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

Gifts from father heroine outcast for choosing screw of salt-- Outcast heroine--Heroine disguise (old-woman skin)--Menial heroine (minds poultry)--Heroine doffs disguise; hens sing in admiration. She kills one each day. Mistress spies; tells prince, who persuades disguised heroine to be scullion at palace-- Heroine discovered--Happy marriage--Value of salt.

TABULATION

(1) A king has three daughters. Before starting to the fair, he asks what he shall bring them. Eldest chooses kerchiefs, the second a pair of boots, and the youngest a screw of salt. Elder sisters tell father heroine wants salt to put in his cooking, and for this he drives her from home.-- (2) Heroine sets forth disguised as an old woman in an ugly skin, and arrives at a farm-house, where she asks for bread.-- (3) She looks so wretched that the mistress offers to engage her to mind poultry in return for her keep. She takes them to pasture, and when she reaches a spot far from the farm she throws off her disguise; and the hens, seeing the lovely girl, begin to sing:--

"Cac-cac-cac!
What a beautiful lady is here!
Oh, what a moon! Oh, what a sun!
Oh, what a grand lord's daughter!"

Heroine dons disguise again, and kills one of the hens with her stick. That evening she tells mistress that hen died from apoplectic stroke. Same thing happens next day, and she kills another hen.-- (4) Mistress begins to suspect, and goes on the morrow to spy. Suddenly king's son appears, and she tells him of the lovely lady she has seen. When prince sees heroine she is wearing disguise, and he says, "Old woman, will you come and work in my kitchen?" Heroine makes excuses, chattering a good deal; but prince insists.-- (5) She goes to king's house, and has to stay in room by herself. There is a hole in the room through which anyone could spy. Heroine takes off her skin, stops up the hole with it so as not to be seen, and then begins to do her hair.-- (6) Prince comes quietly and steals skin. When heroine misses it she begins to weep. Prince throws open the door and says she is to be his wife.-- (7) Heroine wishes her father to be invited to the wedding, and that everything shall be cooked without salt. Father cannot eat the food. Heroine says, "Now you see how nasty food is without salt. That is why I asked you for salt from the fair, and my sisters said it was to spoil the cooking." King embraces her and punishes the two sisters.

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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