The Book of General Ignorance

[Stoneage Dinosaur]

The Book of General Ignorance p251 - 253 discusses what Cinderella's slippers were made from, insisting that Charles Perrault misheard the word vair (squirrel fur) and substituted verre(glass).

Snopes.com states that Perrault could not have misheard vair as verre because vair 'was no longer in use in his time'. This seems extremely doubtful - the word was continuously in use in English until at least 1864.

Glass Slippers

[snopes]

This seems extremely doubtful - the word was continuously in use in English until at least 1864.

Of course, Perrault was writing in French, not English.

- snopes

[Andrew of Ware]

The book 'The Pedant's Return' (subtitled 'Why Things That You Think Are Wrong Are Right' by Andrea Barham takes the side of snopes in this matter. It mentions the original Perrault version of 1697, which has 'glass slipper' in the title.

Ms Barham gives further details. She says that according to G. Ronald Murphy (in 'The owl, the Raven and the Dove') Perrault based his version on an Italian folktale, 'La Gatta Cenerentola ('The Cinder Cat'), but what the slipper is made of is not mentioned.

Ms Barham also mentions (like snopes) the Chinese version where the slipper is made of gold and that the Grimms' version of the tale, 'Ash-Wallower' returns the slipper to its original gold material. Finally she mentions a book by MacLeod Yearsley called 'The Folklore of Fairytales' in which Yearsley says that the myth came about, 'merely on account of the similarity of the words vair and verre.'

(There is a companion volume to 'The Pedant's Return' is 'The Pedant's Revolt' which is subtitled 'Why Things That You Think Are Right Are Wrong. If ever two books were designed for snopesters then these are they.)

[snopes]

I wouldn't put too much stock in Ms. Barham's books. I was browsing The Pedant's Revolt in a bookstore a few months ago and burst out laughing when I noticed one of her explanations was drawn directly from one of our copyright traps. It's not a mistake someone who actually checked primary sources (rather than merely reproducing secondary sources without verification) would have made.

- snopes