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

King, following hunted stag into magic garden, is entrapped by dragon; must promise a daughter in his stead. Youngest daughter consents to marry dragon in order to liberate father. Heroine enters forbidden chamber; finds prince in a deep pit, rescues him, making him promise to bring gold chest to dragon's palace, that she may escape in it. Prince's mother gives him kiss of oblivion; but goldsmith has made chest and tries to dispose of it. Heroine buys it, bidding goldsmith fetch it in two months' time and take it to prince. Heroine's hiding-box. Heroine eats prince's fund--Surprise rencontre--Prince goes to war; his aunt borrows chest; heroine, hearing it is to be thrown on the fire, gets out, and turns into bird--Prince returns, finds chest empty--Lovesick prince--Bird flies in at window; is retransformed--Happy marriage--Villain Nemesis. Aunt and her daughter, who wanted to wed prince, are beheaded.

TABULATION

(1) King, out hunting, follows a stag till it vanishes, and he finds himself in a garden. He opens a door, which leads to another garden with trees of gold and plants of diamonds. He plucks a rose, and a long thread springs out and winds itself round him till he cannot move. Suddenly a dragon appears with great noise, and makes king promise to bring one of his daughters a month's time to be his wife.-- (2) King returns home very sorrowful. Children ask why, and he tells them. Two elder daughters will not consent to go to dragon, but youngest offers herself willingly. At the appointed time king takes her to dragon, who meets them with great retinue, and clad in gold and splendour. He conducts heroine to a magnificent palace. After the wedding the king returns home, the dragon having gifted him with great wealth, and bidden him come whenever he will to visit his daughter.-- (3) Every day the dragon leaves the castle, after kissing his wife and forbidding her to enter one particular loom. One day, when he has gone away for three months, she opens the forbidden room, and sees before her a deep pit with a young man in it, groaning and wailing. She determines to rescue him, throws him a rope, and draws him up. He is a prince whom the dragon had wounded and cast into the pit. She heals his wounds, and in three weeks he is well.-- (4) Then she bids bins go forth, and, in order to rescue her, get a large gold chest which opens from inside, and bring it to palace that she may buy it. Then she will hide inside chest, and the dragon, having lost her, will sell it, so as not to be reminded of her. She tells the prince not to let his mother kiss him when he gets home, or he will forget her.-- (5) Prince goes home, orders gold chest, and does not kiss his mother; hut in the night she comes to his room and kisses him, and next morning he has forgotten every thing.¹ When goldsmith brings the gold chest prince says he never ordered it, and goldsmith tries to sell it elsewhere.-- (6) Chance brings him to the place where the dragon dwells, and the princess buys the chest, telling the goldsmith to return and buy it back in two months' time, and take it to the place where dwells the prince whom she had delivered.-- (7) In this way the chest comes at length into the possession of the prince, and he puts it in his own room. The queen sets food for the prince in his room, and during his absence, heroine gets out of the chest and eats it. Queen tells him to stay at home one day and see what happens, and in this way heroine is discovered. The moment he sees her he recollects her, and pleads for forgiveness for having forgotten her. He asks his mother to send him a double portion of food daily.-- (8) Some time passes, and the prince has to go away to the war, he begs mother to have food taken to his room every day as usual, and on no account to have the chest moved. Prince has an aunt whose daughter wishes to marry him. Aunt notices that since he has had the gold chest he has not cared so much about her daughter. So she begs queen to lend her the gold chest one day for a banquet; queen consents, and directly aunt has chest in her possession she gives orders for it to be thrown on the fire.-- (9) When heroine hears this she gets out, changes into a bird, and flies away. Then the aunt gives the chest back. When prince returns and finds it empty he questions mother, who says it has not been moved.-- (10) Prince falls ill, and sits every day at the window weeping. One day he hears a noise, and a bird flies into the room and changes into a girl. He is overjoyed, questions her, and sends for a priest to marry them secretly. Then he tells his aunt he is going to marry her daughter in a few days.-- (11) Everything is made ready; the bride sits by the bridegroom, his wife being also present. When the priest bids him lead his bride forward he takes his wife by the hand, proclaims her his wife before them all, and relates all that has happened. The aunt and her daughter are beheaded, and the rest live happily.

NOTES

1: See Note 58.

Note 58

(P. 367.) For "kiss of oblivion" see Am. F.-L. Journal, iv, 252; Bibl. de las Trad. pop., i, 187; Braga, No. 6; Busk, p. 8, "Filagranata"; Campbell, i, 34, "The Battle of the Birds," and p. 56; Coronedi-Berti, No. 13; Finamore, Abruzz., No. 4; F.-L. Journal, i, 323, "Grey Norris" (Irish tale); ii, 16, "Prince Unexpected" (Polish tale); Glinski, i, 124; Gonzenbach, Nos. 13, 14, 54, 55, and notes; Grimm, No. 56, "Sweetheart Roland"; No. 186, "The True Sweetheart"; No. 193, "The Drummer"; Hahn, No. 54; Kletke, ii, 78; Household Stories from the Land of Hofer, "Dove Maiden"; Kohler in Orient and Occident, ii, 103 ff., and notes to Kreutzwald (1869); Luzel, pp. 26, 39; MacInnes, pp. 1 ff., 137, 438, 459; Maspons, Rondallayre, i, p. 85; Müllenhoff, p. 400; Pentamerone, Nos. 17, 29; Pitré, No. 13; Revue Celtique, p. 374 ff.; Rivista di litt. pop., i, (1878), p. 83; Schmidt, Nos. 5, 12; Schneller, No. 27; Thorpe, p. 448, "Goldmaria and Goldfeather"; Webster, p. 127; Wolf, p. 286.

