forthright pluckiness,
all of the things that we've loved about Yeshian from
the start of this story, and he allows her to
go home with both her life and the slipper. But
he's not done. He's still mystified by this, this, this
amazing striking beauty Yeshan. So he goes to her house
(08:50):
and he says, come with me, Come with me and
live with me in my kingdom. Come away with me
and be my love, and so on. Yeeshan puts on
both of her slippers and appears in that beautiful sea
green gown. The stepmother and June Lee say there's no
way this broad could have these clothes, ye Shan, of
all people, she is our slave. And the stepmother says,
(09:13):
the finery is my daughters, and this woman stole it.
And the king says, ah, you're lying, ye Shan. Don't
just come away with me to the kingdom, be my wife.
As a matter of fact, be the queen, and she says, dope, yeah, totally.
She accepts, and her cruel step family is left to
their fate. In one version, they are banished to the
(09:36):
wilderness by the king forever. They live a harsh, unhappy
life until the day that they are killed by a
reign of fiery stones. And this is all happening while
Ye Shan is queen and they live happily ever after.
That's one version of the story. It's true. You've probably
figured out by this point with some of the recurring
(09:58):
tropes of fairy to hailed them, and specifically, uh, the
Cinderella story. Sorry for everyone who bet on Rapunzel. We
did an episode on that earlier. It's true and was it.
It was the root of the vegetable and Rapunzel. It
was like the lettuces, fine, fine lettuces. It felt pretty
Eastern Europe rampian, rampian ramps exactly. This is one of
(10:21):
the oldest known versions of the Cinderella tale that was
truly truly made popular um in the version in written
and published by Charles Perrault, a Frenchman, but in eight
fifty a d in China, this story was clearly first
(10:43):
to the finish line. The story of Cinderella is one
of the most popular stories in the world, and we
can see variants of it not just in the West,
not just in China, but in Indonesia and many other countries.
Because people love a good story. We are a communicative species.
(11:08):
The variant that's most well known in the West is
the version you mentioned earlier. Nol that's Charles will hang
on just to be safe, Hey, Casey, Yeah, I think
you'd say it more like Charles Perro Perro Casey on
the case. So this, this version is the most well
known for us here and for many people in Europe perhaps,
(11:31):
But like any other tale, folklore is anthropologists historians are
more spend countless hours trying to figure out the origination
of the story. Right, So you'll hear people say this
story is Chinese in origin, right, like you mentioned before, No,
(11:51):
because that's the earliest recorded version you'll find. But you'll
also hear people say that the story originated in ancient Egypt.
Did you see that part? I did? And I think
that version has been largely debunked, right, Yes, that got debunked.
I think the claim they were attempting to make there
was that they could attribute it to the Greek historian Strabo.
(12:15):
But it feels kind of like an echo chamber. It
feels like a lot of people are just quoting themselves,
you know what I mean? And then they fell victim
to forgery. A Mrs Olive Miller of Aurora, Illinois reimagined
the Greek historian story, intertwined it with Pero's tale, and
then created this quote unquote ancient Egyptian Cinderella, and people
(12:38):
fell for it. So don't fall for that, we're telling
you right now. The Chinese story seems to be the
genuine article here, right, and that would have taken place
during the Tang dynasty, which is between six eighteen and
nine oh seven CE, whereas the Seal Perol version did
not uh see publication until six And this is interesting
because we're talking about the proliferation of storytelling in some
(13:03):
ways before the written word, right, A lot of these
were probably communicated orally. I have to say, this is
just my opinion that it feels like there are too
many similarities for this to be parallel thinking, right that
we've got we've got the evil step parents and sibling.
We've got the magical assistant, we've got the wise old counsel,
(13:27):
the orphaned beauty, the orphaned beauty, we've got the magic clothing,
the magic slipper. In particular, talking animals, talking animals, enchanted
talking animals. Disney really leaned into that part too. I
wish they you know, I don't know. I don't want
to knock Disney Cinderella. I thought it was a good ride, sure, absolutely, um,
but here's the thing. We've got all of these hallmarks
(13:48):
that were then reworked in the seventeenth century Italian version
that was even before Perot's work by the poet giam
Battista Basile, who was born in fifteen sixty six and
died in sixty two c e um. And this was
released in posthumously in his quite famous children's book Il
(14:08):
pentamarone uh and that was in sixteen thirty four, which
included a version of this story called Lagata sinerentola which
means the Cat Cinderella, which is recognized as the first
appearance of the story in print. And it was already
a widely known tale throughout Italy because of that proliferation
(14:30):
of these stories and these folks, these folk tales. Um.
