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Author
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Comment
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Jan
Unregistered User
(3/16/05 5:53 pm)
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seeking cat tutor tale
Hello --
I'm looking for a rather obscure fairy tale about a princess who had a cat for a tutor. I read this when I was about 10 in anthology of fairy tales about cats and/or princesses, I forget which. Era: late 60s/early 70s. She is exiled (I forget exactly why, but I think for her own protection against a curse) to a tower by the sea with her cat tutor. The only way out of the tower is for her to marry her true love, who is supposed to come over the sea to rescue her. What will happen to the poor sailors who happen to come by and who aren't my true love? she asks the tutor. Their ships will be shipwrecked, the cat explains. The princess is distraught. She does not want to be the cause of the death of all those poor sailors. So every night she puts out the lantern that will lead the ships toward her tower and weeps copious tears that magically turn to pearls. Every morning the cat sweeps up all the pearls and puts them away somewhere. Eventually, the princess grows old and finally doesn't manage to stay awake long enough to put out the lantern to keep the ships away. Her true love, now also an old man, who has never stopped trying to get to her tower, of course, but has been lacking a guiding light, naturally, finally makes harbor and finds his way to the tower. They have a tearful happy meeting, delighted to have found each other at last, but, um, oh dear, it's a bit late for happily ever after, isn't it? Voila-- cat tutor to the rescue. The cat explains their faithfulness will be rewarded -- the cat makes a pile of the pearls and sets them on fire and the two pass through the magical pyre and come out young again on the other side -- to live happily ever after. It's a bizarre tale, I admit, but for some reason I always loved that peculiar delayed happy ending and I've been searching for clues to its origins forever.
Note: It is *not* the story of The White Cat, although I admit it has overlapping elements with that and with Rapunzel and with a number of other better-known tales.
Note: It is *not* the story of the salt princess or whatever you want to call the princess who compared her father the king to salt and got exiled and shed tears of pearl until a prince finds her in the forest -- although it could well have been based on/related to that.
I am very much hoping it did *not* appear in Segur's Cats book because that is so rare and expensive that no one even on this board seems to own a copy. No, I'm pretty sure it was in a much more common anthology of cat tales. I know it was shelved in the fairy tale anthology section of the children's room in the public library -- as if that helps, since those sections have grown by leaps and bounds since I was 10. : )
I am very sorry that I have just now discovered this list
-- I don't usually post to such things, but this is by far the most relevant set of strings I've ever seen online to most of my passions about fairy tales. Thanks for being!
--Jan
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Jess
Unregistered User
(3/17/05 12:15 am)
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Have you check all of the Andrew Lang stories
This sound vaguely familiar, but it could be that it has elements of other tales. I wonder if it isn't in one of the lesser known Andrew Lang "color" fairy books? If you haven't already checked, you can find them all on-line.
Jess
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redtriskell
Registered User
(3/17/05 11:54 pm)
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Re: Have you check all of the Andrew Lang stories
I have no idea the story you are searching for, but it sounds really neat. If you locate it, will you please post so I can read it for myself?
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Jess
Unregistered User
(3/18/05 2:09 am)
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I scanned the index of Segur
and didn't see anything that looked like it might be it there. I also started reviewing some the other things I had read over the past couple of years, but nothing struck me as this story (or some rendition of it). Still, it sounds vaguely familiar.
There was an anthology I used to read over and over in the early 1970's with a tree on the inside of the cover. It seems like the kind of tale I might of read in there, but I have yet to identify that book.
I also did a quick google on some relevant words, but was unable to find it.
Here are some thoughts - it sounds more literary. Possibly a take off of some French tales. There is a French tale (and I need to look it up) that has a maiden in a tower and a bird messenger. I only read it once, but there are some similarities to your story.
Oh and I don't know why, but it reminds me of the Flying Dutchman, but now I am way off track. lol
I am on a mission now.
