FUR SHOES AND GLASS SLIPPERS We all know the story of Cinderella. She’s the one who gets a gown and glass slippers from her fairy godmother. No, wait. The shoes are made of fur and she’s gifted them by a tree. Or maybe the gown’s from her dead mother who is also a tree? She goes to a ball. She goes to three balls. Her stepsisters cut off parts of their feet… or maybe they just don’t get to marry a prince, which is totally on the same consequence level. And hey, what about the talking mice? Turns out Cinderella isn’t actually the
BY EMMA SAVANT
whole story. It’s just one of many, many stories, all classified under the Aarne– Thompson–Uther (ATU) folktale type 510A. Yes, fairy tales have their very own classification systems, and they are awesome. There are two major indices used by people who study fairy tales and folklore: the Aarne–Thompson Tale Type Index (first published in 1910 and cataloged by AT or AaTh numbers) and the Aarne–Thompson–Uther classification system (developed in 2004 and cataloged by ATU numbers). Both classification systems group fairy tales and folk tales into a tree that con-
