CINDERELLA BIBLIOGRAPHY
by
Russell A. Peck

MODERN CHILDREN’S EDITIONS AND ADAPTATIONS:

[The National Union Catalogue lists several hundred children’s editions of Cinderella in various formats and with various illustrators, which I have not systematically examined. The citations below focus mainly on twentieth-century publications, with a few key nineteenth-century editions included as well.]

General Collections:

Bartlett, G. B. Aunt Mayor’s Nursery Tales for Good Little People. 1855. “The Giant

Picture Book.” St. Nicholas Magazine June 1881.

[Presents a meek and refined Cinderella, meeting the prince “with downcast eyes and extended hand.” Yolen (“America’s Cinderella” — see Criticism) considers this publication important in the shaping of American attitudes toward the story. St. Nicholas Magazine, according to Selma Lanes, Down the Rabbit Hole (New York: Athenaeum, 1971), had “a patrician call to a highly literate readership.” See Stockton, under Miscellaneous Cinderellas, for an example of the refinements of a Cinderella story in St. Nicholas Magazine.]

Beaupré, Olive, ed. The Book House For Children. 6 vols. Chicago: The Bookhouse

For Children Publisher, 1920; rpt. 1928.

[Vol. 2: Up One Pair of Stairs includes “Cinderella, adapted from Perrault.” pp. 165-174; “Thumbelina,” pp. 414-430; and “Tom Thumb,” pp. 262-270. Vol. 3: My Book House Through Fairy Halls includes “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon,” pp. 399-407; “Pigling (The Story of Pear Blossom–A Korean Cinderella Tale),” adapted by William Elliot Griffin, pp. 191-195; and “Rhodopis (The First Cinderella Story),” pp. 262-267. This popular collection was issued in a wooden bookcase shaped like a house, with pointed green roof and red chimney. The books are quite handsomely illustrated with some full color plates and various ink drawings, some two-tone in yellow and black, by various artists, some anonymous. See individual entries for detailed descriptions.]

Bennett, William, J. The Children’s Book of Virtues. Illustrated by Michael Hague. New

York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

[Includes “The Indian Cinderella,” retold by Cyrus Macmillan, under the classification of Honesty/Loyalty/ Friendship (pp. 88-97). Bennett says the tale is from Canada, but provides no more specific information about its source. The tale as Macmillan tells it is a Micmac version, first published in Canadian Fairy Tales (see Native American Cinderellas). Bennett’s volume is the basis of the PBS film Adventures from the Book of Virtues. See Movies and TV.]

Bluebeard and Other Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault. Introduced by Simone de

Beauvoir. Trans. Peter Green. Illustrated by Saul Lambert. New York: MacMillan Company, 1964.

[Includes Diamonds and Toads, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and Bluebeard. Simone de Beauvoir observes: “When Perrault dipped his goose-quill pen in ink and set these tales down of paper, every French peasant already knew them. Winter evenings in the country were no fun in those days - no movies or television, and the peasants couldn’t read because they didn’t know how. When supper was over they would gather around the fireside. The women spun wool on their spinning wheels, while the men repaired their tools and wooden clogs. The only amusement they enjoyed was telling legends and stories of olden times. One of the things these poor folk liked was imagining a world in which top people met their downfall. From the field in which he worked, the laborer could see, perched high on the hill, the huge and well-fortified castle where his master dwelt. These great lords were sometimes so powerful that they could commit the most horrible crimes and go unpunished.” Hence, Bluebeard, etc.]

Briggs, Katherine. British Folktales. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.

[Includes “Ashey Pelt” (pp. 20-21), and “Cap O’ Rushes” (pp. 74-77).]

Carter, Angela. Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales. Illustrated by

Michael Foreman. Boston: Otter Books, 1982; rpt. 1991.

[Includes Cinderella, Donkey Skin, Beauty and the Beast, plus ten others, including Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s Sweetheart.]