It was then reworked and republished in Germany and Russia
in several forms. And Patricia Montaghan, who is a scholar
of of literature, wrote about the Cinderella tale that the
thousand year old circulation of Cinderella's story makes it the
(14:50):
world's best known fairy tale, but no one can really
say where it began or when Cinderella's magic slippers brought
her to Europe. It's pretty crazy. So the oldest known
oral version of the story is an ancient Greek story
called Rhodopis, but that's the one that's still like largely debunked.
It has some similarities, but it's not a pitch perfect
(15:13):
Cinderella story. There's also a twelfth century French version. Uh.
There's the Japanese folk tale Sumiyoshi Manogatari, which is pretty
much Cinderella. You can even find versions of Cinderella's story
in one thousand and one Nights, also known as Arabian Nights. Uh.
(15:35):
It's it's strange how how completely this has inundated our
our consciousness, our fairy tale consciousness. And I'm fascinated. I
don't have the answer to this, but I am fascinated
by imagining the path this story must have taken around campfires,
(15:55):
maybe at a caravan, sorry, maybe at a spot on
the Silk Road. You know, as as they're transporting goods
back and forth, they're also transporting these stories. So let's
talk a little bit about some of the similarities and
differences between the Yeshian version of the story. And we
have Paro's version, which was published under the name Sindrillon
(16:17):
and then of course we have the quite famous Brothers
Grim version, which was known as ashan Puto, which means
ash girl. Um. So here's some of the things that
struck me. Uh, the the slippers um and the fact
that it's tied to the feature of this princess of
this you know, great beauty as having small feet. I
(16:39):
think that's very fascinating because tracing it back to the
Chinese version of the story, as we know, in Chinese culture,
it was very much a feature of great beauty and
daintiness and lady likeness to have very small feet, with
the terrible practice of foot bind absolutely, and there was
one version of the Yeshian story that we saw that
(17:01):
imparted some sort of magical powers on the slipper that
anyone who would place their foot inside the slipper, their
foot would magically shrink. So there's definitely some some big
foot stuff going on in this YC version. Not Tarantino associated, No,
not Tarantino associated, but definitely like valuing that feature above
(17:21):
anything else, you know, because that's literally the king is like,
whoever's got the daintiest feet is the one that I
will make my bride. He wasn't even at the ball
that's a feature in the Escan version of the story
that's really interesting because in the Parole version, or at
least in the one that we know from the Disney film,
uh that prince sees Cinderella at the ball and remarks
(17:42):
upon her beauty, the slipper is literally just looked at
as like a piece of the puzzle to try to
find this beautiful woman. In this one, the king's side
unseen saying, whoever's got the smallest feet that are going
to fit into these golden slippers, I will wife immediately.
And just like the Western version of Cinderella, there are
alternate versions and alternate endings to the story of Yan.
(18:04):
So we talked about how the stepmother and the step
sister die in a rain of fiery stones. What what's
interesting to me about this is it has the ring
of truth because many older fairy tales have completely grewsome
consequences for the batties right the pills in the story.
(18:26):
In another version of the Yeshan story, the stepmother and
step sister are buried in a shrine called get this,
the Tomb of the Regretful Women. They become goddesses in
a later tradition and they can grant wishes eventually. See
that's really interesting because they almost come out on top,
at least legacy wise, and that right they are imbued
(18:48):
with magical powers. It goes on. So in the alternate version,
Yeshan and the king do not actually live happily. Ever,
after her husband gets greedy and he starts abusing the
power of the four pots of fish bones until it
runs out of magic. It stops granting wishes, and the
queen buries the bones on a nearby beach with a
(19:09):
ton of gold. A year later, the king's people are
tired of his malarkey. They lead a revolt, and the
king tries to dig up the fish bones and give
the gold to the rebels, but the gold had washed
away with the tide, along with the magical bones, and
nobody knows what happened to the king and his bride
Yeshan after the siege. I think that's an amazing ending.
(19:32):
I think that's really pretty compelling and cool, because that's
how people actually are, uh, disappointing kind of. That's the
thing about fairy tales. It's like, you know the whole
you know, because we know the grim stories typically did
end with some horrible stuff happening to to our characters,
right to the to the antagonist, to the antagonist. Yes
that's true, but even in general, sometimes to get to
(19:53):
the place where you win, some horrible things have to happen,
like with a little mermaid, for example, when she gets
human legs in the hands Christian Anderson version of that story,
she's described as having like stinging pain, like knives and
swords through her feet and legs as she walked or whatever,
when she got legs from being a mermaid. Have you
read Joseph Campbell, he wrote with a thousand faces, I
(20:15):
am aware of it. I have not read that one.
