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

Death-bed promise--Deceased wife's jewels marriage test-- Unnatural father -- Governess aid -- Counter-tasks -- Magic dresses--Heroine demands white horse: wears its skin. Heroine disguise--Heroine flight--Hunting prince takes heroine to palace; calls her Ugly Beast. Strikes her with shovel, tongs, and saddle-- Meeting-place (feast)--Token objects named--Love-sick prince--Recognition food--Heroine discovered (prince looks through key-hole)--Happy marriage.

TABULATION

(1) King is to marry whomsoever deceased wile's jewels best become. Daughter puts them on, and father seeks to marry her.-- (2) She takes counsel of governess, who bids her ask for three magic dresses, and then for a white horse, with no single speck of black about him, She kills the horse, and makes herself a dress of its skin, and in this disguise escapes, taking the magic dresses.-- (3) A hunting-prince finds her in the forest, and is about to kill her, when she says:

"I am called Maria Wood,
A cunning piece of womanhood;
I am a wondrous work of art,
And I come from-- such a part,
Just to crave your charity,
Kind sir, I pray you show it me."

Prince takes her home, and, after a few days, lets her go free about the house. He gets to like the animal, and calls it "ugly beast".-- (4) He is going to some feasts, and three times refuses to take "ugly beast" with him, striking her with the shovel, the tongs, and with the saddle. Heroine goes to the feasts, and gives the names of objects with which prince has struck her.-- (5) He looks through key-hole, and watches heroine don magic dress beneath her hide.-- (6) He then falls ill, and craves food made by her, in which she puts ring given her at feast.-- (7) Finally he discovers her in her room, learns her story, and marries her.

NOTES

1: See Note 1.

Note 1

Stories 137, 138, 140, and 141, although not strictly within the Catskin group, are retained here as variants of the type-story, No. 134.

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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