In subsequent tellings of the tale around the world, the slippers are made of a myriad of other materials: some are silver, some bedecked with jewels or pearls, some are silk. The slippers are referred to as golden in the Chinese tale. Interestingly, the prominence of a lady’s slipper in the Chinese story can possibly be traced to a south coast of China custom of a hand-sewn shoe being a sort of love token given by a young girl to her intended one. And probably a century earlier in Egypt, although that story of a girl named Rhodopis was apparently more of a stub, as Wikipedia would call it, than a well-developed plot. It seems a Cinderellaesque folk tale has existed in written form in China since 850 A.D. Walt Disney’s Cinderella is merely the version most well known to present-day American audiences. Everybody loves a good Cinderella story, right? I pointedly say a Cinderella story because, in fact, there are hundreds of variations on the Cinderella theme that have sprung from cultures around the globe stretching back over the centuries.
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