-----, ed. Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen: Fairy Tales from around the

World. Illustrated by Corinna Sargood. Boston and London: Faber and Faber, 1993.

[Posthumous publication, with introduction by Marina Warner. Includes Carter’s adaptations of Tatterhood (pp. 65-71), Vasilissa the Fair (pp. 78-96), Fair, Brown and Trembling (pp. 95-103).]

-----, ed. The Old Wives’ Fairy Tale Book. Illustrated by Corinna Sargood. New York:

Pantheon Books, 1990.

[Several of the stories have strong Cinderella components, including Kate Crackernuts (pp. 16-18), under the heading Brave, Bold and Willful; Mossycoat (pp. 48-56) and Vasilisa the Priest’s Daughter (pp. 57-59), under the heading Clever Women, Resourceful Girls and Desperate Stratagems; East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon (pp. 122-132), The Good Girl and the Ornery Girl (pp. 133-134), and The Armless Maiden (pp. 135-141), under the heading Good Girls And Where It Gets Them; The Baba Yaga (pp. 151-154), under Witches; and The Wicked Stepmother (pp. 178-180), under the heading: Unhappy Families.

Chase, Richard. Grandfather Tales. Illustrated by Berkeley Williams, Jr. Boston:

Houghton, Mifflin, 1948.

[A collection of tales Chase compiled in Appalachia. He sets them in a frame structure as if they were told by a gathering on old Christmas eve (twelfth night) in Crockett County. After witnessing a mummer’s play the folk gather (children eager to stay up to hear “Gallymanders!” and “Wicked John and the Devil”). Once the tales get going two dozen are told before dawn when the people play a hymn and go out to milk the cows, some of the kids sleeping now, others having woken up again. The tales are told around a fire by different people, with brief end-links between tales. Four Cinderella tales are heard: “Mutsmag” (pp. 40-51) comes toward the beginning, right after “Wicked John and the Devil”; “Ashpet” (pp. 115-123) and “Like Meat Loves Salt” (pp. 124-129) come later in response to “Catskins” (pp. 106-114) as the group gets on to a Cinderella theme. In an appendix to the volume Chase identifies the real tellers of each tale he collected, the teller’s origin, and the sources. For synopses of these four Cinderella versions, see individual entries under Allerleirauh, Molly Whuppie, Grimms’ Aschenputtel, and Like Meat Loves Salt.]

[Clarke, Harry.] Charles Perrault’s Classic Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Harry Clarke. With

an Introduction by Thomas Bodkin. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1922. Facsimile edition: London: Chancellor Press, 1986.

[This splendid edition includes both “Cinderella; Or, The Little Glass Slipper” (pp. 77-92) and “Donkey-Skin” (pp. 137-159), in Samber’s translation which “has been thoroughly revised and corrected by Mr. J. E. Mansion, who has purged it of many errors without detracting from its old-fashioned quality” (p. 19). Bodkin excludes “Griselidis” because it is borrowed from Boccaccio and “because it is not a ‘fairy’ tale in the true sense of the word” (p. 19). Clarke’s ink drawings and watercolors are stunning.]