In the Lorraine story, "La Chatte Blanche" (Cosquin, ii, 9 ff.), the hero loses his beauty when kissed by his grandmother. In the Kaffir tale (S. Af. F.-L. Journal, i, 5), the man who has been bewitched by an enemy regains human form when kissed by a girl. In an Icelandic story (Arnason, 422) a dog licks the ointment off the hero, causing him to forget his love, who had anointed him.

The "curse of oblivion" occurs in the Legend of Bharata Mahabhrata, upon which is founded the drama of Sakuntala, by Kalidasa. It is incurred through tasting food in "The Mastermaid", Dasent, p. 71, and through swallowing an enchanted powder in "Panch-Phul Ranee", Frere, O. D. D., p. 143. In Keightley's Fairy Myth., i, 74, Ogier is placed under a spell by Morgan the Fay, making him forget family, friends, and country. Cf. Magyar Folk-tales, p. 25, "Handsome Paul"; Ralston, p. 131. There is food which brings forgetfulness in Saxo, Hist. Dan., viii. In Saxo's account of King Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to the lower world, Thorkil warns his travelling companions not to taste the drinks or accept the courtesies that will there be offered to them, or they will lose all memory of the past, and remain for ever in Gudmund's realm (H. D., i, 424). The Danes heeded the advice, and ate and drank the provisions that they had taken with them. See Rydberg, Teut. Myth., 213, 351. This recalls the case of Persephone, who cannot for ever quit Hell, because she tasted there of a pomegranate. In the Icelandic tale the heroine is warned not to eat the food the Dale-queen will give her (Arnason, 516). Upon the subject of not tasting food in Hell, see Lang's Cupid and Psyche, xxxvi; Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii, 26; Custom and Myth, p. 171. Wainomoinen refuses drink when among the dead. Cf. also Cavallius, No. 14 B; Dennys, Folk-lore of China, p. 98; F.-L. Journal, vi, 192; Ralston, p. 299; etc. In "The King's Son and Messeria" (Thorpe, p. 203), forgetfulness follows the hero's tasting of food when absent from his bride, and it is the result of uttering words in his father's house in "The King's Son and Princess Singorra" (ibid., p. 216). A "grain of oblivion" is put into the hero's mouth in No. 48 of this collection.

The "drink of oblivion" occurs in No. 29. See also Arnason, pp. 256, 377; Frere, O. D. D., p. 260, "Chandra's Vengeance." (In the Icelandic story (Arnason, 377), besides the potion of forgetfulness, there is a drink which obliges one to speak the truth.) A hern of forgetfulness hovers over the drink in Havamál Str., 13, 15. In Gudrunarkvida, ii, 21, a song written in Christian times, the heathen mythic drink that was given to the child Heimdal (Hyndla's Lay) reappears as a potion of forgetfulness allaying sorrow. See Rydberg, Teut. Myth., 92. Compare the Lethe myth. Grimhild gives a potion to Sigfred which makes him forget his love, Brunhild (see Corpus Poet. Bor., i, 289, 393, 395); she gives one also to her daughtcr Gudrun (ib., i, 316, 321). Valkyrs, elfins, and enchantresses offer to heroes their drinking-horns that they may forget all else and stay with them. So did Gondul offer the comers drink out of a horn; see Grimm, Teut. Myth., 420. A beautifully dressed and garlanded maiden from the Osenberg offers the Count of Oldenburg a draught in a silver horn, while uttering predictions (Deutsche Sagan, No. 541). Svend Falling drank out of the horn handed him by elf-women (Thiele, 2, 67). Svend Falling is identical with Siegfried (see Grimm, p. 372). In a Swedish folk-song in Arvidsson, 2, 301, three mountain-maids hold out silver tankards in their white hands. Comp. some Norwegian traditions in Faye, pp. 26-8-9, 30, and some Danish in Thiele, 1, 49, 55. Brynhildr or Sigrdrifa fills a goblet and brings it to Sigurd (Volsunga Saga). A white lady offers a silver goblet in Koch's Reise d. Oestr., p. 262. A maiden hands the horn, and is cut down, Wieselgren, 455. Subterraneans offer similar drink, Müllenhoff, p. 576; and a jatte hands a horn, Runa, 1844, 88. Cf. the Swedish tale in Afzelius, 2, 159, 160, and the song in Arvidsson, 2, 179, 282, where the miner makes the maiden drink of the glomskans horn, and forget father and mother, heaven and earth, sun and moon. Helen makes a magic potion, mingling spices with the wine (Od., 4, 220-230); so does Circe (Od., 10, 235). The Faroese still call the draught of oblivion ouminni (see Grimm, 1632). Upon the connection between kissing and the minne-drinking at sacrifices and in sorcery, see ib., 1101. (Minna in the Swedish folk-songs and minde in the Danish signify to kiss. Comp. [Greek name], love-potion.

"And that golden cup her mother
Gave her, that her future lord,
Gave her, that King Marc and she,
Might drink it on their marriage-day,
And for ever love each other.")
(Tristam und Iseult.)

Return to place in text.

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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