I love the troupe because what you're describing is that
same like venturing out into unknown, dangerous territory, and you
have to hit a low status to get to a
higher states exactly. And for this one, um again with
the retribution. Uh so, instead of we don't have flaming
stones or burial alive, one would assume of the wicked
(20:38):
step sister and the wicked stepmother. But in the Grim
Brothers version, you do have the wicked stepmother convincing her
stepdaughters to slice off parts of their own feet so
that they can fit inside of the shoe, which you
think would be a pretty obvious ruse, you know, especially
for a dude that's potentially maybe in defeat. I don't
think you would want mangled feet, right, and her all things,
(21:00):
And that's okay when once your royalty you will never
have to walk. You'll be presumably carried around on a
palanquint all the time, right, So who needs your feet
when you can have riches untold? You know? Yeah, yeah,
it was a very palanquin heavy industry at the time
in fairy tale Land. It's so fascinating to examine how
(21:27):
these stories proliferate, how they change, how they create such
a rich, dense variety of adventure and fantasy and intrigue
and magic. And this is a thought that I've been
having since we decided to do this episode. I'm very
curious about this. Do you think, you, Casey, you know,
(21:49):
and all of us listening, do you think that there
will be future versions of stories like this Cinderella Rapunzel,
you know, the what are some other ones? Brumples still
skin and so on? Do you think there will be
future versions that historians will look back on, maybe eight
and one thousand years from now if we make it. Uh,
(22:11):
and if so, like what might change? Yeah, I don't know,
because like we're not into the whole brevity of fables anymore,
you know, even like our biggest literary like hallmarks, like
the cultural milestones, like a Harry Potter or something like that,
they're not short. You can't really sum up Harry Potter
and the Journey of Harry Potter like in like a tiny, little,
you know paragraph, which is sort of what makes these
(22:34):
folk tales important because they're easy to tell and they're
easy to carry over to tell somebody quickly on the road. Right. Uh,
it feels like the short story, Like can you I
can't think of a single like super famous short story
from the last twenty years, from the last twenty years,
I know, fifty years whatever. Like I can't think of
a super famous short story other than maybe like a
(22:54):
good Man is Hard to Find or whatever from good
Country People, the Nine Bill, the Names of God. I
don't know those. Uh, where I'm calling fear more of
a reader than me of that kind of stuff. I'm
just saying in terms of something that would stand the
test of time and be carried on in oral tradition.
I think they need to be short and pithy and
communicate some sort of universal ideal. Sure time is the
(23:18):
most brutal and efficient editor of all. That's why a
lot of stuff we remember from the days of the
ancients is often going to be paraphrased or or shortened.
I want to correct where I'm calling from as a
book by Raymond Carver. The story I was thinking of
is a story called Cathedral. And to your point goal,
(23:38):
I would add that I don't know how many of
those stories are what we would consider mainstream. Everyone in
the US is vaguely aware of the story of Cinderella,
you know what I mean. But I don't think we
can say the same for a lot of short stories.
You know what, maybe there's one we're missing, maybe we
have a blind spot. Let us know, let us know
(23:59):
what uh what you think is a modern fairy tale
or original or or new version of the fairy tale
that everyone knows, or something that in the future maybe
looked at the same way that we look at the
evolution of Cinderella today. Thank you so much for listening.
As always, big shout out to our super producer Casey
(24:19):
Pegram Casey. Just by the way, do you have a
Do you have a favorite fairy tale? Favorite fairy tale? No, no,
you're not moved by no Princess in the Frog not really.
No favorite short story shirt, but not fairy tale. I'm
a big Raymond Carver fan. Two. Oh, nice nold. Do
you have a favorite fairy tale? I've always been pretty
(24:41):
fascinated by a Handling Gretel because of the macabre qualities
of it, you know, with the cannibalistic child eating witch
living in a house made of candy. It's it's sort
of like a classic cautionary tale against talking to strangers. Um,
but it has some nice magical undertones. And I grew
up um. There's an opera version of it by Ingleberd
Humperdink that you know. My mom was an opera saying
(25:02):
we always was singing pieces from that with her students.
And there is a really really creepy and cool claimation
version of that opera I saw when I was a kid,
and that russis out of me. Yeah, I think so, yeah,
I think I've I've seen that or something like it.