“Frontispiece of Cinderilla being fitted with the slipper"”
“Cinderilla and her Prince”
“Title Page of The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault”
“Table of Contents”
“Headpiece of Table of Illustrations”
“Introduction Image”
“Closing of Introduction with image of Puppeteer”
“Red Riding Hood”
“He asked her wither she was going”
“Perrault’s Moral for Red Riding Hood”
“The Fairy”
“What is this I see?”
“Am I to serve you water, pray?”
“Endpiece: couple with Attendant”
“Perrault’s Moral for The Fairy”
“Blue Beard”
“What? Is not the key among the rest?”
“This man had the misfortune to have a blue beard”
“Endpiece: Blue Beard joins his dead wives”
“Perrault’s Moral for Blue Beard”
“Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”
“At this instant the fairy came out”
“The Prince enquired of the old man”
“He saw upon a bed the finest sight”
“I will have it so… I will have her with a sauce, Robert”
“Perrault’s Moral for the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”
“The Master Cat”
“The marquis gave his hand to the princess”
“Endpiece of The Master Cat: Butterflies”
“Perrault’s Moral for The Master Cat”
“Cinderilla”
“Away she drove, scarce able to contain herself for joy”
“Anyone but Cinderilla would have dressed their heads awry”
“She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully”
“Endpiece: Couples in the Garden”
“Perrault’s Moral for Cinderilla”
“Another Moral for Cinderilla”
“Riquet of the Tuft”
“The Prince believed he had given her more wit than he had reserved for himself”
“Riquet with the Tuft appeared to her the finest Prince upon earth”
“Perrault’s Moral for Riquet of the Tuft”
“Little Thumb”
“Little Thumb was as good as his word”
“He brought them home by the very same way they came”
“Endpiece: Little Thumb Riding the Wave”
“Perrault’s Moral for Little Thumb”
“The Ridiculous Wishes”
“Jupiter appeared before him wielding his mighty thunderbolts”
“A long black pudding came winding toward her”
“Truth to tell, this new ornament did not set off her beauty”
“Endpiece: The looking glass”
“Perrault’s Moral for The Ridiculous Wishes”
“Donkey Skin”
“Another gown the colour of the moon”
“He thought the Princess was his Queen”
“Curiosity made him put his eye to the keyhole”
“Perrault’s Moral for Donkey Skin”
“Man upon knees before Woman”

Cole, Joanna. Best-Loved Folktales of the World. Illustrated by Jill Karla Schwarz. New

York: Doubleday (Anchor Books), 1982.

[Introduction and 200 tales, including: Cinderella (France), Beauty and the Beast (France), Ashenputtel (Germany), The Frog Prince (Germany), Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greece), Molly Whuppie (England), East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Norway), The Baba Yaga (Russia), The Firebird, the Horse of Power, and the Princess Vasilissa (Russia), Prince Hedgehog (Russia), Salt (Russia), The Indian Cinderella (Canadian Indian), and The Magic Orange Tree (Haiti).]

Crane, Walker. Cinderella’s Picture Book. London: John Lane, 1897.

[See Miscellaneous Cinderellas. Crane follows Perrault’s glass slipper version.]

David, Alfred, and Mary Elizabeth. The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Fairy

Tales. A New Selection with Introduction. A Signet Classic. New York: The New American Library of World Literature, 1964. Rpt. as The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Fairy Tales. Selected with an Introduction by Alfred David and Mary Elizabeth Meek. A Midland Book. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974.

[Includes Perrault’s “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty,” along with 26 other tales, several of which are related to Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast narratives, such as the Grimm brothers’ “The Goosegirl,” “Briar Rose,” and “Snow White”; Asbjörnsen and Moe’s “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”; Afanasiev’s “Vasilisa the Beautiful”; Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast”; Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid”; and Ruskin’s “The King and the Golden River.”]

Eisen, Armand, ed. Classic Fairy Tales. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996. Originally

published as The Classic Fairy Tale Treasury, 1991.

[Although the anthology does not include Cinderella among its fourteen tales, the frontspiece is a splendid full page color painting of Cinderella in the pumpkin coach on her way to the ball. The artist is not identified, though it appears to be by Ruth Sanderson, who also illustrated Samantha Easton’s Beauty and the Beast, with which the volume begins.]

England, Mary, ed. Our Favourite Nursery Tales. London: Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd,

1917.

[Gordon Robinson designed the cover, which shows Cinderella sitting on a stool pealing potatoes before the fire with a pumpkin beside her. Cinderella, in the book, is illustrated with ink drawings by Dudley S. Cowes, a headpiece and “Stay at home and do your work,” “She ran out in a great hurry,” and a tailpiece of the clock striking midnight to a mouse’s surprise.]

