Nightfalls
Wing
Registered User
(4/10/03 9:23 am)
|
Does anyone know the fairy tale "Mrs. Holly"
Hi, I'm kinda new here so I'll get right to the point. I'm attempting to track down information on a certain fairy tale for a project I'm doing in my Folklore Studies class.
I'm wondering if anyone out there can help me find links or sites that have summaries and/or full text versions of a fairy tale that (I've seen) most often referred to as "Mrs. Holly". I chose this story because I have an old animated version of it on tape called "Once Upon a Time" but aside from that version I've only found one other, and I'm sure (hoping, really) that there are, in fact, other versions out there of this tale.
Just to give a brief summary of it, "Mrs. Holly" is a Cinderella-esqe tale where a widower with a daughter marries a woman with a daughter of her own and these two promptly wittle down the family fortune and force the widower's daughter to become a servant to them. One day, the prince of the kingdom comes across the widower's daughter and promptly falls in love. The two versions I've found have him giving her a garnet stone necklace or some other piece of jewelry as a promise that he will marry her. When the woman's daughter sees the necklace, she becomes jealous and throws the necklace into the well (or pond, or river) and when she dives in to retrieve it the wodower's daughter is transported to the world of Mrs. Holly. Mrs. Holly tests her to see if she's worthy of her gifts and when the widower's daughter proves herself Mrs. Holly sends her back with the garnet stone. When she tells her family what happened, the woman's daughter goes and dives into the river herself to see if Mrs. Holly will give her gifts. However, since the girl is selfish and lazy, Mrs. Holly sends her back with nothing. The prince is riding by the family's house when he sees his beloved, and when the widower's daughter and the woman's daughter stand next to each other they recieve their gifts from Mrs. Holly---the widower's daughter is dressed in finery to reflect her goodness and the woman's daughter is drenched in pitch. The prince and the widower's daughter marry and they live happily ever after.
Does this tale sound familiar to anyone? If so, could you please tell me from where and if and where I can find a copy myself?
Thanks for your time^^
|
