Page:More English Fairy Tales.djvu/277

 motifs. Yet they existed in England, for Miss Isabella Barclay, in a variant which Miss Cox has overlooked (Folk-Lore, i. l.c.), remembers having heard the Unnatural Father incident from a Cornish servant-girl. Campbell’s two versions also contain the incident, from which one of them receives its name. One wonders in what form Mr. Burchell knew Catskin, for “he gave the [Primrose] children the Buck of Beverland, with the history of Patient Grissel, the adventures of Catskin and the Fair Rosamond’s Bower” (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, c. vi.). Pity that “Goldy” did not tell the story himself, as he had probably heard it in Ireland, where Kennedy gives a poor version in his Fireside Stories.

Yet, imperfect as the chap-book versions are, they yet retain not a few archaic touches. It is clear from them, at any rate, that the Heroine was at one time transformed into a Cat. For when the basin of water is thrown in her face she “shakes her ears” just as a cat would. Again, before putting on her magic dresses she bathes in a pellucid pool. Now, Professor Child has pointed out in his notes on Tamlane and elsewhere (English and Scotch Ballads, i. 338; ii. 505; iii. 505) that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place. It is clear, therefore, that Catskin was originally transformed into an animal by the spirit of her mother, also transformed into an animal.

If I understand Mr. Nutt rightly (Folk-Lore, iv. 135 seq.), he is inclined to think, from the evidence of the hero-tales which have the unsavoury motif of the Unnatural Father, that the original home of the story was England, where most of the hero-tales locate the incident. I would merely remark on this that there are only very slight traces of the story in these islands nowadays, while it abounds in Italy, which possesses one almost perfect version of the formula (Miss Cox, No. 142, from Sardinia).

Mr. Newell, on the other hand (American Folk-Lore Journal, ii. 160), considers Catskin the earliest of the three types contained in Miss Cox’s book, and considers that Cinderella has derived from this as a softening of the 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