Garner, James Finn, ed. Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales of Our

Life and Times. New York: Macmillan, 1994.

[See Garner under Cinderella Revisions.]

Graham, Eleanor. Bedtime Stories. New York: Wonder Books, 1946.

Haviland, Virginia. Favorite Fairy Tales Told in England. Illustrated by Bettina. Boston:

Little, Brown and Company, 1959.

[Includes “Molly Whuppie” (pp. 44-55) and “Cap o’ Rushes” (pp. 76-88); retold from Joseph Jacobs (1892).]

-----., The Fairy Tale Treasury. Illustrated by Raymond Briggs. London:

Hamish Hamilton, 1972

[The illustrations are handsome and include Cinderella (pp. 138-145) and Molly Whuppie (pp. 152-157).]

Harbour, Jennie. My Book of Favourite Fairy Tales. Ed. Eric Vredenburg. Illustrated by

Jennie Harbour. London: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1921. The first American edition was My Favourite Fairy Tales. Ed. Capt. Edric Vredenburg. Illustrated by Jennie Harbour. London and New York: Tuck & McKay. ca. 1924. 4to, and included fifteen classic fairy tales with 12 color plates and a profusion of full and partial page black & white drawings in a 1920s Art Deco style. Most of the illustrations and ten of the tales are included in high quality reproduction in My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Jennie Harbour. New York: Derrydale Books, 1993.

Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales. First published London: David Nutt, 1890. More English

Fairy Tales. First published 1894. Combined and published as English Fairy Tales in Everyman's Library Children's Classics. Illustrated by John Batten. London: David Campbell Publishers, 1993. [English Fairy Tales includes "Cap O' Rushes," "Kate Crackernuts," and "Molly Whuppie"; More English Fairy Tales includes "Tattercoats," "Rushen Coatie," and "Catskin." See entries below for annotations of specific stories.]

-----. English Fairy Tales. Illustrated by John D. Batten. New York: Dover Publications,

1967.

[Reprint of the third edition: G. P. Putnam's Sons and David Hutt, 1898.]

Lang, Andrew, ed. The Blue Fairy Book. Illustrated by H. J. Ford and G. P. Jacomb Hood.

New York: Dover Publications, 1965. First published by Longmans, Green & Co., in 1889; reprinted 1891.

[See “Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper” (pp. 64-71), translated from Perrault, but without Perrault’s moral, by Robert Samber (1729); and “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” (pp. 19-29), translated from the Norse by Mrs. Alfred Hunt. Lang’s Blue Fairy Book includes 37 tales in all. The Dover edition of Lang's Blue Fairy Book prints the 1891 edition complete, with all illustrations. See also Brian Alderson’s edition, illustrated by John Lawrence, Kestrel Books (Penguin), 1975.]

-----. The Green Fairy Book. Illustrated by H. J. Ford. New York: Dover Publications,

1965. First published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1892.

[Forty-two tales, including “The Dirty Shepherdess” (a variant combining “Like Meat Loves Salt” and “Donkey-Skin,” told from the French by M. Sébillot), and Grimms’ “Little One-eye, Little Two-eyes, and Little Three-eyes” and “Allerleirauh; or, the Many-furred Creature.”]

-----. The Pink Fairy Book. Illustrated by H. J. Ford. New York: Dover Publications, 1967.

First published by Longmans, Green and Company, in 1897.

[Forty one tales, including “The Princess in the Chest” (pp. 57-72), a Danish tale translated by W. A. Craigie; “The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife” (pp. 162-166) and “Catherine and her Destiny” (pp. 167-173), both Sicilian tales collected by Laura Gonzenbach; and “The White Dove” (pp. 238-246), a Danish tale also translated by W. A. Craigie — all of which have Cinderella-like heroines. For annotations see Sicilian and Male Cinderellas.]

Lurie, Alison, ed. Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales. Oxford and New York: Oxford

University Press, 1993.