I would I would say disney wise. I feel like
I have to differentiate Disney Wise. I was a big
(25:24):
fan of Sleeping Beauty, just because of the moment at
the end where Maleficent turns into this amazing dragon creature.
Also char no box yarn, no bog. I think in Fantasia.
I don't know. It's a tough question, and we want
to hear from you. What are your favorite fairy tales?
What are your favorite variants of fairy tales? Do you
(25:47):
have a particular favorite fairy tale that might be unfamiliar
to us and your fellow listeners. If so, we'd love
to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter. We highly recommend our Facebook group page Ridiculous Historians,
where we found out that we were on broadcast radio.
(26:07):
It's true, Um, what's you know? What was once old
is now new again. By the way, the name of
the artist that did that Handling Gretel thing, which is
called Handling Gretel and opera fantasy is Evald's Dayevskis, And
he was a Russian immigrant and did the work for
that in New York City. It was Russian somehow, right.
(26:28):
Big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Big
thanks to Christopher Hasciotas and research associates Gabe Luzier and
Ryan Barrish. Thank you, Joe. I guess this podcast did
end happily ever after. We'll see you next time. Books.
(26:53):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Once
(00:27):
upon a Time. You yes, you decided to tune into
Ridiculous History. We're so glad you did. We're gonna do
something a little bit different today. Hi, I'm ben. Hey,
I'm no. It's true. We are going to have a
little bit of ridiculous story time and then we're gonna
go back afterwards and um have a little discussion. Actually
do an episode. Christ is an episode, but it's it's
(00:48):
all okay, Yeah, it'll become clear what we're trying to
go for here and never fear our our our better.
Third super producer Casey Pegram is here. We're not up
to some weird high jinks without them. Uh So, without
further ado, you already said once upon a time, We
already said once upon a time. So uh nol, why
don't we Why don't we tell the story together? Would
(01:08):
you like to start? Sure? This is the story of
e Shian. Long ago, there was a community of cave
dwellers in China called the Woodong, and they had a
chief whose name was Woo, and he had two wives
and a daughter by each of the wives. Uh Ye
Sean was Woo's daughter. Um and she was of course
(01:29):
extremely beautiful, kind, gentle, intelligent, gifted, She had many skills.
She could make pottery, she was a poet. Then she
had a half sister named June Lee, who was uh
the opposite of those things. She was cruel, she was selfish,
she was vain. So ye Shian was the daughter of
Wu's first wife, and she died when Hi was just
(01:52):
a baby. Who's second wife, who was the mother of
the cruel, selfish sister, was a classic wicked stepmother kind
of situation. She was envious of all the attention that
Wou lavished upon Yeshion, and she wanted her daughter to
be the top daughter. Ah ha. Some of us may
be saying, this story sounds a little familiar. Listen along
(02:16):
and tell us how many familiar tropes you can spot,
and bonus points if you can guess which story this is,
we'll tell you at the end. Back to the story. Unfortunately,
for Ye Shan, her father also passes away. Wu dies
from a local plague. Wo has no sons, so a
new chieftain is appointed to take his place. Ye Shan's
(02:38):
family is reduced to poverty. She has to become a
lowly servant. She finds work as the employee of the
same stepmother and envious sister who have hated her all
her life. She's burdened with chores, abuse, and housework, but
she still retains her inner beauty, her cleverness, and you know,
(03:00):
she's still very popular because everybody likes her. She makes
friends with a mysterious, stunning, just exquisite, tin foot long
fish in a lake near her home. This fish has
golden eyes and scales, and the fish you see is
no ordinary fish. It is a guardian spirit sent to
(03:21):
her by her own mother from beyond the grave, who
never forgot about her daughter. It's true. Um and uh
Yehan takes solace in her visits with this giant golden fish,
who apparently talks quite a lot as well. And one day, unfortunately,
June Lee, the unkind step sister, follows ye Shian to
(03:44):
the lake where she discovers her talking to the fish,
and Um, she just doesn't want her sister stepsister to
have any anything nice, any happiness, because she runs back
tells her mother what she's seen, and then the evil
stepmother comes back and confronts Ye Sean and stabs the
fish in the heart, killing it. Instantly and cooks it
(04:05):
up for she and her less remarkable daughter's dinner, and
of course Ye Shan is absolutely crushed. This was her
one glimmer of happiness that was keeping her spirit alive,
this magical, you know, talking creature sent from on high
by her dead mother. But then, as as happens in
many Chinese folk tales, we're going to have the appearance
(04:28):
of an ancestor in the form of an old, wizened
man with a white beard who could have possibly been
her maternal grandfather. He's dressed in robes, and he appears
to her and tells her, hey, it's cool. Even though
the fish, your fishy friend, has been decimated and devoured
by these gluttonous, disgusting people. Uh, the spirit remains, and
(04:52):
all you have to do is take the bones of
the fish and bury them in the ground in four
separate pots. Classic and has to hide each one under
her bed at the four corners. And then the spirit
also tells her that these bones she can keep talking
to them. It's a little morbid. I'm not going to
talk back. But what they will do, gentle listeners, is
(05:13):
grant her wishes. Once every year, people get together and
celebrate the New Year festival. This is an auspicious time.
