And when she rose up and the king's son looked at her face he recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, "That is the true bride." The step-mother and the two sisters were horrified and became pale with rage, he, however, took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her. As they passed by the hazel-tree, the two white doves cried—

"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
no blood is in the shoe,
the shoe is not too small for her,
the true bride rides with you."

And when they had cried that, the two came flying down and placed themselves on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there.

When the wedding with the king's son was to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favor with Cinderella and share her good fortune. When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards as they came back the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness all their days.

Here we've got the happy (and violent) ending to the Grimm Brothers' "Cinderella."

Surprise, surprise: the good guys win and the bad guys are punished. And what a punishment it is: the two step-sisters are blinded by those pesky birds. Ouch. "Cinderella" doesn't play around when it comes to teaching children that wickedness is punished and goodness is rewarded.

Even in this last part of the fairytale, magic is everywhere. Those birds that land on Cinderella's shoulder may seem like two regular birds, but as it turns out, they're on a mission: to punish the step-sisters.

The birds' fantastic behavior in this part of the fairytale, of course, is not surprising given that we're in the realm of children's literature here. Fantasy is everywhere.