There seems to be no reason why the adventure of the good and bad sisters should merge in the formula of the substituted bride, more than in the adventure of the princess accused of bearing bestial children, or in any other. Probably Perrault felt this, and, having made his moral point, was content to do without the sequel.
Les Fées is interesting then, first, as an example of a moral idea illustrated in tales even in South Africa, and, secondly (in its longer and more usual form), as an example of the manner in which any story may glide into any other. All the incidents of popular tales, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, may be shaken into a practically limitless number of combinations.
[67] Antoninus Liberalis, xxxv.
Cendrillon.
Cinderella.
The story of Cinderella (Cendrillon, Cucendron, Cendreusette, Sainte Rosette) is one of the most curious in the history of Märchen. Here we can distinctly see how the taste and judgment of Perrault altered an old and barbarous detail, and there, perhaps, we find the remains of a very ancient custom.
There are two points in Cinderella, and her cousin Peau d'Ane, particularly worth notice. First, there is the process by which the agency of a Fairy Godmother has been substituted for that of a friendly beast, usually a connection by blood-kindred of the hero or heroine. Secondly, there is the favouritism shown, in many versions, to the youngest child, and the custom which allots to this child a place by the hearth or in the cinders (Cucendron).
Taking the first incident, the appearance in Perrault of a Fairy Godmother in place of a friendly beast, we may remark that this kind of change is always characteristic of the promotion of a story. Just as Indian 'aboriginal' tribes cashier their beast-ancestors ('Totems') in favour of a human ancestor of a similar name, when they rise in civilisation, so the rôles which are filled by beasts in savage Märchen come to be assigned to men and women in the contes of more cultivated people[68]. In Cinderella, however, the friendly beast holds its own more or less in nearly all European versions, except in those actually derived from Perrault. In every shape of the story known to us, the beast is a domesticated animal. Thus it will not be surprising if no native version is found in America, where animals, except dogs, were scarcely domesticated at all before the arrival of Europeans.
In examining the incident of the friendly and protecting beast, it may be well to begin with a remote and barbarous version, that of the Kaffirs. Here, as in other cases, we may find one situation in a familiar story divorced from those which, as a general rule, are in its company. Theorists may argue either that the Kaffirs borrowed from Europeans one or two incidents out of a popular form of Cinderella, or that they happen to make use of an opinion common to most early peoples, the belief, namely, in the superhuman powers of friendly beast-protectors. As to borrowing, Europeans and Kaffirs have been in contact, though not very closely, for two hundred years. No one, however, would explain the Kaffir custom of daubing the body with white clay, in the initiatory rites, as derived from the similar practice of the ancient Greeks[69]. Among the neighbouring Zulus, Dr. Callaway found that Märchen were the special property of the most conservative class,—the old women. 'It is not common to meet with a man who is willing to speak of them in any other way than as something which he has some dim recollection of having heard his grandmother relate[70].' Whether the traditional lore of savage grandmothers is likely to have been borrowed from Dutch or English settlers is a question that may be left to the reader.
The tale in which the friendly beast of European folklore occurs among the Kaffirs is The Wonderful Horns[71]. As among the Santals (an 'aboriginal' hilltribe of India) we have a hero, not a heroine. 'There was once a boy whose mother that bore him was dead, and who was ill-treated by his other mothers,' the Kaffirs being polygamous. He rode off on an ox given him by his father. The ox fought a bull and won. Food was supplied out of his right horn, and the 'leavings' (as in the Black Bull o'Norroway) were put into the left horn. In another fight the ox was killed, but his horns continued to be a magical source of supplies. A new mantle and handsome ornaments came out of them, and by virtue of this fairy splendour he won and wedded a very beautiful girl.