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168

Imbriani,Vittorio. La Novellaja Fiorentina, Fiabe e Novelle stenografate in Firenze dal dettato popolare, ristampa accresciuta di molte novelle inedite....nelle quali e accolta integralmente La Novellaja Milanese. Livorno, 1877. Variant to Story No. XI (in Milanese dialect), pp. 158-162.

"LA SCINDIROEURA."

ABSTRACT

Unnatural father- --Counter-tasks-- Magic dresses--Heroine demands talking goose which she puts in basin of water and which replies for her when father calls-- Heroine disguise (a large cloak)--Heroine flight-- -Menial heroine--Hearth abode--Meeting place (ball)--Twofold flight (heroine does not attend third ball; has stolen prince's ring at second) prince--Recognition food--Happy marriage--Anon prince seeks heroine's father.

TABULATION

(1) A king has a little daughter named Maria, who is so beautiful that he wants to marry her.-- (2) Daughter demands two dresses and a talking-goose. Father procures dress like the stars, and another like the sun's rays. At night he calls her. She replies that she is coming.-- (3) She makes a bundle of the two dresses, and puts goose in a basin of water. Goose flaps its wings, and when father next calls, replies, "I am coming." Father falls asleep, and next morning finds his daughter gone; for heroine has put on a covering (bell'-e-brutt), which hides her entirely up to her eyes, and set out, journeying till she reaches a certain city-- (4) She goes to king's palace, and asks to be engaged as waiting-maid to the queen. Guard says she ought to be ashamed to ask it, ugly as she is. Then she begs to he taken as kitchen-maid, to tend the fire and clean the hearth. Queen is consulted, and consents to engage her.-- (5) One day, king's son tells his mother he wishes to give a ball on the morrow, and she is well pleased. When he has gone to the ball, Cinderella goes to queen, and says, "Do let me go and look on at the ball, if only through key-hole, for I have never seen one." "Go, then; but be sure and return soon, for if my son should see you, I don't know what he would say." Then heroine goes to her room to don star-dress, and appears at the ball. Prince dances with her, and after one round she says, "Excuse me one moment, I will come back;" but, instead of returning, she goes home to her work. Prince says to his mother, "You should have seen what a lovely girl there was at the ball. I danced once with her, and then she disappeared. Her eyes were like Cinderella's." Heroine mutters, "It was she." Prince asks what the silly is talking about, and she repeats it.-- (6) Next night he gives another ball, and heroine begs queen to let her go and look on, just to see that lovely girl. Queen says she is a worry, but consents, and she promises to be gone only a minute or two. She wears her sun-dress, dances with the prince, and leaves him as before, to return to her duties, only, whilst dancing, and has taken his ring. He is talking about it all to his mother, and heroine again says it was herself.-- (7) He gives a third ball, but she goes no more, and he falls ill. He will let no one take him his food.-- (8) Heroine asks queen if she may not take it. Queen says he cannot bear the sight of a woman, but heroine rejoins, "He will let me in, you see." Queen gives her mission. Then heroine dons her sun-dress, and drops his ring into the food.-- (9) When he sees the lovely girl he is instantly cured, and marries her.-- (10) After a time he goes to find her father.

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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