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88

Nemcova, B., Slovenske pohádky a poveste. Prague, 1857. Pp. 511-522. No. XLVIII.

"O POPELUSCE."
(De la Cendrillon).

ABSTRACT

Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother)--Gifts from father heroine gets branch of nut-tree and some nuts--Task (grain-sorting) -- Heroine drops nuts into well -- helpful animal (frog) restores one containing Magic dress--Task-performing pigeons--Meeting-place (church)--Threefold flight--Heroine enveloped in mist--Hiding of dress under stone; frog guards it --Pitch trap--Lost shoe--Shoe marriage test--Mutilated foot (step-sister's)--Heroine hidden under trough--Animal witness (cock)--Happy marriage--Pigeons, cock, and heroine's father accompany her.

TABULATION

(1) Popelusce has a kind father, but is ill-treated by stepmother, who has daughter of her own.-- (2) Father goes to a fair, and asks girls what he shall bring them home. Heroine asks for whatever hits his lace after he has passed the forest. The branch of a nut-tree hits him, and he brings it home for heroine, with a few nuts.-- (3) She wants to go to church, but step mother forbids her, and mixes millet with the ashes for her to separate.-- (4) Heroine goes to well to wash herself; the nuts drop into well; she weeps a frog rises with one of the nuts in its mouth, and says, "Open it heroine finds inside a dress like the sun. Six pigeons appear, perform task, and dress heroine.-- (5) She hies to church, saying: "The mist is behind me; the mist is before me; God's sun is above me." Everyone looks at her; so does the prince, who questions all as to who she is; but no one knows. heroine surrounds herself with mist on leaving, goes home, hides dress in the nut-shell, and puts it under a stone, calling to frog in the well to guard it.-- (6) All happens the same next Sunday; she wears dress like the moon.-- (7) On the third Sunday she wears dress of stars, and loses her shoe in the pitch.-- (8) Prince visits every house, trying the shoe. He comes to heroine's. Stepmother cuts own daughter's foot to make it small enough. Prince inquires if she has any other children; she says no; but the cock sings out, "There's a pretty girl under the trough!" for it is there that step mother has hidden her.-- (9) Prince marries her. The pigeons and the cock accompany her; so does her old 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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