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59

Kristensen, E. T., Danske Folkeaeventyr, optegnede af Folkemindesamfundets Medlemmer, og udarbejdede af E. T. Kristensen. Viborg, 1888. No. VIII, p. 57. (Written down by the wife of the wheelwright, Niels Pedersen, Zealand.)

"DEN LILLE GULDSKO"
(The Little Golden Shoe).

ABSTRACT

Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother) --Menial heroine (herds cattle)--Helpful animal (red bull)--Ear cornucopia--Flight of heroine on bull--Copper, silver, gold forests traversed. Spite of warning, heroine breaks twig: bull fights (1) copper-bull; (2) silver bull; (3) is slain by gold bull. Heroine preserves bull's right ear, which will give all she wishes--Menial heroine (kitchen-maid)--Token objects: (1) water, (2) comb, (3) towel--Magic dresses--Meeting-place (church)--Threefold flight--Lost shoe (golden)--Shoe marriage test--Mutilated feet--Animal witness (bird)--Heroine in gold dress, and gold carriage, etc., demands shoe--Happy marriage.

TABULATION

(1) Heroine has stepmother and stepsister. She is made to tend cattle far from home. Stepmother bites her off three mouthfuls of bread.-- (2) At dinner-time heroine cries with hunger, and a large red bull asks why, and bids her find a good dinner in his right ear. Next day stepmother bites her off only two mouthfuls of bread, and the third day only one.-- (3) Bull feeds her as before, and on third day proposes her flight with him.-- (4) They come to copper-forest, where, spite of bull's warning, heroine breaks off a twig. A copper bull is fought and overcome.-- (5) Same thing happens in silver-forest: silver bull is overcome.-- (6) In gold-forest the bull is slain by gold bull. Heroine cuts off bull's right ear, as bidden, and by means of this she can obtain anything she wishes.-- (7) She takes service in the castle kitchen, and may go to church if she has suitable dress. "Darkness behind me, and light before," she says, having taken costly dress from bull's ear.-- (8) Her master sees her in church, and sends man-servant to ask whence she comes. "From Water-land," she says; for her master had thrown a jug of water at her.-- (9) Next Sunday she says, "from Comb-land", and on the third Sunday, "from Towel-land"; and, as she is leaving the church, the servant gets one of her golden shoes.-- (10) A great feast is held, that the shoe may be tried. Kings and princes arrive with their daughters, who cut their heels and their toes, but all in vain.-- (11) At last a little bird sings:

"They can't get on the shoe, altho'
They cut their heel and cut their toe.
The little girl in the kitchen there
Alone the golden shoe can wear."

Heroine is at length called, and, having taken from the bull's ear a golden dress, a golden carriage, and six white prancing horses, she comes driving to the door, and demands her golden shoe, which, of course, fits her.-- (12) Her master 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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