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Rh 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.