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

Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother)--Menial heroine (tends cattle)--Helpful animal (bull) opens oak-tree with his horns for heroine to get food--Step-sister sent to mind cattle in heroine's stead. Bull butts her--Slaying of helpful animal--Heroine washes bull's paunch, finds golden apple inside; loses it in the grass; magic apple-tree grows from the spot; heroine subsists on the apples--Prince wants some of the apples; his servant cannot pick them; step-sister tries, and fails. Tree bows down to heroine--Happy marriage--Tree follows heroine--Heroine, after birth of child, visits step-mother; is killed and buried; magic tree removes to her grave and dies there--Step-sister impersonates heroine, and goes to palace--Heroine visits palace by night; bids cook open window; suckles child. Third night king watches; cook holds heroine by plait; she goes through series of transformations, resumes original form--Judges make step-mother pronounce her own and her daughter's sentence--Villain Nemesis. Stepmother torn by iron harrows. Step-sister's hands cut off.

TABULATION

(1) A certain woman has a daughter and a stepdaughter. She takes great care of the former, but ill-treats heroine, making her tend the cattle, and keeping her very short of food.-- (2) Amongst the cattle is a young bull, and whenever heroine is hungry, she cries:

"Little bull, come to me!
Open! oak-tree,
On a hinge of gold."

Whereupon the young bull rushes to the oak-tree and begins butting it. Then the tree opens, and heroine finds inside everything she wants.-- (3) Step-mother is much surprised that heroine can live without food, and sends her own daughter to mind the cattle in order to see how she would manage. Stepsister has once heard heroine call to bull, and therefore does the same. But instead of butting the oak- tree bull knocks her about with his horns. In the evening she drives cattle home, and bitterly complains to mother; whereupon mother sells bull to the Jews (butchers) for them to kill him.-- (4) When heroine hears of this she weeps bitterly, and takes the bull some food for the last time. When bull sees how she pities him, he bids her cease crying, and adds, "as soon as the Jews have killed me, ask them for my paunch, wash it carefully, and you will find something." Heroine does as bidden, and finds a golden apple. She has to cross some stiles on her way home, and doing so, lets fall the apple, which is lost in the grass. She seeks for it in vain. On the following day she comes again to the spot to search for the apple, and to her amazement finds a beautiful apple-tree laden with apples. She takes some to eat and lives on them.-- (6) One day prince is passing by, smells the apples, and orders his footman to get him a few. Servant cannot pick any, for each time he tries, apple-tree and apples rise up out of reach. He reports to prince, who says it is impossible. "Let Your Royal Highness go and see!" He goes, but likewise fails to pick apples. Near the tree is the stepmother's hut. Prince calls for someone there to come and pick him some apples. Stepmother immediately dresses her own daughter as finely as possible, and sends her to prince. When she tries to pick the apples, up goes the tree. Same thing happens when stepmother tries, whereupon prince says, "Is there nobody else in your hut?" "No, Your Highness, only a pigskin!" Prince says she is to come and try to pluck apples.-- (7) As soon as heroine approaches tree it comes down, its boughs descend, and she picks the apples for the prince. He takes heroine by the hand, puts her in his carriage and drives home. The apple-tree leaves the ground and follows carriage.-- (8) Prince marries heroine, and they have a child. One day prince goes hunting, and heroine asks leave to visit her stepmother. When stepmother sees her she begins to ask what Sort of rooms she lives in, what servants she has, what dresses, and what kind of cradle for the child. Having learnt these particulars she kills heroine, puts her clothes on her own daughter, and sends her back to the king. On the spot where heroine is buried the apple-tree plants itself and dies.-- (9) Some time afterwards there is a knocking at night at the palace window, and a voice says--

"Cook, cook!
Open the little window here
That I may suckle my baby dear.
Are the dogs in the kitchen asleep all right?
Is my spouse with that infamous woman to-night?"

The cook answers that the dogs are asleep, but that the master is not with the sham wife. Then he opens the window and sees a woman enter, take the child from the cradle and suckle it. On the second night the same thing happens. Then cook reports to king.-- (10) Third night king will not go to bed, but says to cook: "Get under the chair; as soon as you have opened the window and she has entered, seize hold of her plait of hair and twist it round your wrist." Cook does as bidden, and when he has her by the plait, he calls out, "Become as you were before." Upon this the woman begins to struggle violently to get free, then turns into the most horrible reptiles, then into birds, then into cattle, then into dogs, in short, into all manner of horrible shapes. At last she changes into her original sell, just as she was when stepmother buried her.-- (11) Inquiries are made into the whole matter; the judges send for stepmother, and ask her what would be proper punishment for a woman guilty of such crimes.¹ She says that such a woman should be torn in pieces by iron harrows, and her daughter's hands should be cut off This sentence is executed upon herself and her daughter. Heroine lives for ever happy.

NOTES

1: See Note 45.

Note 45

(P. 280.) So in No. 8 the stepmother is made to pronounce her own sentence, and the false wife in No. 243. Compare Cosquin, i, 212; Dasent, p. 59; Gonzenbach, Nos. 11, 13; Grimm, Nos. 13, 89, 135; and i, p. 430 (see note 27); The Seven Wise Masters, "The Ravens"; Simrock, App. No. ; Zingerle, ii, 131, etc.
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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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