Reading the otherwise underwhelming The Freemasons: The True Story of the World’s Most Powerful Secret Society by Jasper Ridley, the author uses the folk tale Cinderella when discussing the French nobility. His footnote, however, sent me off track:
But it was not a glass slipper. The slipper was made of quirrel fur, vair. The English translator confused the word with verre (glass) and mistranslated it.
(p63)
While britannica.com does not mention anything about squirrel, Wikipedia does:
Some interpreters, perhaps troubled by sartorial impracticalities, have suggested that Perrault’s “glass slipper” (pantoufle de verre) had been a “squirrel fur slipper” (pantoufle de vair) in some unidentified earlier version of the tale, and that Perrault or one of his sources confused the words.[58] However, most scholars believe the glass slipper was a deliberate piece of poetic invention on Perrault’s part.[59][c] Nabokov has Professor Timofey Pnin assert as fact that “Cendrillon’s shoes were not made of glass but of Russian squirrel fur – vair, in French”.[61]
Others claim that the original Perrault’s 1697 text does in fact use the French for glass slipper. The French Wikipedia page apparently dedicates an entire page to this topic, though I can’t confirm/deny since I don’t read French. Many others have done their own research to reach their theories and conclusions.
Who’s right? Everyone and no one. Shakespeare‘s works are not unequivocal due copying errors, textual variables, editorial challenges. Has anyone claimed to have seen the de facto, unequivocal, correct text of Perrault‘s story in its original French? Very unlikely, otherwise a publicity hound would have been waving it above their head. Therefore alleged scholars can continue debating this topic, with and without additional evidence, perhaps even defining their career about it. Me, I have better things to focus on!
