Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/287

 Rh original. His chief reason appears to be the earlier appearance of Catskin in Straparola, 1550, a hundred years earlier than Cinderella in Basile, 1636. This appears to be a somewhat insufficient basis for such a conclusion. Nor is there, after all, so close a relation between the two types in their full development as to necessitate the derivation of one from the other.

C. Cap o' Rushes is chiefly of interest as being similar to King Lear. Mr. Newell, l. c., suggests a direct relationship. Catskin, according to him, is derived from Godfrey of Monmouth. But the "loving like salt" formula (for which see Cosquin, i, 288) has a distinct folk-flavour about it, and I think it more likely that both Godfrey and Cap o' Rushes are derived from an English, perhaps British, folk-tale.

D, "Tattercoats," the original of which will appear in my forthcoming book, is of interest chiefly as being without any "fairy" or supernatural elements, unless the Herd-boy with his persuasive pipe be regarded as such an element. It is practically a prose variant of "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid", and is thus an instance of the folknovel pure and simple, without any admixture of those unnatural incidents which transform the folk-novel into the serious folk-tale as we are accustomed to have it. Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.

Our inquiries into the various forms of Cinderella and kindred types which have been observed by Miss Cox in Great Britain and Ireland have not led to any definite result, a result not to be wondered at. What is required is that similar investigation should be made for each country or linguistic area, with a view of ascertaining the earliest and most original form of each type in each country. We shall then be in a position, perhaps, to say where the story originated and how it got transmitted to other places.