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222

Ortoli, J. B. Frederic, Les Contes populaires de l'Ile de Corse. Paris, 1883. p. 48-56. No. IX. (Told in 1881 by Mdlle. Adelaide de Alma, of Porto-Vecchio.)

"MARIE LA FILLE DU ROI."

ABSTRACT

King Lear judgment--Outcast heroine--Heroine disguise (ass-skin)--Menial heroine (goat-herd)--Heroine discovered-- Flight -- Lost shoe -- Recognition-- Outcast Father--Father's restoration task--Happy marriage--Father is insane; heroine's care restores him to his senses.

TABULATION

(1) King asks his three children how much they love him. Eldest daughter and son reply in extravagant terms; youngest daughter simply answers, "As a submissive and devoted daughter ought to love such a father." For this she is expelled from home, and taking embroidered gold and silver dresses, sets forth,-- (2) After travelling all night, she is about to knock at a farm-house door, when she thinks her beauty too noticeable, and so retires to forest, where she lives several weeks on wild fruits. She flays a dead ass found by the roadside, and, clad in its hide, enters nobleman's service as goatherd at castle.-- (3) One day she leads her flock to retired spot, washes in stream, and dons royal garb. She sings the songs of her country in a sad voice, and the goats leave off grazing. At nightfall she dons ass-skin, but is surprised by the king's son, who has lost his way out hunting, and who has seen and heard all. Forsaking her goats, she flees, and forgets one pretty little shoe.-- (4) Prince falls ill, and seeks pretty goatherd in vain. He will wed whomsoever shoe fits. No one can get it on.-- (5) Marie the goatherd, with the ass-skin over her head, is fetched from neighbouring castle. Shoe fits her, but prince's parents object to the marriage. Marie convinces them she is a princess by donning her own clothes.-- (6) She will not wed prince unless her father acknowledges his error and comes to wedding. Messengers report that the two elder children have dethroned him and put him in impenetrable dungeon. Heroine requires her lover to restore him to his throne.-- (7) This is accomplished after short war, but old king is insane. After a year his senses are restored through heroine's devoted care.-- (8) She then consents to marry prince.

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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