Were Classic Fairy Tales ‘Cinderella’ And ‘Rapunzel’ Stolen From African Folklore?

In a video posted July 9, Matthew Torres, known as The Story Time Guy on Instagram, accused popular European children’s book author Andrew Lang of appropriating elements of African culture and folklore in his famous stories, such as Cinderella and Rapunzel.

In his brief video, Torres suggested that Lang used real-life stories rooted in the Xhosa people, a Bantu ethnic group native to South Africa, for his version of Cinderella, published in 1889, and Rapunzel, released a year later in 1890. While research on Xhosa folklore is limited with regard to Rapunzel, there appears to be an African tale originating from South Africa and published several years after Lang’s works (1895), which shows clear parallels to Cinderella.

Titled Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe, the famous Xhosa story features a heroine named Nyasha who marries a prince or king and is celebrated for her qualities of selflessness, generosity and kindness.

According to historian William Bascom, the Hausa people of West Africa also had a similar version of the famous children’s tale. In his 1970 article Cinderella in Africa , Bascom noted that a version of Cinderella was prominent among the Hausa dating back to 1911, although it could have emerged earlier.

In the Hausa tale, a girl is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsister, relegated to menial tasks and meager scraps for sustenance. She forms a bond with frogs near a borrow pit, who promise to assist her in attending a festival when her family prohibits her from doing so.

Interestingly, the first documented version of Cinderella may not originate from African folklore but from Chinese culture.

According to historians Peiyi Ou and Xiaohong Zhang, Yeh-Shen is a Chinese tale collected by Duan Chengshi during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) and first recorded in “Youyang zazu.” In the story, the protagonist is persecuted by her stepmother but eventually marries the king with magical aid. She attends a festive event in disguise and loses a shoe, which only fits her small foot. During the 1930s and 1940s, American and Chinese folklorists translated the famous tale into English and introduced it to Western audiences.

As discussed in Torres’ video and highlighted in the prelude of Marian Cox’s version of Cinderella, Lang observed in the 19th century that Cinderella, across various global adaptations, consistently portrayed a protagonist from modest beginnings achieving a favorable marriage through supernatural means. Lang argued that the story’s complex narrative could not have emerged from what he described as a primitive or “shoeless” and “naked” society because of its intricate storyline. It’s extremely insulting, but Torres has one thing right: Lang certainly wasn’t the first to create Cinderella.
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