SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Marian Roalfe Cox: Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap O' Rushes, abstracted and tabulated

Ogress inquires of heroine whither her mother has gone, and thrice receives misleading reply; then seeks in contrary direction, finds mother, transforms her into sheep, takes her place, and kills sheep. Eating taboo. Revivified bones-- Transformed mother help (bones turned into ox). Slaying of ox--Birch-tree springs from hones---Ill-treated heroine (by ogress step-mother)-- Tasks, to mend oven, sort grain, separate barley from ashes; performed by cross-wise striking with twig from birch-tree--Ogress and daughters on way to Czar's banquet, refuse to shear sheep, milk cow, wash old man. Heroine does all; old man gives her magic stick to open treasure-stone--Magic dresses--Meeting-place (banquet)--- Czar's son cares for heroine's horse--Heroine throws bone at ogress, breaking (1) her leg, (2) her hand, (3) putting out her eye. Ogress presently boasts of attentions received-[Threefold flight]--Pitch traps--Lost hat, ring, shoe--Hat, ring, and shoe marriage tests--Mutilated heads, fingers, feet (ogress's daughters') Czar's son sets out with heroine--Substituted bride--Heroine hidden in thicket--Witness. Shepherd thrice denounces false bride--Villain Nemesis. False bride cast into pit of burning tar--Happy marriage.

TABULATION

(1) An old man and his wife have a daughter. Old man goes off to the forest, and the old woman, intending flight, says to daughter, "Say, 'mother went north-east,'" and then she starts towards south. The Syöjätär (Ogress) comes to the house and asks daughter, "Which way did your mother go, you whore?" "Mother went north-east." She goes north-east, and seeks her all day in vain. Next day mother gives daughter the same instructions. The Syöjätär goes north-east, and seeks all day in vain. The third day mother gives same instructions.-- (2) The Syöjätär no longer believes daughter, but goes in contrary direction, finds mother in the forest, transforms her into a sheep, and brings her home. The old m returns from forest; the Syöjätär takes place of his wife, and says, "Husband dear, kill the sheep; our daughter cries over that sheep; I hear her crying perpetually." Father determines to slay sheep.-- (3) Daughter puts her arm round sheep's neck. Sheep says, "I shall be slain; but don't you eat any of my flesh, or any of the broth, but collect all remains and lay them under the threshold of the stable." She does so, and an enormous great ox grows up.-- (4) She hangs on the ox's neck and falls to crying again. The Syöjätär urges the old man to slay the ox also. The ox says to the girl, "I am to be slain; collect all my bones and all the blood, and place them under the window in a silk kerchief." Girl does as bidden. She reaches maidenhood. A beautiful leafy birch-tree grows up in the courtyard.-- (5) The Czar gives a banquet. The Syöjätär has two daughters of her own, and they begin washing their faces ready for these festivities long beforehand. When they set out they smash the oven. The Syöjätär says to heroine, "Mend the oven by the time we are back," and acts out with her daughters in a wooden conveyance which looks like a (brick-layer's) trough for holding clay. Cinderella takes a twig from the birch-tree, and thrice strikes the oven crosswise with it. The oven is mended, and she sets out to the banquet after the others.-- (6) The Syöjätär and her daughters meet a sheep with shears on its back, asking to have its wool shorn. They refuse. They meet a cow with milk-pail on its horns, and refuse to milk it. An old man with a stick in his hand asks them to wash him. They decline to touch him, as they are on their way to the festival.-- (7) Cinderella meets the same; shears the sheep, milks the cow, and washes the old man, he gives her his stick, saying, "When you come to a stone in the road hit it, with these words 'Siiren sirkkie buurin purkkie stampera lohkie (unintelligible), for me to sit upon, to travel under me.'"-- (8) She does as directed, and gets a horse and clothes. The horse is tricoloured-- the first gold, the second silver, the third is inestimable. Heroine rides to the Czar's banquet. The Czar's son ties the horse to a ring, and throws him some groats. The feasting begins, and all manner of amusements are set going. Heroine throws a bone at the Syöjätär during the meal, and it breaks her leg. Heroine rides home, doffs her fine clothes, and sits by the oven as Cinderella. She asks the Syöjätär on her return what happened at the Czar's banquet. "Everything delightful. I received a foot-favour." "Indeed much good may it do you!" "Ah, you only play with fleas and count bugs."-- (9) When the Syöjätär takes her daughters to the second banquet she mixes barley and oats together to detain heroine over sorting them. But heroine takes a twig from the birch-tree, and thrice strikes the threshold crosswise, saying, "Barley in one rove (dish made of birch-bark), oats in the other." And so it happens.-- (10) She takes her stick and strikes the stone, saying same words as before, and gets a splendid horse and still finer clothes. Czar's son receives her, and gives oats -- not groats-- to her horse, the better to refresh it after its fatigue. During the banquet heroine throws a bone at the Syöjätär, and breaks her hand. When they return home the latter says she had a hand-favour.-- (11) The third time the Syöjätär mixes barley and ashes together, in the hope that heroine will not be able to separate them before she is home again. Heroine again takes a twig from birch-tree, and says, "The ashes in the hearth, the barley in the birch-bark dish."-- (12) When she arrives at the royal court the Czar's son gives nothing to the horse, but leaves it standing there. During the banquet heroine throws bone at the Syöjätär, who loses her eye. The Czar's son smears tar over the cross-beams of the doorway, over the door-handle, and over the threshold. When heroine goes through the door her hat remains sticking fast to the cross-beams, her ring to the handle, her shoe to the threshold. Disregarding this, she hurries home and sits by the oven. This time she has no time to doff her fine clothes. The Syöjätär returns with her daughters, and says she received an eye-favour.-- (13) The Czar's son sets out with the hat, the ring, and the shoe; whomsoever they fit he will make his wife. The Syöjätär tries in vain to get them on her daughters. She cuts their fingers with a knife, and also their feet, and pares their heath. It is no use. The Czar's son wants the stepdaughter to be fetched from the oven. The Syöjätär declares it would be useless trouble; she only plays with fleas and counts bugs. Czar's son insists on trying her. He puts the ring, the shoe, and the hat on her, and they all fit perfectly.-- (14) He takes her to wife. The daughters of the Syöjätär accompany them. On the way the Syöjätär makes her own daughter change places with heroine, whom she leaves in a thicket.-- (15) A shepherd sees all, and begins to call out:

"Hewn the head that now is taken,
In the boat a chopped finger,
Home a chiselled foot is carried."

Czar's son asks, "What does the shepherd say?" The false bride answers, "Oh, nothing! He has nothing to say." At another tongue of land the shepherd calls out a second time, and then runs to a third tongue of land to call out again. Czar's son, disregarding this, takes his bride home; but when he arrives he notices that she is not his own wife.-- (16) He has a bath-room heated, and a pit of tar dug under the threshold. The false bride is cast into the fiery pit, and the true bride is fetched from her hiding-place.

Cox, Marian Roalfe. Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap O' Rushes, abstracted and tabulated. London: David Nutt for the Folklore Society, 1893.

While the original text of this book is out of copyright, the special formatting and compilation available on SurLaLune Fairy Tales is copyrighted. Be aware that while the original content has been honored, page numbering, footnote numbering, redesigned charts, links, and other aspects are unique to this site's version of the text. Use at your own risk. For private and fair use educational purposes only.

Available from Amazon.com

©Heidi Anne Heiner, SurLaLune Fairy Tales
E-mail: surlalune@aol.com
Page last updated February 1, 2006
www.surlalunefairytales.com