This fairy tale naturally deals with the New Year and the Yule mystery. A sacred branch was used to open up the grave. This branch was Bölþorn, the dead Baldr. When it was watered by the tears of the goddess it grew up and became a mighty tree once again. We know the tears as Bölþorns daughter, Bestla ("the best liquid", "the best water"), who gave life to the gods. We know the same tears of the mound from both Völuspá and the song about Ívarr Ellison. In Völuspá, verse 33;
en Frigg um grét
í Fensölum.
but Frigg wept
in the fenced in hall.
In the song about Ívarr Ellison he turned to his mother when he rode through the castle gate, and said to her that she had to live well. She turned away in tears and was unable to answer him. Cinderella was the goddess who waited in the ancestral ashes and wept for Baldr. The fact that our forebears sometimes and in some places burned the dead to ashes did not change anything in the old religion; the ashes were scattered over or mixed with the soil, so that the dead would come back – like plants from a seed.
Cinderella wanted to go to the dance, but was not allowed to by her stepmother, who poured seeds into the ash(es). This may seem somewhat strange, but we know that in ancient Scandinavia they often placed a pot with seeds or pebbles (symbolizing seeds) next to the heads of the dead when they were placed in the grave. The reason for this was that they did not want malevolent spirits (trolls) to seize the bodies and turn the dead to undead creatures, who wandered around in the night and killed and drank blood from the living. Fortunately the trolls were really stupid, and could not count to more than three. Trolls were drawn to the life force, and also to the life force found in seeds. When seeds (or pebbles looking like seeds) were placed in a pot next to the heads of the dead the trolls would be too busy counting them to be able to possess the dead body. Whenever they counted three seeds/pebbles they had to start over again, and thus were kept busy for all eternity. This gave the dead the opportunity to rest in peace. Cinderella was not a troll, and could therefore easily overcome this obstacle, when she was to impersonate (and thus ”become”) the dead.
She dressed herself up to look like a corpse and went to the tomb, where she met and slept with the prince (sorcerer).
In the fairy tale she didn't sleep with, but instead danced with, the prince. However, dancing in pairs like they do in the fairy tale was originally a symbolic intercourse, where they found out if they got along well physically before they married, without actually having to sleep with each other to find out. So whether they dance or sleep together makes no difference; it symbolizes an intercourse. They dance (sleep together) because she has to teach the prince the secrets of love, for him to be able to know what to do when he marries his princess/queen. The kiss is the sharing of the spirit; the esoteric transfer of knowledge from one individual to another. This is also why we know the runes to be carved on Baldr's tongue.
We know that Cinderella is already a sorceress willing and ready to initiate the prince (after the third dance, when she knows he is worthy and when he has passed her test), because she tells him this by wearing only one shoe. The sorcerers and sorceresses did this and because of that walked with a limp, or they actually hurt their own foot (like Cindarella's step sisters did), to walk with a limp, because they had to in order to impersonate the spirit/god who kills the winter spirits in Ragnarök; Víðarr is known to kill Fenrir/Höðr by placing his foot inside the mouth of the beast and then tearing it to bits and pieces. When he does this he burns his foot, because the wolf breathes fire. Walking with a limp was in other words a proof you were in fact a sorcerer/sorceress and that you had passed the final initiation; by killing the winter spirits on Ragnarök.
From history we know this custom only vaguely, from the witch trials where they credited this limp to being a result of the devil's one horse or goat foot. There was no devil, of course; only a sorcerer with a limp. We also know it from Ancient Greece; one of the Greek tribes there used to walk into battle wearing only one shoe, and this terrified their enemies. Of course it did; their enemies thought they were facing an army of sorcerers! They had even at the time when this was recorded, some time in Antiquity, forgotten exactly why these men had done this, though. Greece had been a religious country for a long time already, and the old traditions were often forgotten even then.
The prince was not fooled by the sorceress' step sisters (who also walked with a limp, after cutting off their own heals), and he took no interest in them at the ball. I cannot tell why this is, but I can assume that this was the case because Cinderella was the youngest and most beautiful, the only one who slept in the ashes of the grave, the only one with a key (the hazel branch), and the only one who wore a white (“elvish”) dress (i. e. the clothes of the dead) and a veil. To be able to see the spirits of nature the sorcerers and sorceresses had to wear some sort of mask – or a veil. Perhaps the sorceress had two assistants inside the grave as well, who played a lesser part in the initiation mystery. Sorceresses often work in groups of three in our culture, but the prince only had to relate to one of them.
There are many such fairy tales, which are obvious descriptions of the New Year and the Yule mystery. The best examples, in addition to Cinderella, are probably the story of The Miller Boy and the Cat, The Two Wanderers, The Poor and the Rich, and of course the stories of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Princess who could not be put to Silence and Mother Holle. Many fairy tales have been converted, and the European god, Heimdallr, Þórr, Óðinn or another, has often been replaced by the Christian god, but this does not change the content of the fairy tales, and we can still learn a lot about the European religion from them.
One thing that we see in many fairy tales is that the bad always get what they deserve. Those who travel to the mound and try to be initiated but who do not belong there, are punished for it. Whether this was an extension of the desire to exclude all others than those of Jarl's kin, or an elaboration of Heimdallr's tasks, we do not know. Heimdallr was assigned to educate Jarl's kin and teach them to be good children. Bad children received only ash; lye to wash themselves with. In the traditional tales they receive soap (lye), but in the fairy tales they were lucky if they even kept their lives. This can be explained by the fact that the fairy tales were long told in a Judeo-Christian world, where concepts such as punishment and shame permeated the Judeo-Christian man's twisted and troubled mind.
Epilogue