Chapter LXXIII: Rushen Coatie

_Source._--I have concocted this English, or rather Scotch, Cinderella from the various versions given in Miss Cox's remarkable collection of 345 variants of _Cinderella_ (Folk-Lore Society, 1892); see _Parallels_ for an enumeration of those occurring in the British Isles. I have used Nos. 1-3, 8-10. I give my composite the title "Rushen Coatie," to differentiate it from any of the Scotch variants, and for the purposes of a folk-lore experiment. If this book becomes generally used among English-speaking peoples, it may possibly re-introduce this and other tales among the folk. We should be able to trace this re-introduction by the variation in titles. I have done the same with "Nix Nought Nothing," "Molly Whuppie," and "Johnny Gloke."

_Parallels._--Miss Cox's volume gives no less than 113 variants of the pure type of Cinderella--her type A. "Cinderella, or the Fortunate Marriage of a Despised Scullery-maid by Aid of an _Animal_ God-mother through the Test of a Slipper"--such might be the explanatory title of a chap-book dealing with the pure type of Cinderella. This is represented in Miss Cox's book, so far as the British Isles are concerned, by no less than seven variants, as follows: (1) Dr. Blind, in _Archæological Review_, iii., 24-7, "Ashpitell" (from neighbourhood of Glasgow). (2) A. Lang, in _Revue Celtique_, t. iii., reprinted in _Folk-Lore_, September, 1890, "Rashin Coatie" (from Morayshire). (3) Mr. Gregor, in _Folk-Lore Journal_, ii., 72-4 (from Aberdeenshire), "The Red Calf"--all these in Lowland Scots. (4) Campbell, _Popular Tales_, No. xliii., ii., 286 _seq._, "The Sharp Grey Sheep." (5) Mr. Sinclair, in _Celtic Mag._, xiii., 454-65, "Snow-white Maiden." (6) Mr. Macleod's variant communicated through Mr. Nutt to Miss Cox's volume, p. 533; and (7) Curtin, _Myths of Ireland_, pp. 78-92. "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"--these four in Gaelic, the last in Erse. To these I would add (8, 9) Chambers's two versions in _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, pp. 66-8, "Rashie Coat," though Miss Cox assimilates them to Type B. Catskin; and (10) a variant of Dr. Blind's version, unknown to Miss Cox, but given in 7 _Notes and Queries_, x., 463 (Dumbartonshire). Mr. Clouston has remarks on the raven as omen-bird in his notes to Mrs. Saxby's _Birds of Omen in Shetland_ (privately printed, 1893).

ENGLISH VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA

GREGOR. LANG. CHAMBERS, I. and II. BLIND.

Ill-treated Calf given by _Heroine dislikes_ Ill-treated
heroine dying mother. _husband._ heroine
(by parents). (by step-mother).

Helpful Ill-treated _Henwife aid._ Menial heroine.
animal heroine (by
(red calf). stepmother
and sisters).

Spy on Heroine disguise _Countertasks._ Helpful animal
heroine. (rashin (black sheep).
coatie).

Slaying of Hearth abode. _Heroine Ear cornucopia.
helpful disguise._
animal
threatened.

Heroine Helpful animal. _Heroine Spy on heroine.
flight. flight._

Heroine Slaying of Menial heroine. Slaying of
disguise helpful animal. helpful animal.
(rashin
coatie).

Menial Revivified bones. (Fairy) aid. Old woman advice.
heroine.

Help at grave. Revivified bones.

Dinner cooked Task performing
(by helpful animal.
animal).

Magic dresses Magic dresses. Magic dresses. Meeting-place
(given by (church).
calf).

Meeting-place Meeting-place Meeting-place Dresses (not
(church). (church). (church). magic).

Flight. Flight Flight Flight twofold.
threefold. threefold.

Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe.

Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage
test. test. test. test.

Mutilated foot Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot
(housewife's
daughter).

Bird witness. False bride. False bride. False bride.

Happy Bird witness. Bird witness. Bird witness
marriage. (raven).

House for Happy marriage. Happy marriage. Happy marriage.
red calf.

_Remarks._--In going over these various versions, the first and perhaps most striking thing that comes out is the substantial agreement of the variants in each _language_. The English--_i.e._, Scotch, variants go together; the Gaelic ones agree to differ from the English. I can best display this important agreement and difference by the accompanying two tables, which give, in parallel columns, Miss Cox's abstracts of her tabulations, in which each incident is shortly given in technical phraseology. It is practically impossible to use the long tabulations for comparative purposes without some such shorthand.

CELTIC VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA

MACLEOD. CAMPBELL. SINCLAIR. CURTIN.

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.]