This is also the time of year for young maidens
to meet potential husbands. Now, the stepmother, who is still
very much in play and very much a pill, doesn't
want to spoil her own daughter's choices. This is the
(05:36):
unpleasant daughter, so she makes her stepdaughter, Yes, stay home
and clean their house, which is also a cave by
the way, so she pictures she's on her knees scrubbing,
you know. And after her step family has left for
the big festival, Yeshan makes a silent wish to the bones,
(05:56):
and then she finds herself clothed in magnificent ramiant in
a gown of sea green silk, a cloak of kingfisher feathers,
and a pair of golden slippers. She goes to the festival,
so he shan't hot foots it to the festival, where
she is the belle of the ball. Everyone admires her
and she becomes a sensation immediately. But then when she
(06:18):
notices that her wicked step family are there as well,
and she worries about being made, she equally hot foots
it back home, and in her haste she trips and
loses one of the golden slippers that is left behind
and the only evidence of this remarkable woman that graced
this New year's celebration. The Fishbones, by the way, are
(06:40):
not on speaking terms with the Sean at this point,
because the bones had warned her not to lose even
one of her slippers. She falls asleep, despondent under a tree.
Her step family comes back from the festival and they're
talking about this mysterious beauty, this real smoke show who
appeared at the festival, but they don't know that they're
(07:01):
talking about Yeshan. The golden slipper is found by a
local peasant. There is a big fine for him. He
trades it and it's passed on to various people until
it reaches the hands of the nearby king of the
Tohan Islets. This is a powerful kingdom covering many thousands
of small islands. The king is fascinated by the small
(07:22):
size of this shoe, and he issues the search, saying
find the maiden and whose foot will fit in the shoe,
and if they find her, he proclaims he will marry
that girl. The search goes on without much luck until
it reaches a community of cave dwellers. Of course, no
one's foot will fit inside the slipper except Yeshi, but
(07:45):
she is not allowed to come. Of course, her wicked
step family would not allow it. So she gets there
late to try to get the slipper back so she
can earn her way back into the good graces of
the four pots of fishbones. Um, and she is accused
of trying to steal the slipper right so um. She
has taken before the king and she's forced to make
(08:06):
her case, and she says, look, this is what happened.
I was abused of horrible home life, and then I
befriended this giant golden fish, and my evil stepmother's dad
been in the heart and then they ate it. In
the spirit of my ancestor told me to put the
fishbones into these four pots, and then I lost the slipper,
and YadA, YadA, YadA. And the King, you know, clearly
not fazed by any of these bizarre details, is actually
(08:28):
struck by her goodness and her kindness and her forthright pluckiness,
all of the things that we've loved about Yeshian from
the start of this story, and he allows her to
go home with both her life and the slipper. But
he's not done. He's still mystified by this, this, this
amazing striking beauty Yeshan. So he goes to her house
(08:50):
and he says, come with me, Come with me and
live with me in my kingdom. Come away with me
and be my love, and so on. Yeeshan puts on
both of her slippers and appears in that beautiful sea
green gown. The stepmother and June Lee say there's no
way this broad could have these clothes, ye Shan, of
all people, she is our slave. And the stepmother says,
(09:13):
the finery is my daughters, and this woman stole it.
And the king says, ah, you're lying, ye Shan. Don't
just come away with me to the kingdom, be my wife.
As a matter of fact, be the queen, and she says, dope, yeah, totally.
She accepts, and her cruel step family is left to
their fate. In one version, they are banished to the
(09:36):
wilderness by the king forever. They live a harsh, unhappy
life until the day that they are killed by a
reign of fiery stones. And this is all happening while
Ye Shan is queen and they live happily ever after.
