Editing Cinderella (section)

===Ball, ballgown, and curfew===
The number of balls varies, sometimes one, sometimes two, and sometimes three, and neither does the event have to be a ball, with some heroines going to church instead. The [[fairy godmother]] is Perrault's own addition to the tale.<ref>{{cite book|last=Yolen|first=Jane|author-link=Jane Yolen|date=1981|title=Touch Magic|publisher=Philomel Books|page=23|isbn=0-87483-591-7}}</ref> The person who aided Cinderella (Aschenputtel) in the [[Brothers Grimm|Grimms]]'s version is her dead mother. Aschenputtel requests her aid by praying at her grave, on which a tree is growing. Helpful doves roosting in the tree shake down the clothing she needs for the ball. This motif is found in other variants of the tale as well, such as in the Finnish ''[[The Wonderful Birch]]''. Playwright [[James Lapine]] incorporated this motif into the Cinderella plotline of the musical ''[[Into the Woods]]''. [[Giambattista Basile]]'s ''La gatta Cenerentola'' combined them; the Cinderella figure, Zezolla, asks her father to commend her to the Dove of Fairies and ask her to send her something, and she receives a tree that will provide her clothing. Other variants have her helped by talking animals, as in ''[[Katie Woodencloak]]'', ''[[Rushen Coatie]]'', ''[[Bawang Putih Bawang Merah]]'', ''[[The Story of Tam and Cam]]'', or ''[[The Sharp Grey Sheep]]''—these animals often having some connection with her dead mother; in ''[[The Golden Slipper]]'', a fish aids her after she puts it in water. In "The Anklet", it's a magical alabaster pot the girl purchased with her own money that brings her the gowns and the anklets she wears to the ball. [[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.

The midnight curfew is also absent in many versions; Cinderella leaves the ball to get home before her stepmother and stepsisters, or she is simply tired. In the Grimms' version, Aschenputtel slips away when she is tired, hiding on her father's estate in a tree, and then the pigeon coop, to elude her pursuers; her father tries to catch her by chopping them down, but she escapes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Tatar|first=Maria|author-link=Maria Tatar|date=2004|title=The Annotated Brothers Grimm|location=London, New York|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]|page=116|isbn=0-393-05848-4}}</ref>

{{gallery
|mode=packed
|height=200
|File:WalterCrane, Cinderella-15.jpg|Fairy Godmother, Walter Crane, 1897
|File:Public school methods (1913) (14773846224).jpg|Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother by Kate Abelmann, 1913
|File:Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother.jpg|Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother by [[William Henry Margetson]]
|File:Page 92 illustration from Fairy tales of Charles Perrault (Clarke, 1922).png|Ballgown Cinderella, illustration in ''The fairy tales of Charles Perrault'' by Harry Clarke, 1922
|File:Offterdinger Aschenbrodel (2).jpg|Illustration by [[Carl Offterdinger]], late 19th century
|File:Cinderella - Sarah Noble Ives.jpg|''At the ball'', [[Sarah Noble Ives]], {{circa|1912}}
|File:Cinderella 1865 (4).png|At the ball, 1865 edition
|File:Cinderella 1865 (3 redux).png|Hurrying out, 1865 edition
|File:Cinderella-Prinsep.jpg|Cinderella by [[Valentine Cameron Prinsep]], {{circa|1880}}
}}