Glass Slippers

When the Brothers Grimm set out to collect their fairy tales, their intention was actually to show an oral tradition of folklore stretching back into history. They wanted to illustrate the deep roots of German culture which, incidentally is one of the reasons we have Grimm’s Law of phonetics, because in addition to being college professors, they were also German nationalists.

Side note: this is happening around 1812 like the overture which is all before the unification of Germany.

In the course of their collecting of folktales in the oral tradition (very important that part is) they came across the story of Cinderella.

Here’s where it gets p-funky.

They weren’t actually being told the story of Cinderella as much as they were being re-told the story of Cindrillon as written by Charles Perrault over a century earlier.

Cindrillon wears “souliers du vair” which is “slippers of vair.” Vair is the same word in French as it is in English and it is a type of squirrel fur.

There is no German word “vair.”

So, remember this is in the oral tradition, being unfamiliar with this fairly unusual word, the German people heard “souliers du verre,” as in “une verre du lait” a glass of milk.

And that is why Cinderella wears glass slippers.

And now you know something new.

PS: Cinderella was also originally titled “Cindrillon et Les Souers Cannibal” or “Cinderella and the Cannibal Sisters” in case you ever wondered where her father was in that whole mess.