Annotated Fairy Tales: Two Cinderellas

[ursulav]

Hey, gang!

Time for yet another installment of Ursula Comments On Peculiar Fairy Tales. This time, since they’re both short, we’re doing two versions of Cinderella. One is Greek and one is from Georgia (Not the one with Atlanta.) They both have some very odd moments, but since neither is very long, it’d be a short commentary of either one on their

Comments

[shatterstripes]

Holy cow I am like three paragraphs into "Saddleslut". Holy fuck.

The whole thing really feels like a bad machine translation of idioms to me.

[azurelunatic]

No wine for the stepmother!

[tabbyclaw]

I swear, I can hear Kevin yelling at you that you're not allowed to get a flock of heirloom needle-turkeys.

[vr_trakowski]

Oh, definitely. The pinfeathers are something awful.

[pickledginger]

Might be handy for a quilter.

[stasia]

Or an embroiderer!

Now I want one.

Stasia

[ysabet]

**blinkblink** Was it required of storytellers that they eat whatever the local equivalent of Jimson Weed was first? I mean, Saddleslut? Oracular cow? Saddles covered in chicken-shit (me, I would've sat on the floor, for gods' sakes, it had to be more sanitary.) I have to admit that I was struck by the whole fumigating-the-bones-with-incense and moving them elsewhere; I've been reading a lot on bronze and stone-age funerary rites lately, and SO many cultures buried their dead until the flesh rotted off, then apparently dug up the bones, cleaned them, occasionally dusted them with colors (cinnabar, etc.) and then moved them elsewhere-- this made me wonder just how old the first story was. Waving the smoke of burning herbs at them (or suspending them in the smoke) wouldn't be odd at all-- you have the religious/magical factor, and you've also got the sanitary factor of preserving the bones with smoke and making 'em smell one hell of a lot better. Just a thought.

[contradictacat]

I can't be the only person who read "Royal Diver" and heard the beginnings of a Dio filk in there, can I?

[greyduck]

...well, not anymore you aren't.

*snerk*