Arrows occur in the Bukowina-Gypsy story of ‘Mare’s Son’ (No. 20, p. 79). The handkerchief that will cover all the park reminds one of the tent with room for the king and all his soldiers in an Arab version of our No. 17, ‘It all comes to Light’ (Cosquin, i. 196). Otherwise I can offer no parallel for this story.
No. 67.—Cinderella
A glorious version, too long to take down, and now almost forgotten. After Cinderella’s marriage the sisters live with her, and flirt with the prince. Her children are stolen, and Cinderella is turned into a sow. She protects the children, but at the instigation of the sisters (or stepmother) she is [[260]]hunted by the prince’s hounds and killed. The three children come to the hall, and beg for the sow’s liver (its special efficacy forgotten). The children are followed and further restored to their father. Perhaps Cinderella herself comes again to life.
Just enough to make one want more. But some day of course the whole tale must be taken down. Meanwhile I will merely remark that in 1871–72 I frequently saw an old Gypsy house-dweller, Cinderella Petuléngro, or Smith, at Headington, near Oxford. From her I heard the story of ‘Fair Rosamer,’ so fair you could see the poison pass down her throat. She was turned, it seems, after death into a Holy Briar, which, being enchanted, bleeds if a twig be plucked.
No. 68.—Jack the Robber[17]
Now we’ll leave the master to stand a bit, and go back to the mother. So in the morning Jack says to his mother, ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘give me one of them old bladders as hang up in the house, and,’ he says, ‘I’ll fill it full of blood, and I’ll tie it round your throat; and when the master comes up to ax me if I got the sheet, me and you will be having a bit of arglement, and I I’ll up with my fist and hit you on the bladder, and the bladder will bust, and you’ll make yourself to be dead.’
Now the master comes. ‘Have you got the sheet, Jack?’
And just as he’s axing him, he up with his fist, and hits his mother.