Indian story book, _Pantschatantra_ (Leipzig, 1859), had suggested
another explanation of the similarities of European folk-tales. For
many of the incidents and several of the complete tales Benfey showed
Indian parallels, and suggested that the stories had originated in
India and had been transferred by oral tradition to the different
countries of Europe. This entirely undermined the mythological
theories of the Grimms and Max Mueller and considerably reduced the
importance of folk tales as throwing light upon the primitive
psychology of the Aryan peoples. Benfey's researches were followed up
by E. Cosquin who, in the elaborate notes to his _Contes de Lorraine_,
Paris, 1886, largely increased the evidence both for the common
European popularity of many of the tales and incidents as well as for
the parallels to be found in Oriental collections.
Still a third theory to account for the similarity of folk-tale
incidents was started by James A. Farrer and elaborated by Andrew Lang
in connection with the general movement initiated by Sir Edward Tylor
to explain mythology and superstition by the similar processes of
savage psychology at definite stages of primitive culture. In
introductions to Perrault and Grimm and elsewhere, Andrew Lang
pointed out the similarity of some of the incidents of folk
tales--speaking of animals, transference of human feeling to inanimate
objects and the like--with the mental processes of contemporary
savages. He drew the conclusion that the original composers of fairy
tales were themselves in a savage state of mind and, by inference,
explained the similarities found in folk tales as due to the
similarity of the states of minds. In a rather elaborate controversy
on the subject between Mr. Lang and myself, carried through the
transactions of the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, the introduction to
Miss Roalfe Cox's "Cinderella," and in various numbers of "Folk-Lore,"
I urged the improbability of this explanation as applied to the
_plots_ of fairy tales. Similar states of mind might account for
similar incidents arising in different areas independently, but not
for whole series of incidents artistically woven together to form a
definite plot which must, I contended, arise in a single artist mind.
The similarities in plot would thus be simply due to borrowing from
one nation to another, though incidents or series of incidents might
be inserted or omitted during the process. Mr. Lang ultimately yielded
this point and indeed insisted that he had never denied the
possibility of the transmission of complete folk-tale formulae from one
nation and language to another.
During all this discussion as to the causes of the similarity of
folk-tale plots no attempt has been made to reconstitute any of these
formulae in their original shape. Inquirers have been content to point
out the parallelisms to be found in the various folk-tale collections,
and of course these parallelisms have bred and mustered with the
growth of the collections. In some cases the parallels have run into
the hundreds. (See "Reynard and Bruin.") In only one case have
practically all the parallels been brought together in a single volume
by Miss Roalfe Cox on Cinderella (Folk-Lore Society Publication for
1893; see notes on "Cinder-Maid"). These variants of incidents
obviously resemble the _variae lectiones_ of MSS. and naturally suggest
the possibility of getting what may be termed the original readings.
In 1889 the following suggestion was made by Mr. (now Sir) James G.
Frazer in an essay on the "Language of Animals," in the _Archaeological
Review_, i., p. 84:
"In the case of authors who wrote before the invention of printing,
scholars are familiar with the process of comparing the various MSS.
of a single work in order from such a comparison to reconstruct the
archetype or original MS., from which the various existing MSS. are
derived. Similarly in Folk-Lore, by comparing the different versions
of a single tale, it may be possible to arrive, with tolerable
certainty, at the original story, of which the different versions are
more or less imperfect and incorrect representations."
Independently of Sir James Frazer's suggestion, which I have only
recently come across, I have endeavoured in the present book to carry
it out as applied to a considerable number of the common formulas of
European folk-tales, and I hope in a succeeding volume to complete the
task and thus give to the students of the folk-tale as close approach
as possible to the original form of the common folk-tales of Europe as
the materials at our disposal permit.
My procedure has been entirely similar to that of an editor of a text.
Having collected together all the variants, I have reduced them to
families of types and from these families have conjectured the
original concatenation of incidents into plot. I have assumed that the
original teller of the tale was animated by the same artistic logic as
the contemporary writers of _Contes_ (see notes on "Cinder-Maid,"
"Language of Animals"), and have thus occasionally introduced an
incident which seemed vital to the plot, though it occurs only in some
of the families of the variants. My procedure can only be justified by
the success of my versions and their internal coherence. As regards
the actual form of the narrative, this does not profess to be European
but follows the general style of the English fairy tale, of which I
have published two collections (_English Fairy Tales_, 1890; _More
English Fairy Tales_, 1894).
