The still-popular story of Cinderella continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media.

Herodotus, some five centuries before Strabo, records a popular legend about a possibly related courtesan named Rhodopis in his Histories,[9]: 27  claiming that she came from Thrace, was the slave of Iadmon of Samos and a fellow-slave of the story-teller Aesop, was taken to Egypt in the time of Pharaoh Amasis, and freed there for a large sum by Charaxus of Mytilene, brother of Sappho the lyric poet.

Her story is told in Aelian's Varia Storia: lost her mother in early childhood and raised by her father, Aspasia, despite living in poverty, has dreamt of meeting a noble man.

[13][14] The twelfth-century lai of Le Fresne ("The Ash-Tree Girl"), retold by Marie de France, is a variant of the "Cinderella" story[9]: 41  in which a wealthy noblewoman abandons her infant daughter at the base of an ash tree outside a nunnery with a ring and brocade as tokens of her identity[9]: 41  because she is one of twin sisters[9]: 41 —the mother fears that she will be accused of infidelity[9]: 41  (according to popular belief, twins were evidence of two different fathers).

When the Prince ate the biscuits he found the gifts he had given to the mysterious Princess and soon realized the huge mistake he had made of ignoring Ċiklemfusa because of her poor looks.

[19] Her stepmother and half-sister kill the fish, but Ye Xian finds the bones, which are magical, and they help her dress appropriately for a local Festival, including a very light golden shoe.

Originating from Korea, Kongjwi and Patjwi is a tale similar to Disney's Cinderella, with two distinguishing characteristics: the degree of violence and the plot's continuance past the marriage to the prince charming.

The violent degree of the punishments stems from the increased violence (starvation, beating, betrayal, and ultimately murder) that Kongjwi suffered compared to the abuses Disney's Cinderella went through.

20th century folktale collector Kenichi Mizusawa published an analysis of Japanese variants of Cinderella, separating them into two types: "Nukabuku, Komebuku" (about rival step-sisters) and "Ubagawa" (about the heroine's disguise).

[34] The story itself was set in the Kingdom of Naples, at that time the most important political and cultural center of Southern Italy and among the most influential capitals in Europe, and written in the Neapolitan dialect.

Plot: One of the most popular versions of Cinderella was written in French by Charles Perrault in 1697, under the name Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre.

[38] However, the second moral of the story mitigates the first one and reveals the criticism that Perrault is aiming at: That "without doubt it is a great advantage to have intelligence, courage, good breeding, and common sense.

This version is much more violent than that of Charles Perrault and Disney, in that Cinderella's father has not died and the two stepsisters mutilate their feet to fit in the golden slipper.

There is no fairy godmother in this version of the Brothers Grimm, but rather help comes from a wishing tree, which the heroine had planted on her deceased mother's grave, when she recites a certain chant.

In the second edition of their collection (1819), the Brothers Grimm supplemented the original 1812 version with a coda in which the two stepsisters suffer a terrible punishment by the princess Cinderella for their cruelty.

[42] A wealthy gentleman's wife falls gravely ill, and as she lies on her deathbed, she calls for her only daughter, and tells her to remain good and kind, as God would protect her.

The father came home ahead of time and the prince asks him to chop the pigeon coop down, but Aschenputtel has already escaped from the back, to the graveyard to the hazel tree to return her fine clothes.

The gentleman tells him that his dead wife left a "dirty little Cinderella" in the house, omitting to mention that she is his own daughter, and that she is too filthy to be seen, but the prince asks him to let her try on the slipper.

Aschenputtel appears after washing clean her face and hands, and when she puts on the slipper, which fitted her like a glove, the prince recognizes her as the stranger with whom he has danced at the festival, even before trying it.

While passing the hazel tree the two magic doves from heaven declare Aschenputtel as the true bride of the prince, and remained on her shoulders, one on the left and the other on the right.

It is their last chance of redemption, but since they are desperate to win the new princess' affections, they don't give up and go through the ceremony, so when the wedding comes to an end, and Aschenputtel and her beloved prince march out of the church, her doves fly again, promptly striking the remaining eyes of the two evil stepsisters blind, a truly awful comeuppance they have to endure.

[45] Joseph Jacobs has attempted to reconstruct the original tale as The Cinder Maid by comparing the common features among hundreds of variants collected across Europe.

Others of this type include The Sharp Grey Sheep; The Golden Slipper; The Story of Tam and Cam; Rushen Coatie; The Wonderful Birch; Fair, Brown and Trembling; and Katie Woodencloak.

[50] Professor Gražina Skabeikytė-Kazlauskienė recognizes that the fish, the cow, even a female dog (in other variants), these animals represent "the [heroine's] mother's legacy".

Gioachino Rossini, having agreed to do an opera based on Cinderella if he could omit all magical elements, wrote La Cenerentola, in which she was aided by Alidoro, a philosopher and formerly the Prince's tutor.

[60][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".

However, it included notable clown Joseph Grimaldi playing the part of a servant called Pedro, the antecedent of today's character Buttons.

[67] In 1820 Harlequin and Cinderella at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden had much of the modern story (taken from the opera La Cenerentola) by Rossini, but was a Harlequinade, again featuring Grimaldi.

[67] However, it was the conversion of this via burlesque and rhyming couplets by Henry Byron that led to what was effectively the modern pantomime in both story and style at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1860: Cinderella!

[67] In the traditional pantomime version, the opening scene takes place in a forest with a hunt in progress; here, Cinderella first meets Prince Charming and his "right-hand man" Dandini, whose name and character come from Gioachino Rossini's opera (La Cenerentola).