[Includes John Ruskin, "The King of the Golden River" (1850); Sylvia Townsend Warner, "Bluebeard's Daughter" (1940); Donald Barthelme, "The Glass Mountain" (1970); Jay Williams, "Petronella" (1973); Angela Carter, "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" (1979); Jeanne Dasy, "The Princess who Stood on her own Two Feet" (1982). Forty tales in all.]

MacDougall, James. Highland Fairy Legends. Ed. Alan Bruford. Cambridge: Derek

Brewer/Totowata, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1978.

[Includes the male Cinderella tale, “The Blacklad MacCrimmon.”]

Mulherin, Jennifer, ed. Favourite Fairy Tales. London: Granada, 1982. “Cinderella,” pp. 60-71.

[Includes illustrations from several nineteenth-century editions in the Victoria and Albert Museum, including a Paris edition of Cendrillon (1850), Aunt Mavor’s Nursery Tales for Good Little People (1855), Popular Fairy Tales for the Young (1861), Walter Crane’s The Children’s Musical Cinderella (1879), and an H. Gerbault’s illustration to Les Contes de Perrault (1897). Also included in the anthology are Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding-Hood, Blue Beard, Puss in Boots, Toads and Diamonds, Ricky of the Tuft, and Little Thumb. The Introduction includes a life of Charles Perrault, Charles Samber’s first English translation in 1729, and a discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrators.]

100 Best Fairy Tales. Compiled by Lois Donaldson. Illustrated by Anne Anderson and

Maurieta Wellman. Racine, WI: Whitman Publishing Company, 1937.

[The eight color plates are by Anderson, including one of a young Cinderella losing her slipper as she flees at midnight. Her hair is blonde with a long flowing braid behind. Besides Cinderella, the collection includes several other of the Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast analogues that are illustrated handsomely with ink drawings: Yellow Dwarf, Beauty and the Beast, Tom Thumb, The Ugly Duckling, Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, Snow-White and Rose-Red, The White Snake, Snow Drop and the Seven Dwarfs, The Red Shoes, Little One-eye, Two-eyes, and Three-Eyes, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Frog Prince, The Goose Girl, Madam Holl, and Puss-in-Boots.]

Opie, Iona, and Peter. The Classic Fairy Tales. London & New York: Oxford University

Press, 1974.

[Includes Tuan Ch’eng-Shih’s version of Yeh-Shen from the T’ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), thought by some to be the earliest known Cinderella story. But see The Tale of Rodopis. See Ai-Ling Louie’s adaptation, Yeh-Shen, under Asian Cinderellas.]

O’Shea, M.V., ed. The Tales of Mother Goose as First Collected by Perrault in 1697.

Illustrated by D. J. Munro after drawings by Gustave Doré. Newly translated by

Charles Welsh. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1903.

[Includes Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper; The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood; Little Thumb; The Master Cat, or Puss In Boots; Riquet of the Tuft; Blue Beard; The Fairy; and Little Red Riding-Hood. With Introduction and Note by Professor M. V. O’Shea.]

Popular Fairy Tales for the Young. 1861.

Thompson, Stith. One Hundred Favorite Folktales. Drawings by Franz Altschuler.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968.

[Thompson’s favorites do not include the Perrault’s Glass Slipper (it’s presumably too literary); but rather, as his folktale example of this most popular type, The Hearth-Cat (Portuguese Type 510A), and several other Cinderella-like narratives: East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon (Norwegian, Type 425), Katie Woodencloak (Norwegian Type 510B), One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes (German, Type 511), Faithful John (German Type 516), Tom Thumb (German Type 700) and The Princess in the Earth Cave (Swedish Type 870).]

Tudor, Tasha, editor and illustrator. The Tasha Tudor Book of Fairy Tales. New York:

Platt & Munk, 1961.

