Cinderella After Midnight!!!

Yes, Halloween is normally associated with children. But adults have been known to enjoy chocolate, too. (The most recent statistics estimate that Americans alone spend roughly $2.6 Billion dollars on Halloween candy),Plus, grown-ups are not averse to wearing a costume and pretending to be someone else, at least for a night. Just like Cinderella at the ball, the idea that you can look and feel like somebody else, even for just a few hours, is pretty magical.

Oddly enough, the Cinderella story has been around as long as Halloween has been celebrated (and long before it went by that name). October 31st certainly didn’t start out as a Party night. Originating with the pre-Christian Celts as Samhain, the night was originally one to acknowledge and appease recently departed souls, by laying out banquet tables of food. Over centuries, the festivities evolved into people dressing up as ghosts or demons themselves, and enjoying the food and drink that used to be left on the banquet table. ‘Souling’ introduced the door-to-door ritual, where well-to-do homeowners would provide pastries known as ‘soul cakes’ to the costumed celebrants who knocked on their door. (And much like Cinderella, the All Souls’ Day cakes may have been the only time during the year when the lower classes would interact with their so-called betters.)

Spoiler alert: the fable of Cinderella goes back just as far as Halloween, and through just as many names as Halloween. Skip right past the Walt Disney version…and the Grimms’ Fairy Tales take as well. There was the French author from the late 1600s…oh, and the Italian writer with basically the same tale sixty years later. But, it turns out that Cinderella had been losing her slipper for centuries by then.

Rewind all the way back to first century B.C. Greece. In this case, Cinderella is named Rhodopis. And her slipper doesn’t fall off at a midnight ball, but is snatched by an eagle while she is bathing. The eagle drops it into the king’s lap in Memphis. The king dispatches his armies to locate the woman behind such a magic occurrence. Through different variations, and different names, the story appears, in Asia as well as Europe.

But why did the story of the peasant girl with the evil sisters and the magic prince persist for TWO Millenia? Quite possibly, because through most of that time, the idea of improving your life could only happen IN a fable. For all the stresses of the 21st century, we are historically fortunate to live in a society where we’re not simply relying on a magical prince or miracle to permit us to live a better life. People can dream, and hope…and not feel automatically sentenced to live at the same status as the last six generations of their family.

With heightened expectations, though, come possible disappointments. Misfortunes and unexpected circumstances can strike anyone, at any time. We all have the capability to remind people suffering adversity that it isn’t a lifetime sentence, and that with assistance, they can truly transform back to where they want to be…and even higher. All without a magic prince, or a slipper falling from the sky.



Compassion can do the magic...and it has. Let Link Charity help you make that magic happen, in whatever form or direction means the most to you. Contact us today. (And treat yourself to your own kind of ‘soul cake’.)