CINDERELLA. (KREUTZWALD.)

Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas   

p. 4

THE Esthonian story of Tuhka-Triinu (Ash-Katie¹), as given by Kreutzwald, is more on the lines of the German Aschenputtel than on those of the French Cendrillon.

 Once upon a time there lived a rich man with his wife and an only daughter. When the mother dies, she directs her daughter to plant a tree on her grave, where the birds can find food and shelter.² The father marries a widow with two daughters, who ill-treat the motherless girl, declaring that she shall be their slave-girl. A magpie cries from the summit of the tree, “Poor child, poor child! why do you not go and complain to the rowan-tree? Ask for counsel, when your hard life will be lightened.”

 She goes to the grave at night, and a voice asks p. 5 her to whom she should appeal, and in whom she should trust, and she answers, “God.” Then the voice tells her to call the cock and hen to help her, when she has work to do which she cannot perform by herself.

 When the king’s ball is announced, Cinderella has to dress her sisters, after which the eldest throws lentils into the ashes, telling her to pick them up; but this is done by the cock and hen. She is left at home weeping, and a voice tells her to go and shake the rowan-tree. When she had done so, a light appeared in the darkness, and she saw a woman sitting on the summit of the tree. She was an ell high, and clothed in golden raiment, and she held a small basket and a gold wand in her hands. She took a hen’s egg from her basket, which she turned into a coach; six mice formed the horses, a black beetle¹ formed the coachman, and two speckled butterflies the footmen.

 The little witch-maiden then dressed Tuhka Triinu as magnificently as a Saxon lady. She then sent her to the ball, warning her to leave before the cock crows for the third time, as everything will then resume its original shape. On the second p. 6 night Tuhka Triinu took to flight, and lost one of her little gold shoes, which the prince found next morning. When it came to be tried on, Tuhka Triinu’s sisters, who thought they had small feet, tugged and squeezed without success. But the shoe fitted Tuhka Triinu. Her guardian again robed her magnificently, and she married the prince.¹

Footnotes

p. 4

¹ Here Cinderella’s real name is Katrina; in Finnish she is sometimes called Kristina (see Miss Cox, Cinderella, p. 552), while in Slavonic tales she is called Marya, and in some German adaptations Aennchen.

² When Väinämöinen cleared the forest, he left a birch-tree standing for the same purpose (Kalevala, Runo ii.).

p. 5

¹ A black dung-beetle (Geotrupes) is meant, not a cockroach.

p. 6

¹ This story is one of those which Löwe has passed over, and it is also omitted by Miss Cox.