From the day we’re old enough to recognize what a tiara is, we dream of having one on our heads with the echoes of “Long live the queen!” resounding through our great hall. Fortunately for us, although this is not a very realistic goal we have our Disney princesses to live vicariously through. From Mulan and Cinderella to Snow White and others, we see them with the same reverence that we see a religious artifact. Little do we realize, behind the glory lies a real person. Although Disney only claims that Pocahontas was based off a real person, the legends (and the living beings behind them) go back all the way to the 6th century BC.
1. Mulan
Disney does claim that this princess was based on the poem “The Ballad of Mulan” by Han H. Frankel written in 6th century AD. The poem reads, “Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed, Traveling together for twelve years, They didn’t know Mulan was a girl” (Frankel).
This poem, however, has real origins.
Legend has it that this poem (and therefore our Mulan) was based on an ancient Chinese woman named Lady Fa Hao, a great female general. She is responsible for orchestrating the first recorded large scale ambush in Chinese history (and all you fellow history buffs know Chinese history goes way back). The ambush was composed of about 13 thousand soldiers. We know that the stories surrounding her existence are real because her burial chamber was discovered in 1976. Although she was never named princess or empress, she lived and died like a true, BA woman.
2. Cinderella
Everyone’s favorite, original princess could also have been a very real person. Rhodopis was a Greek slave pre-6th century that lived a life very similar to our Cinderella.
Basically, dear Rhodopis was a slave, and a wealthy merchant named Charaxus came along and bought and freed her after he fell in love. This is about as much information as the Greek story gives us. However, Rhodopis’ story was adapted into an Egyptian version in the 1st century by Strabo.
Cinderella (Rhodopis) was taken by pirates to Egypt from Greece where she became a slave to a wealthy Egyptian. As far as slave owners go, this guy was really laid back and as long as everything was cleaned he let them have their time. Rhodopis was disliked by the Egyptian slaves because she was a Grecian, and looked different, where the rest of them were from Egypt.
Cinderella spent her time singing and dancing with her animal friends, most famously the hippo, and one day was heard by her master. He graced her with beautiful golden and leather shoes, but soon after a great bird (Horus, the god, who is often depicted as a bird) stole away one of her shoes and dropped it into the Pharaoh’s lap. Long story short, he saw it as destiny and went to find his beautiful maiden and they lived happily ever after.
The moral of the story is that there is still hope for us commoners. Whether it be the princess of a household, workplace, or school, we are all princesses at heart, but now we can just have a little more hope of getting the real crown. Keep on dreaming!
