The fairy tale “Cinderella”, written by the French writer Charles Perrault at the very end of the 17th century, is one of the most popular literary plots today. Based on her motives, many animated and feature films were shot, a huge number of ‘author’s’ interpretations of varying degrees of creativity were written. Charles Perrault managed to give us the image of a sweet girl with sophisticated glass shoes, and her story proved once again that kindness, mercy and diligence will certainly be rewarded, while laziness and hypocrisy will be punished.

Do you like the fairy tale “Cinderella”?

It is worth noting that stories similar to the fairy tale “Cinderella” existed in different parts of Europe even before Charles Perrault wrote down his work. Long before him, in France, Spain, Ireland and Scotland, Sweden and even in China, a similar plot of a fairy tale already existed. In total, we counted more than a thousand reincarnations from different countries. In addition to the name of the main character, different materials of Cinderella’s shoes appeared in variations of the fairy tale from different countries. The Italian Cinderella preferred to go to the ball in silver shoes, the Venetian heroine went in diamond shoes, but the Chinese one – in shoes made of gold threads. The brothers Grimm gave us a similar story about Cinderella, but with a different, more complex plot (for example, in their interpretation of the fairy tale, the evil sisters cut off their toes and heels, if only the shoe would fit, and the prince chose one of them).

Why was the main character named Cinderella or Popelyushka?

The name of the main character was translated differently in different countries, for example, Сinderella – in England, Aschenputtel – in Germany, in Italy – Cenerentola, Cinderella – in Russia, Popelyushka – in Ukraine. Popelyushka and other variations of all names are some diminutives from the words “ash” and “ashes”. After all, a young girl from a fairy tale walked constantly dirty, slept on ashes, which is why she got her nickname.

And the shoe is not crystal at all …

The main attribute of the fairy tale, the shoe, has already been mentioned several times above, but have you ever wondered how Cinderella could dance at the ball in glass shoes? Of course, in a fairy tale, anything can magically happen. In the tale, Charles Perrault describes his heroine’s shoes as “la pantoufle de verre”, (a glass or crystal slipper). But philologists say that in the tale it was said “la pantoufle de vair” (a shoe made of squirrel fur). In addition, at that time in France, a trendsetter country, the style of squirrel fur shoes was popular, which was introduced into fashion by a woman from the close circle of Louis XIV, just in the 17th century. The two words sound very similar. We will never know whether the writer deliberately embellished his story or made a mistake when writing this word, but in our fairy tales, the translators presented Cinderella with magic crystal shoes as a gift, which added some magic and fabulousness to them.

In turn, we guarantee that our translators will perform any translation correctly, with a reliable and accurate transfer of the information being translated, with high quality and at the highest level.

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