In the following notes I have not wasted space on proving the European
character of the various tales by enumerating the different variants,
being content for the most part to give references to special
discussions of the story where the requisite bibliography is given.
With the more serious tales I have rather concerned myself with trying
to restore the original formula and to establish its artistic
coherence. Though I have occasionally discussed an incident of
primitive character, I have not made a point of drawing attention to
savage parallels, nor again have I systematically given references to
the appearance of whole tales or separate incidents in mediaeval
literature or in the Indian collections. For the time being I have
concentrated myself on the task of getting back as near as possible to
the original form of the fairy tales common to all Europe. Only when
that has been done satisfactorily can we begin to argue as to the
causes or origin of the separate items in these originals. It must, of
course, always be remembered that, outside this common nucleus, each
country or linguistic area has its own story-store, which is equally
deserving of special investigation by the serious student of the
folk-tale. I have myself dealt with some of these non-European or
national folk-tales for the English, Celtic and Indian areas and hope
in the near future to treat of other folk-tale districts, like the
French, the Scandinavian, the Teutonic or the Slavonian.
I had gone through three-quarters of the tales and notes contained in
the present book before I became acquainted with the modestly named
_Anmerkungen zu Grimm's Maehrchen_, 2 vols., 1913-15, by J. Bolte and
E. Polivka. This is one of those works of colossal erudition of which
German savants alone seem to have the secret. It sums up the enormous
amount of research that has been going on in Europe for the last
hundred years, on the parallelism and provenance of the folk-tales of
Europe, and in a measure does for all the Grimm stories what Miss
Roalfe Cox did for Cinderella. Only two volumes have as yet appeared
dealing with the first 120 numbers of the Grimm collection in over a
thousand pages crammed with references and filled with details as to
variants. The book has obviously been planned and worked out by Dr.
Bolte, who had previously edited the collected works of his chief
predecessor, R. Koehler. Dr. Polivka's contribution mainly consists in
the collection and collation of the Slavonic variants, which are here
made accessible for the first time. I therefore refer to the volume
henceforth by Dr. Bolte's name. The book is indispensable for the
serious students of the folk-tale, and would have saved me an immense
amount of trouble if I had become acquainted with it earlier.
In thirty-eight or nearly a third of the tales Dr. Bolte gives a
formula, or radicle, summing up the "common form" of the story, and I
am happy to find that in those cases, which occur in the early part of
the present volume, my own formulae, agree with his, though of course
for the purposes of this book I have had to go into more detail. Dr.
Bolte has not as yet expounded any theory of the origin of the Folk
Tale, but, with true scientific caution, judges each case on its
merits. But his whole treatment assumes the organic unity of each
particular formula, and one cannot conceive him regarding the
similarities of the tales as due to similar mental workings of the
folk mind at a particular stage of social development.
Finally, I should perhaps explain that in my selection of typical
folk-tales for the present volume, I have included not only those
which could possibly be traced back to real primitive times and mental
conditions, like the "Cupid and Psyche" formula, but others of more
recent date and composition, provided they have spread throughout
Europe, which is my criterion. For instance "Beauty and the Beast" in
its current shape was composed in the eighteenth century, but has
found its place in the story-store of European children. A couple,
like "Androcles and the Lion" and "Day Dreaming," owe a similar spread
to literary communication even though in the latter case it is the
popular literature of the _Arabian Nights_. These must be regarded as
specimens only of a large class of stories that are found among the
folk and can be traced in the popular mediaeval collections like
Alfonsi's _Disciplina-Clericalis_ or Jacques de Vitry's _Exempla_, not
to speak of the _Fables of Bidpai_ or _The Seven Wise Masters of
Rome_. These form quite a class by themselves and though they have
come to be in many cases Folk-Lore of European spread, they differ in
quality from the ordinary folk-tale which is characterized by its
tendency to variation as it passes from mouth to mouth. Still one has
to recognize that they are now European and take their place among the
folk and for that reason I have given a couple of specimens of them,
but of course my main attention has been directed to attempting to
reconstruct the original form of the true folk-tale from the
innumerable variants now current among the folk.
