Heroine, Ill-treated Ill-treated Ill-treated
daughter heroine heroine heroine
of sheep, (by stepmother). (by stepmother (by elder
king's wife. and sisters). sisters).
Menial heroine. Menial heroine. Menial heroine.
Helpful animal. Helpful cantrips. Henwife aid.
Spy on heroine. Spy on heroine. Magic dresses Magic dresses
(+ starlings on (honey-bird
shoulders). finger and
stud).
Eye sleep Eye sleep. Meeting-place Meeting place
threefold. (church). (church).
Slaying of Slaying of Flight twofold. Flight threefold.
helpful helpful
animal animal.
mother.
Revivified Revivified Lost shoe. Lost shoe.
bones. bones.
Magic dresses. Step-sister Shoe marriage Shoe marriage
substitute. test. test.
Golden shoe gift Heroine under Mutilated foot.
(from hero). washtub.
Meeting-place Meeting-place Happy marriage. Happy marriage.
(feast). (sermon).
Flight threefold. Flight Substituted Substituted bride
threefold. bride. (eldest sister).
Lost shoe Lost shoe. Jonah heroine. Jonah heroine.
(golden).
Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Three Three
test. test. reappearances. reappearances.
Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Reunion. Reunion.
False bride. Villain Nemesis.
Bird witness. Bird witness.
Happy marriage. Happy marriage.
Now, in the "English" versions there is practical unanimity in the
concluding portions of the tale. _Magic dresses--Meeting-place
(Church)--Flight--Lost Shoe--Shoe Marriage-test--Mutilated foot--False
Bride--_Bird witness--Happy Marriage_, follow one another with exemplary
regularity in all four (six) versions.[2] The introductory incidents
vary somewhat. Chambers has evidently a maimed version of the
introduction of Catskin (see No. lxxxiii.). The remaining three enable
us, however, to restore with some confidence the _Ur-_Cinderella in
English somewhat as follows: _Helpful animal given by dying
mother--Ill-treated heroine--Menial heroine--cornucopia--Spy on
heroine--Slaying by helpful animal--Tasks--Revivified bones_. I have
attempted in my version to reconstruct the "English" Cinderella
according to these formulæ. It will be observed that the helpful animal
is helpful in two ways (a) in helping the heroine to perform tasks; (b)
in providing her with magic dresses. It is the same with the Grimms'
_Aschenputtel_ and other Continental variants.
Turning to the Celtic variants, these divide into two sets. Campbell's
and Macleod's versions are practically at one with the English formula,
the latter with an important variation which will concern us later. But
the other two, Curtin's and Sinclair's, one collected in Ireland and the
other in Scotland, both continue the formula with the conclusion of the
Sea Maiden tale (on which see the Notes of my _Celtic Fairy Tales_, No.
xvii.). This is a specifically Celtic formula, and would seem therefore
to claim Cinderella for the Celts. But the welding of the Sea Maiden
ending on to the Cinderella formula is clearly a later and inartistic
junction, and implies rather imperfect assimilation of the Cinderella
formula. To determine the question of origin we must turn to the purer
type given by the other two Celtic versions.
Campbell's tale can clearly lay no claim to represent the original type
of Cinderella. The golden shoes are a gift of the hero to the heroine
which destroys the whole point of the _Shoe marriage test_, and cannot
have been in the original, wherever it originated. Mr. Macleod's
version, however, contains an incident which seems to bring us nearer to
the original form than any version contained in Miss Cox's book.
Throughout the variants it will be observed what an important function
is played by the helpful animal. This in some of the versions is left as
a legacy by the heroine's dying mother. But in Mr. Macleod's version the
helpful animal, a sheep, is the heroine's mother herself! This is indeed
an archaic touch, which seems to hark back to primitive times and
totemistic beliefs. And more important still, it is a touch which
vitalises the other variants in which the helpful animal is rather
dragged in by the horns. Mr. Nutt's lucky find at the last moment seems
to throw more light on the origin of the tale than almost the whole of
the remaining collection.
But does this find necessarily prove an original Celtic origin for
Cinderella? Scarcely. It remains to be proved that this introductory
part of the story with helpful animal was necessarily part of the
original. Having regard to the feudal character underlying the whole
conception, it remains possible that the earlier part was ingeniously
dovetailed on to the latter from some pre-existing and more archaic
tale, perhaps that represented by the Grimms' _One Eyed, Two Eyes, and
Three Eyes_. The possibility of the introduction of an archaic formula
which had become a convention of folk-telling cannot be left out of
account.
The "Youngest-best" formula which occurs in Cinderella, and on which Mr.
Lang laid much stress in his treatment of the subject in his "Perrault"
as a survival of the old tenure of "junior right," does not throw much
light on the subject. Mr. Ralston, in the _Nineteenth Century_, 1879,
was equally unenlightening with his sun-myths.
[Footnote 2: Chamber's II. consists entirely and solely of these
incidents.]