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39

Grundtvig, S., Unpublished Collection. (Written down by Miss Anna Braase; from East Jutland.)

"LUDSE LURVEHAETTE."
(Lucy Ragged-hood.)

ABSTRACT

Ill-treated heroine (by mother) -- Menial heroine (milks cows)--Helpful animal (cat) asks for milk--Heroine, thrashed for having given it, fears to do so third time. Cat promises reward; drinks milk, swells, and pushes off skin which heroine must wear -- Heroine disguise (cat-skin) -- Menial heroine (kitchen-maid at palace)--Magic dresses, etc., from cat--Meeting-place (church) -- (Two-fold flight) -- Lost shoe -- Shoe marriage test -- Mutilated feet -- Animal witness (bird) -- Happy marriage--Cat's head cut off and buried beneath pear tree. Cat transformed to prince, who is brother to king.

TABULATION

(1) Man has three daughters, and ill-treats the youngest. She has to stay at home and milk the cows, whilst the others go to church.-- (2) Cat comes and asks for some milk, which heroine gives. Mother misses milk, and heats her. Next Sunday cat again gets milk, and heroine a thrashing. Third Sunday heroine is afraid to give any milk, hut cat persuades her she will be happier if she does. Cat drinks; grows larger and larger, and pushes off her skin; bids heroine d skin, go to king's palace, and ask for situation, calling herself Ludse.-- (3) Heroine does so, and is hired as kitchenmaid.-- (4) Everyone in palace goes to church. Cat gives Ludse a magnificent dress, a golden carriage, and two horses, and bids her go too. All marvel at her beauty:

"Light before!
Dark behind!"

she says, and vanishes after the service.-- (5) Next Sunday she drives to church in carriage of pure gold. King follows her out, and gets one of her golden shoes.-- (6) He will wed whomsoever it fits. Some cut their heel and sonic their toe, but nobody can get the shoe on..-- (7) A bird sings to the king:

"Cut a heel, and cut a toe!
The shoe fits the girl in the kitchen, I know."

All the kitchen servants are called, and, at last, Ludse, who puts on the shoe, and is made queen.-- (8) The cat's head is chopped off, and buried beneath a pear-tree. Thereupon the cat becomes a prince, the brother of the king.

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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