The Brothers' Grimm version of this tale is very different than the one many of us grew up with. There is no charming little Gus-Gus to lighten the story, and the story itself is much darker than the Disney version most of us grew up with.
The story starts in a way similar to most of the modern versions we know; the girl's mother dies, leaving her father alone. The story implies that he rushed into the next marriage with the wicked stepmother. She had 2 fair daughters, but they were very cruel to their stepsister. The two stepsisters go so far as to nickname their stepsister Cinderella.
Shortly after they christen her Cinderella, her father decides to go to a fair and asks the girls what he should bring back to them. The stepsisters ask for gowns, jewels, and pearls, but Cinderella asks for just the sprig of a tree that brushes her father's hat on his way back home. He brings it back, and Cinderella takes it to her mother's grave and plants it there, watering it with her tears. The tree grew into a great tree.
Soon after, the prince holds a three day festival-ball-thing and declares his intentions to marry one of the ladies in attendance. The stepsisters receive invitations. Cinderella wants to join them, and the stepmother agrees that she can join them, if only she were to dig out all the peas from the ashes of the hearth. Cinderella calls upon the birds to help her, and they make quick work of the task. The stepmother insists that she doesn't have clothing or anything that would be needed to go to the dance, so she tells her that she can't go. Cinderella is persistent though, and through her constant nagging gets the stepmother to set another task with the condition that if she does it she can go to the ball. She has to pick out two more full dishes of peas out of the ashes, so again, Cinderella calls her bird friends to get the job done. They do, but the step mother again refuses to actually take poor Cinderella to the ball. The stepmother and the stepsisters leave for the feast, and they leave Cinderella alone.
She goes to her mother's grave with the tear-tree and begs for a dress, and is given a beautiful gold and silver number with little gold slippers. She goes to the ball, and the prince spends the whole night dancing with her (which was a big breach of etiquette, so it is kind of a big deal that he does it). She then runs out late into the night so that she will be home when her step-family arrives. She is wearing her soot covered clothes once more, so they don't suspect a thing.
The second night quickly comes, and Cinderella goes back to the tree and gets another dress, even finer than the first. It has the same gold slippers. Once again, the prince dances the night away with Cinderella, and again, she runs off at the end of it.
This happens a third time, but this time, in her frantic run away from the revelries, she loses one of her golden shoes. She doesn't go back for it, and the prince is left with just the shoe to find her with.
The prince goes to his father and says he will marry the girl who can fit her foot into the shoe. The stepsisters are sure they will get their feet in, but discover that the shoe is too small for them. The first of them, on advice from her mother, cuts off her big toe and the shoe fits. The prince rides off with her in a carriage, completely oblivious to the blood flowing freely out of her shoe. A little bird flies by, though, and calls for the prince to look at the blood coming out of the shoe.
Only after he gets a hint from the bird does the prince look down and realize that her shoe is bloody. He returns her to her home and lets the other sister try on the shoe. The other sister finds that all but her heel fits in the shoe, so again on advice of her mother, cuts off a part of her heel. The prince is once again completely oblivious. It again takes a bird for him to notice the blood.
He then returns the stepsister to her home, and asks if there is perhaps, another daughter in the house. Before the stepmother can deny the existence of any third girl, Cinderella comes out. She tried the shoe on, and the prince looked at her and realized that this girl is his bride. They ride off into the sunset to get married, and the bird flies by, saying, "prince! take home thy bride, for she is the true one who sits by your side!"
While this is a quite good story, it is very different from the one that most of us remember. There is no fairy godmother. There are no "Bibbity-Bobbity-Boos!" The ball takes place over three nights. The father is... somewhere? for most of the story. He doesn't die, but it is unclear where, exactly, he is for the duration of it. That's a question the adaptations of the story are more than ready to answer.
Next week, we will cover two of the most famous retellings of the story: the Disney ones.
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