Jess
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Jan
Unregistered User
(3/18/05 8:49 am)
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thanks for help with this quest
Hi, all --
Thanks for all the kind suggestions. Just to double-check myself, I did go through the rainbow fairy books' tables of contents and the story is not in there, although its style is definitely literary, as you pointed out.
I appreciate others keeping an eye out for it as I've been looking for many years. Lloyd Alexander did a collection of cat tales that I thought for years contained it and then when I finally got a copy of that, it wasn't in there, so it was another dead end. I've tried all kinds of key word combinations on Google from time to time -- methinks fairy tale texts are just not that well-keyworded as some other more modern texts. Will certainly post if I ever see it again. Cheers --Jan
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dlee10
Registered User
(3/18/05 1:41 pm)
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Re: thanks for help with this quest
If that isn't a "real" tale someone should write it! I would love to read it.
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adancingprincess
Registered User
(3/18/05 2:02 pm)
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the salt princess
Dear Jan,
I was intrigued by your mention of the "salt princess" tale and was wondering if you could tell me a little more about it/ where to find it on the internet. Is it related to Cap O'Rushes, in which the princess tells her father she loves him as much as meat loves salt? (I know it's not the same story, because Cap O'Rushes has no pearl tears in it).
Sorry, I don't know anything about the cat tutor tale.
-Stephanie
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Jan
Unregistered User
(3/18/05 5:15 pm)
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Cap of Rushes
Stepahanie:
Yes, I think the version I know of the salt princess is a variant on Cap of Rushes. In the Grimms story "The Goose Girl at the Well," the exiled princess sheds tears of pearl. So many motifs in the cat&princess story overlap with others, it's hard for me to decide which fairy tales it may be considered a variant of -- I started off looking up Rapunzel variations because I thought it had a lot in common with the princess in the tower stories, but it is most likely a more modern fairy tale stitched together from many traditional themes. --Jan
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(3/27/05 4:15 am)
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searched Lang
I did a search at Laura Gibbs's Lang site, for "cat tutor tears pearls tower sea" and got this: "No pages found that include all search words. Found 280 items with one or more search words". None of those seem to be it.
The event sounds more likely to happen in a Cabinet des Fees story than in Grimm's sort, but the Cabinet des Fees plots are longer and more complicated than the plot you described. I expect you may be right about it being a modern story, perhaps using an event from an old source.
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Helen
J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(3/27/05 5:30 pm)
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Re: searched Lang
The tale involving the princess who tells her father that she love
him more then salt is called "Love Like Salt" (AT 923),
and the princess immured in a tower visited by a bird is "The
Prince as Bird" (AT 432). But the tale that you describe sounds
like a fascinating blend of motifs ... When you said a collection
of stories about princesses, I thought of Princess Hyanchantti
and Some Other Surprises, but there's nothing similar there.
I also tried looking through my collections of the contes
(in English and French), but no dice. I'd like to add a vote to
the chorus asking to hear about it if you find it - this sounds
like a very interesting piece, indeed!
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lavinia
Unregistered User
(4/4/05 10:16 am)
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cat tutor
This is a story by E. Nesbit called The Princess and the Cat: I read it in a collection of her stories called Oswald Bastable and Others(1950) but I would think that it was originally published in the Strand Magazine in the 1890's.
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Elizabeth
Genco
Registered User
(4/6/05 9:20 pm)
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Re: cat tutor
Huzzah!! I was so hoping that someone was gonna know the answer to this one.
This is so exciting....
---
What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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dlee10
Registered User
(4/26/05 7:35 am)
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Re: cat tutor
I just got Oswald Bastable and Others from the library. The cat tutor story is called "The Princess and the Cat" and it is adorable. I loved the pearl tears and the King's steel resolve. Thank you! I can't wait to read all the stories in this book.
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(4/26/05 6:03 pm)
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public domain?
Many of Nesbit's stories are in public domain and on the net. If this one isn't up yet, would it be legal to copy it for an OCR scan?
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/26/05 10:11 pm)
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Nesbit
I love Nesbit. No wonder her tale sounds so intriguing.
Thank you for identifying it!
Jess
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