Aschenputtel

Cinderella

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A rich man's dying wife tells their only daughter to stay good and pious. The man marries again, and the stepmother's two daughters, beautiful but black of heart, make the girl a kitchen maid who sleeps in the ashes: Aschenputtel. She asks her father for the first twig that knocks his hat off, plants it on her mother's grave, and it grows into a hazel tree where a white bird grants her wishes. When the king holds a three-day feast so his son can choose a bride, the stepmother twice sets her to pick lentils out of the ashes (the doves do it for her) and still leaves her at home. The tree gives her a gown of gold and silver; three nights she dances only with the prince and escapes him, through the dovecote, up the pear tree, and the third time loses a golden slipper on the pitch-smeared stairs. The stepsisters cut off a toe and a heel to fit the shoe, but the doves on the hazel tree call out the blood; the shoe fits Aschenputtel, the prince takes her home as his bride, and at the wedding the doves peck out the false sisters' eyes.

Retold from Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 1, 7. Auflage (Ausgabe letzter Hand, 1857), KHM 21 by Brüder Grimm (public domain).