The Invisible Slippers

Unless you have actually ever been to and lived in, one of the truly exotic places of the world, you will remain convinced that a modern academic codifying of ancient myths and legends is sufficient to understand how the world of human society works.

Today, Disney will tell us about 'Cinderella' and her glass slippers.

A magical boat, to the magical castle

Aarne-Thompson will tell us that this story falls under that category of the academic codex of world myths to do with the 'oppressed heroine.' Disney bills the story as the fabled lesson of 'the purest heart in a cruel world.'

I can hardly do justice to any of the things I learned growing up among Tamilians from South India... I might be able if you had a digital printer that was able to re-molecularize for you a tamarind soup and a fish murgh-thani.

The ancient Greeks had a story about some beautiful Thracian courtesan actually living at the time of Sappho, whose brother (IE. Sappho's) in fact, ransomed her from some tyrant or other.

And the Italians had a fairy tale about a certain 'Angelica, Pagan Princess of Cathay,' which is the same basic story - lost footwear, beautiful, pure-hearted and so on, falls in love with a prince... And there's plenty of magic in this version - magic fountains from which one can drink and immediately fall in love.

The modern Cinderella story has the heroine wearing glass slippers.

At night, the magic is in full force

If the heroine were a princess of Cathay - which would have meant India as well, at the time - and were she an Indian princess, she might easily have been wearing 'invisible' slippers!

There are many rationalists who like to dismiss Eastern and otherwise certainly quite ancient accounts of the effects and consequences of magical forces, or the employment of magical forces, to create kingdoms, amass wealth, gain an enchanted power over ordinary people's minds - usually, they like to explain things in terms of modern psychology. 

In the end, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, and the brave chargers into mice.

Here endeth today's lesson on the magical kingdom... Do you know or have you heard of any magical kingdoms? Created from out of some dismal, and worthless swamp perhaps?