That's one version of the story. It's true. You've probably
figured out by this point with some of the recurring
(09:58):
tropes of fairy to hailed them, and specifically, uh, the
Cinderella story. Sorry for everyone who bet on Rapunzel. We
did an episode on that earlier. It's true and was it.
It was the root of the vegetable and Rapunzel. It
was like the lettuces, fine, fine lettuces. It felt pretty
Eastern Europe rampian, rampian ramps exactly. This is one of
(10:21):
the oldest known versions of the Cinderella tale that was
truly truly made popular um in the version in written
and published by Charles Perrault, a Frenchman, but in eight
fifty a d in China, this story was clearly first
(10:43):
to the finish line. The story of Cinderella is one
of the most popular stories in the world, and we
can see variants of it not just in the West,
not just in China, but in Indonesia and many other countries.
Because people love a good story. We are a communicative species.
(11:08):
The variant that's most well known in the West is
the version you mentioned earlier. Nol that's Charles will hang
on just to be safe, Hey, Casey, Yeah, I think
you'd say it more like Charles Perro Perro Casey on
the case. So this, this version is the most well
known for us here and for many people in Europe perhaps,
(11:31):
But like any other tale, folklore is anthropologists historians are
more spend countless hours trying to figure out the origination
of the story. Right, So you'll hear people say this
story is Chinese in origin, right, like you mentioned before, No,
(11:51):
because that's the earliest recorded version you'll find. But you'll
also hear people say that the story originated in ancient Egypt.
Did you see that part? I did? And I think
that version has been largely debunked, right, Yes, that got debunked.
I think the claim they were attempting to make there
was that they could attribute it to the Greek historian Strabo.
(12:15):
But it feels kind of like an echo chamber. It
feels like a lot of people are just quoting themselves,
you know what I mean? And then they fell victim
to forgery. A Mrs Olive Miller of Aurora, Illinois reimagined
the Greek historian story, intertwined it with Pero's tale, and
then created this quote unquote ancient Egyptian Cinderella, and people
(12:38):
fell for it. So don't fall for that, we're telling
you right now. The Chinese story seems to be the
genuine article here, right, and that would have taken place
during the Tang dynasty, which is between six eighteen and
nine oh seven CE, whereas the Seal Perol version did
not uh see publication until six And this is interesting
because we're talking about the proliferation of storytelling in some
(13:03):
ways before the written word, right, A lot of these
were probably communicated orally. I have to say, this is
just my opinion that it feels like there are too
many similarities for this to be parallel thinking, right that
we've got we've got the evil step parents and sibling.
We've got the magical assistant, we've got the wise old counsel,
(13:27):
the orphaned beauty, the orphaned beauty, we've got the magic clothing,
the magic slipper. In particular, talking animals, talking animals, enchanted
talking animals. Disney really leaned into that part too. I
wish they you know, I don't know. I don't want
to knock Disney Cinderella. I thought it was a good ride, sure, absolutely, um,
but here's the thing. We've got all of these hallmarks
(13:48):
that were then reworked in the seventeenth century Italian version
that was even before Perot's work by the poet giam
Battista Basile, who was born in fifteen sixty six and
died in sixty two c e um. And this was
released in posthumously in his quite famous children's book Il
(14:08):
pentamarone uh and that was in sixteen thirty four, which
included a version of this story called Lagata sinerentola which
means the Cat Cinderella, which is recognized as the first
appearance of the story in print. And it was already
a widely known tale throughout Italy because of that proliferation
(14:30):
of these stories and these folks, these folk tales. Um.
It was then reworked and republished in Germany and Russia
in several forms. And Patricia Montaghan, who is a scholar
of of literature, wrote about the Cinderella tale that the
thousand year old circulation of Cinderella's story makes it the
(14:50):
world's best known fairy tale, but no one can really
say where it began or when Cinderella's magic slippers brought
her to Europe. It's pretty crazy. So the oldest known
oral version of the story is an ancient Greek story
called Rhodopis, but that's the one that's still like largely debunked.
It has some similarities, but it's not a pitch perfect
(15:13):
Cinderella story. There's also a twelfth century French version. Uh.
There's the Japanese folk tale Sumiyoshi Manogatari, which is pretty
much Cinderella. You can even find versions of Cinderella's story
in one thousand and one Nights, also known as Arabian Nights. Uh.