I. CINDER-MAID
_Source._--Miss Roalfe Cox's volume on Cinderella, published by the
Folk-Lore Society (London: David Nutt, 1893), contains 130 abstracts
and tabulations of the pure Cinderella "formula," found in Finland,
the Riviera, Scotland, Italy, Armenia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden,
France, Greece, Germany, Spain, Calcutta, Ireland, Servia, Poland,
Russia, Denmark, Albania, Cyprus, Galicia Lithuania, Catalonia,
Portugal, Sicily, Hungary, Martinique, Holland, Bohemia, Bulgaria,
and the Tyrol. Besides these there are 31 intermediate stories
approximating to the Cinderella type, from Russia, Asia Minor, Italy,
Lorraine, The Deccan, Poland, Hungary, Catalonia, Corsica, Finland,
Switzerland, and in Basque, Spain. The earliest form in which the pure
type occurs is in Basile's _Pentamerone_, 1634, and of the
indeterminate type in Bonaventure des Periers _Nouvelles Recreations_,
1557, though the latter seems more cognate to the Catskin formula.
In many of the variants there is an introductory series of incidents
in which the heroine, after the loss of her mother, is set tasks by
the envious step-mother and sisters, which she is aided to perform by
means of an animal helper, mainly sheep or cow, which, in some of the
versions, is clearly identified with her mother either in a
transformed or a natural state. In these versions the magic dresses,
for example, are taken out of the ear of the cow or sheep! These
incidents however seem to me to be incongruous with the rest of the
story, which involves a monogamous society with fairly fixed social
grades and with the wearing of shoes at least among the upper strata
of society. They belong rather to the type of story represented by the
Grimm's "One eye, Two eyes, Three eyes"; and I have therefore reserved
them for my retelling of this formula. In a similar way, in some of
the Celtic versions, a long series of incidents is inserted, clearly
taken from the Sea Maiden story (see _Celtic Fairy Tales_, xvii.).
The central incident of the Cinder-Maid formula is clearly the Shoe
Marriage Test, up to which everything leads and upon which the
mutilation incidents at the end depends. The mutilation again implies
that the shoe in question must have been of a hard or metallic
substance which could not be pressed out of shape. In the form
endeared to most European children of the upper classes by Charles
Perrault, the slipper is made of glass. It was first suggested by
Balzac that Perrault's _pantoffles de verre_ was due to his
misunderstanding of the _pantoffles de vair_, or fur (the word _vair_
is still used to indicate this in heraldry), which he had heard from
his nurse or other folk-tale informant. But the step-sisters would not
have been compelled to hack their heels to get inside a fur slipper,
and, from this point of view, the glass shoe would be preferable. I
have had, however, to reject it because it occurs in only six of the
variants obviously derived directly, or indirectly, from Perrault. The
majority of the versions prefer _gold_ (see Miss Roalfe Cox's
enumeration p. 342).
The Shoe Marriage Test again involves the previous meetings of the
high-born lover and the menial heroine, transformed for the nonce by
her dress into a dame of equal standing. In some of the variants these
meetings are in church and not at a ball, royal or otherwise. But the
Shoe Marriage Test involves a highly desirable _parti_ who can
practically command any wife he desires; this points to some
super-chief or king. I have, therefore, reserved the church meetings
for the Catskin type of story in which the heroine is scullery-maid in
the young lord's own household. The obtaining of the dresses needed
for the Royal Balls involves some animal or supernatural aid (in
Perrault it is, of course, a fairy god-mother, unknown to the folk
mind), while the menial condition of the heroine is best explained in
the usual folk-tale manner by the envious step-mother or sisters.
I have pointed out in _English Fairy Tales_ (Note to "Childe Rowland")
that in most folk-tales of a romantic type the mode of telling is by
prose narrative interspersed with rhyming formulae analogous to the
cante-fable as in "Aucassin and Nicolete." The Cinderella formula
shows clear traces of such rhymes, especially at the stages of the
narrative where incidents are repeated--the appeal for aid at the
mother's grave (Dress Rhyme), the avoidance of pursuit by the guards
(Pursuit Rhyme), and the calling attention of the Prince to the
mutilated feet of the step-sisters (Feet Rhyme).
