Shoesday - Golden slippers and magical fish

Throughout human history, one woman has done more to promote the glorious shoe than any other. For centuries, children around the globe have heard her story and grown up often forgetting the great blessing that comes from a perfectly fitted, custom made party shoe.

What they don’t know is that cinderalla was Chinese. She went by the name of Yeh-shen and her story was first recorded by Tuan Ch'eng-shih in the middle of the ninth century A.D. Back then, her slippers were gold and her guardian was a magical fish. All the same, she marries the prince in the end and escapes persecution at the hands of her step-family, thanks to the beautiful shoes that caused her to be recognized for her true worth.

A little later another written version of the story comes from Charles Perrault in his Contes de ma Mere L'Oye in 1697. From this version, we received the fairy godmother, the pumpkin carriage, the animal servants, and the famed glass slippers. Of course, glass shoes are a completely ridiculous figment of colourful fiction as any serious shoe fan will hypothesize and Perrault's version has a more humane ending than many versions of the tale with Cinderella finding husbands for her sisters. The sisters are rightly left poor, blind, maimed, or even dead in many versions of the tale.

The Grimm Brothers' version, known as Aschenputtel, or Ash Girl, does not have a fairy godmother. The heroine plants a tree on her mother's grave from which all of the magical help appears in the form of a white dove and gifts. At the end, the stepsisters' eyes are pecked by birds from the tree to punish them for their cruelty.

In modern times, the adventures of Yeh-shen has inspired countless picture books, musicals, novels, and dreams of little girls and girlie boys. Versions of the tale have been collected and printed from Vietnam, Italy, Egypt and the Algonquin Indians, to name a few. Hail to the shoe!