Silver Slippers

Ever since I read the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, which featured both silver and gold slippers, I fancied a pair of silver slippers for my own. After reading L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whereby Dorothy wears silver shoes* (the ruby slippers were created for the film), I only wished for them more. However, there were a lot of beautiful things I wanted-- not necessarily to own, but to enjoy in some capacity.

LoneStarMa convinced me that my storytelling outfits would not be complete without the silver slippers. I ordered a pair of ballet slippers for myself, and a smaller pair for Lucia. The first night she wore the slippers, Lucia danced around the room, admiring her reflection in the glass door to her room. Now, she only takes the slippers off when she has to. When Philip the Pun last babysat, Lucia attempted to convince her "Uncle Phil" that she needed to wear her silver slippers to bed to keep her feet warm. Since Lucia is a girl who likes to run around barefoot when the rest of us are shivering, Uncle Phil remained unswayed.


*If you'd like to read about the populism theory of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whereby the yellow brick road is the gold standard of currency and the silver shoes represent the "free and unlimited coinage of silver," take out your magnifying glass and click here .

Folklore about Folklore

1) In The Frog Prince, the princess does not kiss the frog to break the enchantment. In utter rage, the princess throws the frog against the wall. What does it mean that violence, and not love, transforms the enchanted frog? And where did we get the idea that “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince?” However, I cannot quarrel with this beer ad that uses the “kissing the frog" motif:

There’s an early XXXX ad called “Castlemaine Princess” floating around as well. It features a naive young woman skipping through the countryside talking to the animals and birds. She finds a frog, kisses it hoping for a prince. What she gets is an Australian sheep shearer. It’s his turn for a wish. She turns into a bottle of Fourex Gold!

2) In Hansel and Gretel, Hansel leaves a trail of stones the first two times his father takes him out into the woods. The third time, Hansel’s father is watching him carefully, so Hansel surreptitiously leaves a trail of crumbs from the bread he had in his pocket. The birds eat the crumbs, and the children can’t track their way home. People will mention leaving a “trail of bread crumbs” to find their way back from a new, unfamiliar place. I rarely object aloud (because that would be annoying and idiosyncratic), but I think, “Please, go with the trail of stones instead. They’re more dependable.”

3) For years, I believed that the English versions of “Cinderella” featured glass slippers because Charles Perrault mistook the French word for “fur” (vair) as the French word for “glass” (verre) . Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s anecdote about this alleged mistranslation in his preface to Anne Sexton’s poems about Grimms’ fairy tales, Transfomations, only solidified my belief. It’s pretty cool when there is folklore about folklore, but I get grouchy when people whom I think know what they're talking about... don't. I include myself in this group of "people"-- I get sick to my stomach whenever I find out that I've passed along erroneous information and am haunted by it until I can fix it. It's not a quality, but a quirk. I irritate people when I refuse to "guess" at a statistic and qualify statements with, "I can't remember my source, so don't quote me until I verify it."

If today's topic sounds familiar to you, that may be because I've written about it before:

*Alien Abductions and Glass Slippers
*This is All a Fairy Tale

Alien Abductions and Glass Slippers

As I was looking for different versions of stories where a trickster steals a cooking pot by convincing the owner that the pot has died, I came across this handy website: Folklore and Mythology
Electronic Texts. I've linked it in the side-panel under Recommended Reading* so that you may find it again. You never know when you're going to need a story about an alien abduction or a legendary case of flatulence.




In other news: after years of believing that Cinderella's glass slippers were actually fur slippers but mistranslated from the French, I discovered that Charles Perrault had meant all along for the slippers to be glass. No kidding, you are probably thinking. Who would wear fur slippers to a French dancing party?

Glass slippers aren't practical, either, but at least they're shiny.

*No longer linked. So it goes.