Now some of these rhymes are found in similar and almost identical
shape in collections made in different countries and different
languages; thus the Tree Rhyme is found in the _Archivio_ (Cox, p.
139) and in Ive (p. 265), in Bechstein (p. 166), and in Grimm (p.
222), and in Hahn (p. 244), and Moe (p. 322), each pair having
practically identical rhymes. Thus we have the existence of a Tree
Rhyme, shown in Italy and Germany, Greece and Denmark. So, too, the
Feet Rhyme is found in Scotland and Denmark, Germany and Brittany. It
is scarcely possible to doubt that all these came from one original
form of the story in which similar rhymes occurred at the same stage
of the narrative. The possibility of such coincidences arising
casually may fairly be regarded as out of the question.
The subordinate incidents growing out of these essential elements of
the formula are of course more flexible, but the Shoe Marriage Test
itself involves some remarkable dresses used to disguise the identity
of the Cinder Maid at her meetings with the hero, and this again
involves, though not so directly, a series of metal carriages. The
Pursuit Rhyme might easily give rise to the expedients of the Honey
and Tar Traps though these do not occur in very many of the variants.
I have never-the-less inserted them for the sake of the children if
not for that of Folk-Lore Science.
Thus, from what may be called the artistic logic of the Cinderella
story, one is enabled to reconstitute its original formula somewhat as
follows:
Noble Father--Single Daughter--Mother's Death--Tree Planted on
Mother's Grave--Second Marriage--Two Ugly Step-Sisters--Menial
Heroine--Cinder-Maid--Prince Coming of Age--Royal Ball--Step-Sisters
Dressing--Tree Rhyme--Bird Aid--Magic Dress (blue heaven with
stars)--Copper Chariot from Tree--Copper Shoes--Caution Rhyme--Ball
Success--Pursuit Rhyme--Step-Sisters' Envy--Second Ball--Magic Dress
(golden brown earth with flowers)--Silver Chariot--Silver Shoes--Honey
trap--Pursuit Rhyme--Third Ball--Magic Dress (green sea with
waves)--Golden Chariot--Golden Slippers--Tar Trap (lost shoe)--Time
Expired--Shoe Marriage Test--Mutilated Foot--Feet Rhyme (_bis_)--Happy
Marriage.
It is in accordance with the above formula that the version presented
in the preceding pages has been written, the rhymes being, in most
cases, compounded from the various renderings given in Miss Cox's
volume. I have only added the Caution Rhyme about returning at
midnight, which is in prose in the versions; it would be incongruous
for the little bird to change her mode of diction so suddenly. I can
only hope I will not remind the reader of the guide's description of
Wallenstein's horse at Prague: "The head, neck, forelegs, left
hind-leg, and part of the back and tail have been restored; all the
rest is the original horse."
_Parallels._--Miss Cox's volume contains all the parallels of the
Cinder-Maid formulae, to which reference has been made above, and she
has supplemented these by a few additional ones in _Folk-Lore_ for
1907, pages xviii; 191-6. In addition, she gives, in her notes,
parallels to the different incidents:
Note 4. (Help by dead parent.) Note 6. (Pursuit checked by mist.) Note
7. (Magic tree on buried mother's grave.) Note 8. (Substituted bride.)
Note 26. (Sitting on ashes.) Note 32. (Birds' language.) Note 38.
(Tree or rock treasures.) Note 48. (Lost shoe.) Note 50. (Iron shoes,)
and further notes on, Helpful, animals, p. 526. Fairy god-mother, p.
527 and Talking birds, p. 527-9.
