Aschenputtel

Aschenputtel or Cinderella exists in many guises across Europe. In several of the versions, Aschenputtel’s stepmother makes her perform impossible tasks before she would be able to ‘go to the ball’. One of these was to sort lentils from the ashes of the fire within two hours.

Aschenputtel begged and begged her stepmother to let her go to the ball. Eventually, her stepmother, emptying a bowl of lentils into the ashes of the hearth, said she could go if she could sort the lentils from the ashes within two hours. Aschenputtel called upon the birds and they picked all the lentils out, so she went to her stepmother, and told her that she had finished the sorting task. But her stepmother repeated her demand and doubled the difficulty. She emptied two bowls of lentils into the ashes and told Aschenputtel to sort them within an hour and then she could go to the ball.

I became interested in the ‘impossible’ or durational tasks that characters in fairy-tales and folklore would have to undertake in order to progress in a story’s narrative.

In this performance of 2002 at Dartington College of Arts, I emptied two bowls of lentils into the ashes of the hearth and had one hour to sort them.

I did not go to the ball.

The action of sitting in the hearth is reminiscent of the activities of the Vestals in Roman mythology. Six pre-adolescent girls were chosen to maintain the sacred fire in Vesta’s Temple. Despite Ashiepattles position amongst the ashes being perceived as degrading and degenerate this connection reveals that position to have been one of great honour. The hearth was, after all, at the centre of the home. She was the keeper of the fire.

The response from the audience was varied but very interesting. Two people spotted the Cinderella reference but were also reminded of news footage from Somalia: women picking the grain from the earth. Another person saw ritual and references to witchcraft especially as it was a full moon that night. Someone else saw the action as playing with the minuscule and temporality.

The interest in the task as part of the Folkloric narrative can also be seen in the Mercian Enactment Society performance as Betty’s Grave – 2006