Just to start: I am working with the plotline of the entire book. Spoilers ahead.  

 

It is quite obvious that the two main influences on Ash are the story of Cinderella and generalities of Gaelic faerie stories. What I think is particularly notable, however, is how the two interact: where the departure of one leads to the involvement of the other, leaving Lo’s own narration to fill in the gaps.

 

First of all, it is important to note that Lo uses a mixture of the Disney fairy tale we are well acquainted with  – and perhaps even the lesser known spinoffs, to a certain extent** – as well as the original European Cinderella story. How do these two differ? Well, there were no fairies of any sort in the original story. Instead, whenever Cinderella is upset, she goes to visit her mother’s grave (which a tree grows out of/behind) and cries; her mother, upset at her daughter’s tears (nevermind that she is dead), magically creates solutions to her daughter’s problems. As such, when her daughter desires to go to the three-day ball and is forbidden to go, her mother creates three mystifying dresses (one per visit). Specific details differ, some saying she spun dresses of sunrise and moonlight, others of silver and gold; in the end, the dresses are extremely precious and nigh irreplicable. Cinderella goes to the ball, dances with the prince, leaves at midnight to arrive home before her stepmother/sisters, etc etc. The next section of the tale is very similar to the Disney version, only differing when on the third night, Prince uses pine pitch to trap Cinderella on the stairs, forcing her to leave behind her shoes. The two narratives align in the search for the shoe wearer, where they finally find Cinderella (after her stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to attempt to fit into the shoes), the two get married and live happily ever after, the end. Oh, and her mother sends birds to pick out Cinderella’s stepsisters’ eyes during the wedding as reparations for the cruelty they wrought upon her daughter. The important thing is that it is due to her mother’s magic, and routine visits to her grave, that Cinderella is able to go to the ball and escape her hellish life.

 

Ash clearly replicates portions of this story in the details of Lo’s own narration. Ash’s mother’s magic leads to the introduction of Sidhean as a major character  – without her curse, he would not be interested in Ash’s safety, health, and relative happiness. The visitation of the grave brings Sidhean into Ash’s life, thus her dead mother prompts the wish-granting but without causing it herself. Essentially, Ash’s mother’s magic protects her from the damage of the fae until she is old enough to handle it herself, again with Sidhean’s love for her and possessiveness (because faeries are possessive). Smaller, more inconsequential details arise as well, such as the multiple-day ball. However, Lo’s use of Sidhean, drawn out of a Disney influence, instead of the mother’s grave as the “Mentor” and gift-giver required Lo to introduce some form of folklore to avoid Disneyfying her work and leaving gaps in the flow of the story. That is where the Gaelic influences step in.

 

The most important pieces of Gaelic faerie lore are:

1. Fae are tricky, immortal, immoral (by human standards) creatures.
2. Fae live in the forest; forests are then dangerous and treacherous, so one must be on guard while travelling and don’t go into fairy rings. Also stay on the path and do not wander.
3. Fae are, in essence, deathly allergic to iron.
4. Fae cannot lie, but they can manipulate the truth.
5. Do. Not. Eat. Faerie. Food. Like Persephone but worse, you can never leave the “Underworld” (Fae land, often called Under-The-Hill) if you do.
6. Names are important and binding. If you know a faerie’s True Name, you can force them to do your will.
7. BARGAINS. Fae use bargains and promises to trap humans into deals, under the guise of helping the desperate.
8. Changelings are a thing, but mostly when a particularly beautiful girl or handsome boy is born. Generally not a problem. Side rant, this also is a folklore cultural stand-in/explanation for people with developmental disorders, such as autism.

Faeries are not malevolent, just chaotic neutral. They are not human, will never be human, and are generally immortal so silly little things like human morals and fear of death will not manipulate the fae into doing what you want. Only power, through bargaining and knowledge of Names, will allow you to receive their aid.

 

How do we see these influencing Ash? Another quick list:

 

• The forest is frightening and dangerous, fairy rings are used to entice humans, there is an acknowledgement not to wander and not to enter unless you know what you’re doing.

• The deathly allergy to iron doesn’t actively appear much in Ash, but was visible through the fae’s use of silver-wrought items instead of iron.

• Sidhean can’t lie to Ash and instead uses push-offs and platitudes to avoid telling her the truth for the majority of the novel.

• There are verbatim warnings not to eat the food or drink the wine.

• Sidhean refuses to give his True Name to Ash, cleverly saying she can ‘call him’ Sidhean  – which means fairy or fairy hill in Gaelic  – so she avoids learning his True Name, while introducing an easter egg for readers.

• Sidhean bargains with Ash multiple times in the story: for the dresses and fey-horses, for the replacement-Ash at the house, for the safe returns home from the forest, and even for only a single fae night together instead of a lifetime.

• There was the story of the changeling princess. Not really relevant to Ash’s life and story.

The interesting part of the intricate usages of these Gaelic criteria for faeries is where Lo decides to not use them: the use of iron as a threat or knowledge of Sidhean’s True Name would have made Ash’s bargaining easier or unnecessary, and the effects of her drinking faerie wine were not as harsh as anticipated (she is not trapped forever). So while Sidhean and Gaelic folklore fill in spaces left by the following of the traditional Cinderella tale, Lo purposely crafts spaces in which the Cinderella story reciprocates.

 

Lo then uses the remaining gaps in the narrative to write her own story; one where Ash is not  compliant out of kindness, but of duty and fear; one where she is aimless and not entirely in touch with the society around her, as evident in interactions with her stepsisters (she didn’t realize marriage is basically their only option) and other staff members (she was unaware of how to participate in interpersonal interactions/relationships); one where Ash does not fall in love with the prince, but the huntress; one where love does not suddenly appear at a ball, but grows in previous interactions; one where even the antagonists have character developments to be morally grey instead of wholly black.

 

What I am trying to say is that Malinda Lo cleverly crafted a world that veers away from the expected tales of both Cinderella  – disney version or not – and Gaelic folklore to create a space where they mingle and create a new story with additives of Lo’s own. You can clearly pick apart where the two influences meet and where they leave gaps for Lo to fill in, and you can clearly trace the traditions she followed. But ultimately, Lo worldbuilt a society entirely her own, without homophobia, where the characters are arguably Asiatic in appearance*** yet interact in Gaelic realms of folklore and reimagine the story of Cinderella.

 

** In one Cinderella spinoff by Disney, Anastasia (the younger stepsister) quasi-befriends Cinderella, is kind to her where her mother and sister are cruel, and falls in love with a baker and marries him. She and Cinderella become friends as Cinderella advises her on how to show interest in the baker and how to navigate her love for him and her mother’s expectations. A vein of this arguably appears in Ash, where Clara is somewhat kind to Ash, explains why her sister and mother hate Ash, explains why she is looking for marriage, and compliments Ash.

 

*** as per her blog, Malinda Lo personally imagines her characters as Asian (but in a world where Asia doesn’t technically exist): https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2010/03/asianness-or-the-lack-thereof-in-ash