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285

Gubernatis, Angelo de, Le Novelline di Santo Stefano, raccolte da. Torino, 1869. No. IX, pp. 29-30. Told by man named Gargnani, who used to be a carter (barocciaio).

"LE OCHE"
(The Geese).

ABSTRACT

Heroine dresses in dead mother's skin to hide her extreme beauty -- Heroine disguise -- Menial heroine (gooseherd) -- Heroine mounts tower to doff disguise; geese see her and sing. Cook overhears; spies at key-hole at night; tells prince. Cook steals skin from under bolster--Heroine discovered--Happy marriage.

TABULATION

(1) An old woman has such an extremely beautiful daughter that she does not allow her to be seen by anyone. On the death of the old woman, the girl, being alone in the world, and not wishing to be looked at, takes off the old woman's skin to make herself a dress of it. Thus disguised, she sets out and reaches a city.-- (2) The prince's son sees her, and takes pity on the nice old woman. He gives her something to eat, and sets her to mind the geese.-- (3) The first day she gets up into a high tower, and, thinking not to be seen at such a height, begins to take off the old woman's guise. But the geese, drawing near, catch sight of her, and cry, "Coco, what a lovely mistress have we!" -- (4) The cook, overhearing, wishes to solve the mystery, and spies that night at the key-hole when heroine is undressing, and sees how her beauty lights up the whole room.-- (5) The cook informs the prince, who, having seen for himself on the following evening, would marry the lovely girl at once. But the cook restrains him, and says he will manage it.-- (6) So the third night cook steals noiselessly into the room, and hides the skin under the bolster. Heroine, unable to find her disguise on waking, dares not go forth to mind the geese, and so delays; and the prince, being told of it, comes to her room, and she is filled with confusion.-- (7) But he takes her in his arms and marries her.

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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