Of these the most important for our present purposes is the 48th note
dealing with the Lost Shoe, which we have suggested is the central
incident in the "original." In Strabo xvii. and in AElian xiii.--33,
the myth of Rhodope informs us that, while she was bathing, an eagle
snatched one of her sandals and dropped it in the lap of Psammetichus
who, struck by its neatness, had all Egypt search for its owner, whom
he then took to wife. In other Egyptian and in Indian stories a
severed lock of hair of the heroine leads to the same result. Jacob
Grimm drew attention to the old German custom of using a shoe at
betrothals, which was placed on the bride's foot as a sign of her
being subjected to the groom's authority. King Rother had two shoes
forged, a silver and a golden one, which he fitted on the feet of his
bride, placed on his knee for that purpose. (See _Deutsche
Rechts-Alterthumer_, Goettingen, 1828, p. 155.) It is, of course,
possible that some reminiscence of the Rhodope myth had spread among
the folk to which the original teller of Cinder-Maid belonged, and if
the shoe betrothal was confined to German custom this would seem to
give a clue to the original home of the Cinder-Maid.
* * * * *
_Remarks._--The hazardous character of the reconstruction process
involved in the restoration of the original Cinder-Maid formula
cannot, of course, be exaggerated. It is even more precarious than the
similar procedure gone through by scholars to restore the original
reading of MSS. or by the Higher Critics in recovering the J.
narrative of Joseph or the E. narrative of Lot. But I think I have
shown that the incidents selected by me are those which are
necessitated by the artistic logic of the Shoe Marriage Test which
forms the decisive incident in the Cinder-Maid formula. Where the
majority of the incidents contained in the reconstruction occurred in
the same order in far distant countries it is practically impossible
to imagine that the resemblance is due to chance. Nor is it pertinent
to point out that the separate incidents occur equally widespread in
connection with other formulae, since it must not be forgotten that no
folk teller ever indulges in a single incident; he tells a tale of
many incidents. At the same time it is obvious that a series of
incidents may be transferred appropriately (or inappropriately) from
one tale to another; and this has occurred with the Cinderella tales,
as is shown abundantly in Miss Cox's notes. It is thus quite easy for
a folk teller, who is familiar with other stories, to introduce an
analogous set of incidents in the Cinder-Maid formula, just as Rob
Roy's son can introduce variations of an air when playing the
bagpipes; but the air remains the same throughout.
If the formula I have reconstructed for the Cinder-Maid compares at
all with the original, one ought to be able to take any variant and
see where the teller of it has diverged from the original, inserted
new incidents or adopted new ones to local conditions. When one reads
over Miss Cox's variants one can often discern such additions or
variations introduced by the fancy of the teller. It is even possible
that in Cinderella itself the original folk artist who conceived it
made use of the Catskin formula to embellish the details of the three
meetings of the lovers; even in my own telling I fear there may be
traces of the same process. There is still doubt whether the bird in
the hazel tree was meant to represent the soul of the mother in whom,
we may even say, there is a double identification involved, as in the
Golden Bough. The tree rising from the mother's grave is obviously
connected spiritually with her; the relation of the bird in the tree
to the Cinder-Maid also implies a similar relation to the mother. In
my telling of the tale I have purposely avoided emphasizing this,
which might lead to inconvenient questionings from the little ones. In
the scheme of the story the guardian influence of the mother-soul is
prominent throughout but need not be too much emphasized for modern
children.
II. ALL CHANGE
This nonsense story is found widely spread, especially in Romance
tongues, French, Italian, Provencal, and Portuguese; but it is also
found in Ireland (see _Celtic Fairy Tales_), Hanover, Transylvania,
Esthonia, and Russia; so that it has claims to be included in the
fairy book of all Europe. Cosquin, ii., 209-14, gives a number of
Oriental stories, Annamite, Kalmuk, Kaffir, which contain the incident
of the girl in the bag, and Indian and Kabyle stories, which go
through the same exchanges as our story. In the latter case it is an
animal story in which the jackal has a thorn picked out of his paws by
an old woman, and gets an egg out of her in exchange for the thorn
which he has "lost." In this form the jackal helps considerably in the
disappearance of the successive exchanges. It is difficult to say
whether the European or the Indian form was the earlier. The animal
_dramatis personae_ seem less incongruous and turn the scale in favour
of India.
III. KING OF THE FISHES
This is practically the Perseus legend of antiquity, which has been
made the subject of an elaborate study by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, _The
Legend of Perseus_, 3 vols., London, 1894-6. Mr. Hartland
distinguishes four chains of incidents in the story:
1. The Supernatural Birth.
2. The Life Token.
3. The Rescue of Andromeda.
4. The Medusa Witch.