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115

Thorpe, Benjamin, Yule-Tide Stories. Popular Tales and Traditions from the Swedish, Danish, and German. (Variant from South Smaland of the foregoing, No. 112.)

"ASKE-PJESKE."

[You can read Thorpe's Aske-pjeske on SurLaLune.]

ABSTRACT

Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother)--Task, to prepare peas--Task-performing animal (bird) -- Magic dress, dropped by eagle --Meeting-place (church)--Prince throws (1) white silk glove, (2) second glove, (3) gold apple into heroine's lap--Three fold flight--Lost shoe--Shoe marriage test--Mutilated foot-- Animal witness (bird)--Happy marriage.

TABULATION

(1) Heroine, called "Aske-Pjeske", is left at home to prepare peas whilst stepmother and stepsister go to church to meet foreign prince.-- (2) She weeps; bird pecks at casement and sings:

"Little maiden, go to church;
I will clean thy peas;
I will sweep and clear, and do all things,
Believe me."

-- (3) Eagle flies past and drops splendid dress, in which she goes to church. Prince throws white silk glove into her lap.-- (4) Next Sunday he throws second glove, and on third Sunday a gold apple.-- (5) When prince and his attendants come to try gold shoe, crone shuts stepdaughter in stable and cuts off own daughter's heels and toes. Prince will not believe she is right girl. Crone produces silk gloves and gold apple; but bird pecks at casement and sings:

"They cut off her heel, they cut off her toe;
In the stable is she whom fits the gold shoe."

-- (6) Prince marries Aske-Pjeske.

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.

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