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) --Gifts from father; heroine chooses three walnuts--Tasks (grain sorting)--Task per forming animals(white pigeons)--Magic dresses inside walnuts--Meeting-place (church)--Threefold flight --King's servants try to follow heroine, and third time stick gold rose in gate-post to mark her house. Step-sisters tell heroine of lovely lady at church; they (1) remove ladder, (2) stick nails in hoarding, (3) cut down mulberry tree, because heroine says she has mounted these to watch lady leave church. Father removes heroine to widow's cottage to escape ill-treatment. Prince visits house marked by gold rose; enquires for heroine, is shown step-sisters. Gold rose goes before him to widow's cottage. He takes heroine as his bride; leaves her seated in willow tree by lake till he returns with state robes and equipage. Meanwhile heroine dons magic dress from walnut. Gypsies come and question her; one pushes her into lake and takes her place in tree. Heroine transforms herself into gold duck. Prince returns; gypsy impersonates heroine, making excuse for sunburnt face; urges prince to shoot gold duck, but it dives and escapes. Prince is unhappy with substituted bride, who to divert him announces great feather-picking, which all attend. Gold duck has flown to palace, and, in girl-form, taken service hard by. She attends feather-picking. King bids gypsy-bride tell work-people what happened when step-sisters left her at home, and who helped her sort wheat. Gypsy invents replies; heroine says these are not the truth, reveals herself and tells everything--Happy marriage--Villain Nemesis (gypsy, step-mother, and step-sisters).

TABULATION

(1) Poor widower, with beautiful daughter, marries rich widow with two elderly daughters. Stepmother ill-treats heroine. Father brings gifts of rich dresses from the fair for stepmother and stepsisters. Heroine chooses three walnuts.-- (2) The former go to church showily dressed, leaving heroine at home to clean hall-a-bushel of very dirty wheat. Heroine weeps at task; Heaven sends flock of white pigeons to pick out dirt and tares from wheat.-- (3) Heroine returns thanks to heaven; fetches walnuts to eat them, when from the first falls a copper dress, from the second a silver, from the third a gold dress. She locks in cupboard the gold and silver dresses, dons the copper and hurries to church, and Sits in last pew amongst old women. King's son notices her, but before close of sermon she runs home and doffs copper dress. King's servant cannot overtake her, or see which house she enters. Stepsisters return with their young men, and tell heroine how king's son was present, and about lovely stranger. Heroine says she saw her by mounting ladder to reach chimney. Stepsisters scold her, and have ladder removed.-- (4) In afternoon they go, more showily dressed, to church, and prince is also there. Heroine has twice as much wheat to sort, and twice the number of pigeons come to perform task. Heroine goes to church in silver dress, escaping as before, and king's servant cannot track her. She tells stepsisters she saw lovely stranger slip out from church by standing on top rail of hoarding. They drive sharp nails into top of hoarding.-- (5) Next Sunday they go to church in new and still more gorgeous dresses. Heroine has three times as much wheat to sort, and three times the number of pigeons perform task. She goes to church in gold dress, but when she slips away, the king's servant follows quickly and sticks gold rose into gate-post of house she enters. Heroine tells stepsisters she watched from mulberry-tree, which is consequently cut down.-- (6) Father is angry with envious stepsisters, and takes heroine away to cottage of childless widow, where she lives several weeks, scantily fed.-- (7) After some months prince comes to village with one servant, finds gate-post with golden rose, enters house and asks for little girl. Stepmother dresses up her two daughters and presents them. Prince does not know them, and asks if she has no other daughter, or if her husband has a daughter. Stepmother says husband has been (lead three years. Prince departs. Servant takes golden rose from gate-post, and throws it to the winds. It floats in the air above their heads, and falls in front of widow's cottage. Cock crows as they cross threshold, and very poor old woman greets them. Prince inquires if she has daughter. "No." If she keeps an orphan. "Yes; but she is ugly and naughty, and too dirty to appear." Prince insists on seeing heroine, who comes very cleanly dressed, and is recognised.-- (8) Prince takes her away, after giving presents to old woman. Servants remind him that it is not fitting to take bride home in such sorry plight; so they halt at a lake, and he leaves her among the branches of weeping-willow till they re turn with golden dresses and royal carriage.-- (9) Heroine has hidden walnuts in her bosom, and, to surprise bridegroom, puts on golden dress to await his return. A troop of gipsy women approach tree where she sits in golden dress. They question her till she reveals everything, and shows walnut'. Pretty gipsy climbs into tree, flattering her, and pushes her into lake. Heroine transforms herself into gold duck, and dives und-er water when they throw s at her. Finally, gipsies go away, leaving duck in lake, and pretty gipsy sitting in tree clad in golden dress.-- (10) Prince returns at sunset, and gipsy makes believe to be heroine by relating what she learnt from her. Prince is deceived, though on way to palace he comments on her sunburnt face, which she says is due to sun's broiling rays, and will he pale in a few days. Before leaving lake, gipsy says she must have gold duck shot, to eat at wedding feast. Prince and servants try hard to shoot it, hut it always dives and escapes. Old king does not like dusky daughter-in-law, and prince is unhappy because, after several months, she is still sunburnt. Gipsy notices this, and, as diversion, announces a great feather-picking to he held in royal palace, to which rich and poor are invited.-- (11) Gold duck has flown to palace, and, regaining girl form, has entered service near to royal mansion. She attends feather-picking, and works busily. "Well, dear queen and wife," says prince, "tell work-people what happened to you when envious stepsisters forbade your going to church. Who helped sort the wheat?" Gipsy does not know, so invents, saying, amongst other things, she crept through key-hole, and collected all girls in neighbourhood to help her pick wheat. "That was not so," says heroine. "It was from chimney-stack, from hoarding, from mulberry-tree that orphan girl peeped. But orphan girl told an innocent fib. She was the girl whom prince loved, sought, sad found; whom he left in the willow-tree; whom you pushed into the lake, and whom the prince tried to shoot. I am that orphan girl."-- (12) Prince recognises heroine. Gipsy faints; king has her quartered and burnt, he casts stepmother into prison, and has stepsisters' hair cropped; marries heroine's father to widow, and on the same day himself marries heroine.

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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