(15:35):
It's it's strange how how completely this has inundated our
our consciousness, our fairy tale consciousness. And I'm fascinated. I
don't have the answer to this, but I am fascinated
by imagining the path this story must have taken around campfires,
(15:55):
maybe at a caravan, sorry, maybe at a spot on
the Silk Road. You know, as as they're transporting goods
back and forth, they're also transporting these stories. So let's
talk a little bit about some of the similarities and
differences between the Yeshian version of the story. And we
have Paro's version, which was published under the name Sindrillon
(16:17):
and then of course we have the quite famous Brothers
Grim version, which was known as ashan Puto, which means
ash girl. Um. So here's some of the things that
struck me. Uh, the the slippers um and the fact
that it's tied to the feature of this princess of
this you know, great beauty as having small feet. I
(16:39):
think that's very fascinating because tracing it back to the
Chinese version of the story, as we know, in Chinese culture,
it was very much a feature of great beauty and
daintiness and lady likeness to have very small feet, with
the terrible practice of foot bind absolutely, and there was
one version of the Yeshian story that we saw that
(17:01):
imparted some sort of magical powers on the slipper that
anyone who would place their foot inside the slipper, their
foot would magically shrink. So there's definitely some some big
foot stuff going on in this YC version. Not Tarantino associated, No,
not Tarantino associated, but definitely like valuing that feature above
(17:21):
anything else, you know, because that's literally the king is like,
whoever's got the daintiest feet is the one that I
will make my bride. He wasn't even at the ball
that's a feature in the Escan version of the story
that's really interesting because in the Parole version, or at
least in the one that we know from the Disney film,
uh that prince sees Cinderella at the ball and remarks
(17:42):
upon her beauty, the slipper is literally just looked at
as like a piece of the puzzle to try to
find this beautiful woman. In this one, the king's side
unseen saying, whoever's got the smallest feet that are going
to fit into these golden slippers, I will wife immediately.
And just like the Western version of Cinderella, there are
alternate versions and alternate endings to the story of Yan.
(18:04):
So we talked about how the stepmother and the step
sister die in a rain of fiery stones. What what's
interesting to me about this is it has the ring
of truth because many older fairy tales have completely grewsome
consequences for the batties right the pills in the story.
(18:26):
In another version of the Yeshan story, the stepmother and
step sister are buried in a shrine called get this,
the Tomb of the Regretful Women. They become goddesses in
a later tradition and they can grant wishes eventually. See
that's really interesting because they almost come out on top,
at least legacy wise, and that right they are imbued
(18:48):
with magical powers. It goes on. So in the alternate version,
Yeshan and the king do not actually live happily. Ever,
after her husband gets greedy and he starts abusing the
power of the four pots of fish bones until it
runs out of magic. It stops granting wishes, and the
queen buries the bones on a nearby beach with a
(19:09):
ton of gold. A year later, the king's people are
tired of his malarkey. They lead a revolt, and the
king tries to dig up the fish bones and give
the gold to the rebels, but the gold had washed
away with the tide, along with the magical bones, and
nobody knows what happened to the king and his bride
Yeshan after the siege. I think that's an amazing ending.
(19:32):
I think that's really pretty compelling and cool, because that's
how people actually are, uh, disappointing kind of. That's the
thing about fairy tales. It's like, you know the whole
you know, because we know the grim stories typically did
end with some horrible stuff happening to to our characters,
right to the to the antagonist, to the antagonist. Yes
that's true, but even in general, sometimes to get to
(19:53):
the place where you win, some horrible things have to happen,
like with a little mermaid, for example, when she gets
human legs in the hands Christian Anderson version of that story,
she's described as having like stinging pain, like knives and
swords through her feet and legs as she walked or whatever,
when she got legs from being a mermaid. Have you
read Joseph Campbell, he wrote with a thousand faces, I
(20:15):
am aware of it. I have not read that one.
