Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/161

 NOTES ON CINDERELLA.

BY E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, F. S. A.

volume of six hundred pages, recently issued by the Folk-Lore Society and entitled Cinderella, is the largest and most important contribution ever made to the study of a single folk-tale. It consists entirely of abstracts of variants, with a few useful notes on special points. Miss Marian Roalfe Cox, to whom we owe it, has been unwearied in her industry; and her judgment, skill and wide knowledge of folk-tales have enabled her to produce a collection simply indispensable to every student. We may differ, perhaps, on certain points of arrangement—for instance, on twofold tabulation; but we are quite sure that neither this nor any other detail of method has been adopted without due consideration, and at least it has been followed logically to the end.

I feel, however, that, to those students who know the volume, praise is superfluous. The book has become as much a part of the apparatus of their study as the blowpipe is of an analytical chemist's. The following notes, therefore, aim at stating (rather than fully discussing) a few of the many questions raised by the variants brought together.

In view of recent controversies the most important of the problems connected with a folk-tale relates to the possibility of tracing its origin to any definite locality or race of men. Of such a problem a collection of three hundred and forty-five variants ought to offer some hopes of solution. Miss Cox finds in the stories three well-marked types, which she has named after the stories best known to English-speaking students: Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap o' Rushes. Beside these three, there is a number of variants sometimes approximating to one, sometimes to another, of the types, but not 125