<HTML>I recently posted a request for anyone who might know the origins of the fairy tale, Cinderella. Perhaps I should have titled the request differently than just Cinderella. I didn't get any response. So here's what I discovered. The story, of course, is Egyptian, which is why I posted it in the first place.
The scholarly take on the story is that it came from China by way of Venitian traders. One of the first, European versions is that of the French writer, Charles Perrault. His story has the slipper made of fur (pantoufle en vair) which was mistranslated by the English as, pantoufle en verre, glass slipper.
This version, which comes from Strabo's Geography, shows a Greek influence, but it is, nevertheless, Egyptian in Origin.
Rhodopis, the famed courtesan of Naucratis, a Greek city in the Nile Delta, was bathing one day when an Eagle swooped down and stole one of her slippers. The eagle carried the shoe to Memphis where it just so happened the king was holding court in the open air and dropped the shoe into his lap.
The king was so taken with the strangeness of the eventand the beauty of Rhodopis' booty that he sent his men into the countryside to look for its owner. They found Rhodopis in Naucratis and brought her back to Memphis, where she became a woman of the king. One version of the story, Strabo writes, has it that Rhodopis was such a great hooker that the king built the third pyramid in her honor. But, that's probably not true.
I would like to hear from anyone on the origins of any fairy tale. (The Princecess and the Pea story, for example, is said to have originated from Sybaris, an ancient city in southern Italy famous for the decadence of its inhabitants.)
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