Cinderella and the ashlads

I once wrote an analysis of the ashlad folktales of Scandinavia that suggested their popularity had something to do with the international rivalry between Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, more specifically that the tales had a wider distribution in Norway because Norwegians saw themselves as the youngest brother of three, the one everyone else thought should just be mucking around in the ash, when in fact he was destined to marry a princess. 

I can offer up no similar explanation for why the Cinderalla story should be popular in the United States, but of all the Disney princesses, Cinderella is the most quintessential, I think. She is afterall the star at the end of the electric light parade, and well anyhow, she was always my favorite.

Folkloristically, the ashlad tales of Norway and the Cinderella story have a lot of structural similarities, and they even share motifs such as the magical helpers. Cinderella's glass slipper though does not find an exact parallel in the ashlad stories, though glass shoes and other types of shoes show up in many other folktales.

Anyhow, I was just thinking tonight about how the element that perhaps makes the Cinderella story compelling to a US audience is the way the prince declares he will marry whomever fits that slipper. He does not know her name, all he knows is how nice it felt to dance beside her. And the material thing of the glass slipper becomes the embodiment of what kind of person she is, her grace and fragility. The duke has to try the slipper on every young maiden in the kingdom in a mad search for the prince's love.

The anxiety at the end of the tale I think from a US consumer point of view is the anxiety of the mass produced, the anxiety of the one-size fits all. The prince's declaration to marry whomever fits that slipper seems especially rash and dangerous in that context, but thankfully, Cinderella's glass slipper is custom fit exactly to her foot.

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