I love the troupe because what you're describing is that
same like venturing out into unknown, dangerous territory, and you
have to hit a low status to get to a
higher states exactly. And for this one, um again with
the retribution. Uh so, instead of we don't have flaming
stones or burial alive, one would assume of the wicked
(20:38):
step sister and the wicked stepmother. But in the Grim
Brothers version, you do have the wicked stepmother convincing her
stepdaughters to slice off parts of their own feet so
that they can fit inside of the shoe, which you
think would be a pretty obvious ruse, you know, especially
for a dude that's potentially maybe in defeat. I don't
think you would want mangled feet, right, and her all things,
(21:00):
And that's okay when once your royalty you will never
have to walk. You'll be presumably carried around on a
palanquint all the time, right, So who needs your feet
when you can have riches untold? You know? Yeah, yeah,
it was a very palanquin heavy industry at the time
in fairy tale Land. It's so fascinating to examine how
(21:27):
these stories proliferate, how they change, how they create such
a rich, dense variety of adventure and fantasy and intrigue
and magic. And this is a thought that I've been
having since we decided to do this episode. I'm very
curious about this. Do you think, you, Casey, you know,
(21:49):
and all of us listening, do you think that there
will be future versions of stories like this Cinderella Rapunzel,
you know, the what are some other ones? Brumples still
skin and so on? Do you think there will be
future versions that historians will look back on, maybe eight
and one thousand years from now if we make it. Uh,
(22:11):
and if so, like what might change? Yeah, I don't know,
because like we're not into the whole brevity of fables anymore,
you know, even like our biggest literary like hallmarks, like
the cultural milestones, like a Harry Potter or something like that,
they're not short. You can't really sum up Harry Potter
and the Journey of Harry Potter like in like a tiny, little,
you know paragraph, which is sort of what makes these
(22:34):
folk tales important because they're easy to tell and they're
easy to carry over to tell somebody quickly on the road. Right. Uh,
it feels like the short story, Like can you I
can't think of a single like super famous short story
from the last twenty years, from the last twenty years,
I know, fifty years whatever. Like I can't think of
a super famous short story other than maybe like a
(22:54):
good Man is Hard to Find or whatever from good
Country People, the Nine Bill, the Names of God. I
don't know those. Uh, where I'm calling fear more of
a reader than me of that kind of stuff. I'm
just saying in terms of something that would stand the
test of time and be carried on in oral tradition.
I think they need to be short and pithy and
communicate some sort of universal ideal. Sure time is the
(23:18):
most brutal and efficient editor of all. That's why a
lot of stuff we remember from the days of the
ancients is often going to be paraphrased or or shortened.
I want to correct where I'm calling from as a
book by Raymond Carver. The story I was thinking of
is a story called Cathedral. And to your point goal,
(23:38):
I would add that I don't know how many of
those stories are what we would consider mainstream. Everyone in
the US is vaguely aware of the story of Cinderella,
you know what I mean. But I don't think we
can say the same for a lot of short stories.
You know what, maybe there's one we're missing, maybe we
have a blind spot. Let us know, let us know
(23:59):
what uh what you think is a modern fairy tale
or original or or new version of the fairy tale
that everyone knows, or something that in the future maybe
looked at the same way that we look at the
evolution of Cinderella today. Thank you so much for listening.
As always, big shout out to our super producer Casey
(24:19):
Pegram Casey. Just by the way, do you have a
Do you have a favorite fairy tale? Favorite fairy tale? No, no,
you're not moved by no Princess in the Frog not really.
No favorite short story shirt, but not fairy tale. I'm
a big Raymond Carver fan. Two. Oh, nice nold. Do
you have a favorite fairy tale? I've always been pretty
(24:41):
fascinated by a Handling Gretel because of the macabre qualities
of it, you know, with the cannibalistic child eating witch
living in a house made of candy. It's it's sort
of like a classic cautionary tale against talking to strangers. Um,
but it has some nice magical undertones. And I grew
up um. There's an opera version of it by Ingleberd
Humperdink that you know. My mom was an opera saying
(25:02):
we always was singing pieces from that with her students.
And there is a really really creepy and cool claimation
version of that opera I saw when I was a kid,
and that russis out of me. Yeah, I think so, yeah,
I think I've I've seen that or something like it.
I would I would say disney wise. I feel like
I have to differentiate Disney Wise. I was a big
(25:24):
fan of Sleeping Beauty, just because of the moment at
the end where Maleficent turns into this amazing dragon creature.
Also char no box yarn, no bog. I think in Fantasia.
I don't know. It's a tough question, and we want
to hear from you. What are your favorite fairy tales?
What are your favorite variants of fairy tales? Do you
(25:47):
have a particular favorite fairy tale that might be unfamiliar
to us and your fellow listeners. If so, we'd love
to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter. We highly recommend our Facebook group page Ridiculous Historians,
where we found out that we were on broadcast radio.
(26:07):
It's true, Um, what's you know? What was once old
is now new again. By the way, the name of
the artist that did that Handling Gretel thing, which is
called Handling Gretel and opera fantasy is Evald's Dayevskis, And
he was a Russian immigrant and did the work for
that in New York City. It was Russian somehow, right.
(26:28):
Big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Big
thanks to Christopher Hasciotas and research associates Gabe Luzier and
Ryan Barrish. Thank you, Joe. I guess this podcast did
end happily ever after. We'll see you next time. Books.
(26:53):
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