Page:Cinderella, Roalfe Cox.djvu/12

 viii breaking a nuptial taboo—for example, in Cupid and Psyche. In that class of tales they may be forgiven; or we may have the "Villain Nemesis"; that is, they may be punished. Again, another popular incident may be introduced, a bird may reveal the secret. But this, too, is not peculiar to Cinderella; it occurs in all sorts of plots: the revealing animals are wood-worms in a märchen which survives in a scholion to the Iliad. Once more, the shoe need not bring about the recognition: that may be done by a ring, or a lock of hair, or otherwise. As far as I can see, the number of possible combinations resulting in a story recognisably similar to Cinderella are infinite. Now, I would only regard such stories as necessarily borrowed, or transmitted, when the chain and sequence of incidents keeps close to a given type; we may choose Perrault's as the type, merely by way of illustration. Given a widower, his daughter, his second wife, her daughters, ill-treatment of his daughter, her supernatural aid to social successes, her disappearance, and recognition by lock of hair, ring, or shoe—given all these, in their sequence, and we have borrowing or transmission of a tale, as far as we can reason on chances of possible coincidence. Make the giver of supernatural aid a beast, bequeathed by a dead mother, or that dead mother in a new animal form, and we have a more archaic shape, but still the same tale, the same plot, probably the same original narrative. Dead mother as beast seems most archaic, see the last variant (p. 534); then beast bequeathed by dead mother; then fairy godmother.

While this plot and sequence is adhered to, we seem to see one original combination in different guises. Granting this much, if we want to go further, and look for the cradle of the story, whence it was originally diffused, we take up Miss Cox's book. Let us adopt the hypothesis, to please M. Cosquin, that India is the fountain of these narratives. We look up India on p. xxxi, and find that the tale occurs in Bombay, Madras, and Salsette. In the first and last the tale is in form A. "ill-treated heroine; recognition by means of shoe." In the case of Bombay, as far as the summary shows (p. n), it is very normal. The heroine is aided by a cow: a cock is the bird-witness: a shoe