Remarks.—The tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome’s contention (in Transactions Folk-Lore Congress) for the diffusion of all folk-tales by means of gypsies as colporteurs. This is merely a matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though it is indeed curious that one of Campbell’s best equipped informants should turn out to be a gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well substantiated.
LXXII. KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT
Source.—“Prosed” from the well-known ballad in Percy. I have changed the first query: What am I worth? Answer: Twenty-nine pence—one less, I ween, than the Lord. This would have sounded somewhat bold in prose.
Parallels.—Vincent of Beauvais has the story, but the English version comes from the German Joe Miller, Pauli’s Schimpf und Ernst, No. lv., p. 46, ed. Oesterley, where see his notes. The question I have omitted exists there, and cannot have “independently arisen.” Pauli was a fifteenth century worthy or unworthy.
Remarks.—Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with, as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with his customary erudition by Prof. Child in his comments on the ballad, English and Scotch Ballads, i, 403-14.
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).
GREGOR. || LANG. || CHAMBERS, I. and II. || BLIND.
Ill-treated heroine (by parents). || Calf given by dying mother. || Heroine dislikes husband. || Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother).
Helpful animal (red calf). || Ill-treated heroine (by stepmother and sisters). || Henwife aid. || Menial heroine.
Spy on heroine. || Heroine disguise (rashin coatie). || Countertasks. || Helpful animal (black sheep).
Slaying of helpful animal threatened. || Hearth abode. || Heroine disguise. || Ear cornucopia.
Heroine flight. || Helpful animal. || Heroine flight. || Spy on heroine.
Heroine disguise (rashin coatie). || Slaying of helpful animal. || Menial heroine. || Slaying of helpful animal.
Menial heroine. || Revivified bones. || (Fairy) aid. || Old woman advice.
|| Help at grave. || || Revivified bones.
|| Dinner cooked (by helpful animal). || || Task performing animal.
Magic dresses (given by calf). || Magic dresses. || Magic dresses. || Meeting-place (church).
Meeting-place (church). || Meeting-place (church). || Meeting-place (church). || Dresses (not magic).
Flight. || Flight threefold. || Flight threefold. || Flight twofold.
Lost shoe. || Lost shoe. || Lost shoe. || Lost shoe.
Shoe marriage test. || Shoe marriage test. || Shoe marriage test. || Shoe marriage test.
Mutilated foot (housewife’s daughter). || Mutilated foot. || Mutilated foot. || Mutilated foot
Bird witness. || False bride. || False bride. || False bride.
Happy marriage. || Bird witness. || Bird witness. || Bird witness (raven).
House for red calf. || Happy marriage. || Happy marriage. || Happy marriage.
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.
MACLEOD. || CAMPBELL. || SINCLAIR. || CURTIN. Heroine, daughter of sheep, king’s wife. || Ill-treated heroine (by stepmother). || Ill-treated heroine (by stepmother and sisters). || Ill-treated heroine (by elder sisters). || Menial heroine. || Menial heroine. || Menial heroine. || Helpful animal. || Helpful cantrips. || Henwife aid. Spy on heroine. || Spy on heroine. || Magic dresses (+ starlings on shoulders). || Magic dresses (honey-bird finger and stud). Eye sleep threefold. || Eye sleep. || Meeting-place (church). || Meeting place (church). Slaying of helpful animal mother. || Slaying of helpful animal. || Flight twofold. || Flight threefold. Revivified bones. || Revivified bones. || Lost shoe. || Lost shoe. Magic dresses. || Step-sister substitute. || Shoe marriage test. || Shoe marriage test. || Golden shoe gift (from hero). || Heroine under washtub. || Mutilated foot. Meeting-place (feast). || Meeting-place (sermon). || Happy marriage. || Happy marriage. Flight threefold. || Flight threefold. || Substituted bride. || Substituted bride (eldest sister). Lost shoe (golden). || Lost shoe. || Jonah heroine. || Jonah heroine. Shoe marriage test. || Shoe marriage test. || Three reappearances. || Three reappearances. Mutilated foot. || Mutilated foot. || Reunion. || Reunion. || False bride. || || Villain Nemesis. Bird witness. || Bird witness. || || Happy marriage. || Happy marriage.