[Includes Sleeping Beauty (Grimm), Rumpelstiltskin (Grimm), Mr. Samson Cat (Russian tale), The Valiant Tailor (Grimm), The Emperor’s New Clothes (Andersen), Rapunzel (Grimm), The Flying Trunk (Andersen), Puss in Boots (Perrault), Thumbelina (Andersen), The Tinder Box (Andersen), Jack and the Beanstalk (English tale), Mr. Bun (Russian tale), The Lame Duck (Russian tale), Red Riding Hood (Grimm), Cinderella (Perrault). Each tale includes one full page illustration and a generous quantity of colorful border work. The tellings of the tales are straight forward.]

Washburne, Marion Foster. Old Fashioned Fairy Tales Retold from the Poetic

Version of Tom Hood. Illustrated by Margaret Ely Webb. Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1909. Rpt. 1927.

[Cover illustration of Little Red Riding Hood, by Margaret Evans Price. The front endpaper of this beautiful book (green with red accents) shows a young fairy listening to an elderly one. The verse reads:

Long and long and long ago
When Grandmama was small
Her Grandma told her all these tales
She listened to them all

And now when Grandmama is old
As old as old can be
She knows these stories all by heart
And tells them now to me

The back endpapers (also green with red accents) shows the young fairy reading by the fire, while the verse reads:

And I I like these tales the best
Because they’re always new
I never tire of hearing them
And know them through & through

Some way I like the stories best
That never change a letter
New-fashioned tales are very well
Old-fashioned tales are better

The book includes Little-Red Riding-Hood, Puss In Boots, The Sleeping Beauty, and Hop-O-My Thumb.]

Zipes, Jack, editor and translator. Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment: Classic

French Fairy Tales. New York: New American Library, 1989. Reissued as Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic French Fairy Tales. New York: Signet Classic, 1997.

[Includes ten tales by Charles Perrault, fifteen by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, two by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, and one each by Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier, Catherine Bernard, Charlotte-Rose Caumont de La Force, Jean de Mailly, Henriette Julie de Murat, Jean-Paul Bignon, Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, Philippe de Caylus, and Mlle de Lubert. This is an excellent teaching text, with brief introductions for each author and some woodblock illustrations. The first edition is superior to the reissue in that it includes Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast, which was dropped from the revision.]

-----, ed. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers

Grimm. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.

[Set up topically according to 38 categories, the anthology includes a dozen or so Cinderella and Beauty of the Beast variants (both male and female).]

-----. Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture. New

York: Viking Penguin, 1991.

[A comprehensive anthology of literary fairy tales written explicitly for adults. Includes Guillaume Apollinaire’s “Cinderella Continued, or the Rat and the Six Lizards” (1919) and Tanith Lee’s “When the Clock Strikes” (1983). See individual entries under Modern Fiction.]

-----. Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves. New York: Methuen,

1987. Rpt. New York and London: Routledge, 1991.

[Includes George Cruikshank’s “Cinderella and the Glass Slipper”; (pp. 37-57) and Anne Isabella Ritchie’s “Cinderella” (pp. 101-126). See individual entries under Modern Fiction.]

African, Caribbean, Creole, and African-American Cinderellas:

[See also The One-Handed Girl, under Miscellaneous Cinderellas.]

Abrahams, Roger D., ed. “Three Sisters.” In African Folktales. Ed. Roger D. Abrahams. New

York: Pantheon Books, 1983. Pp. 318-322.

[A Fipi tale in which two jealous sisters murder their more beautiful sister by pushing her into the river; a crocodile would marry her but rejects her as she becomes too thin. She returns to the living after speaking through the reeds to an old woman who then gathers the villagers at the river. Hearing the true story her husband spears the two sisters; the villagers beat their corpses, then throw them into the river. Also includes “The Orphan with the Cloak of Skin” (pp. 309-311): a Hausa male-Cinderella story, where the stepmother tries to destroy the orphan but only succeeds in killing her own son and herself, while the orphan becomes friends with the chief’s son and advances.]

Bascom, William. “The Maiden, the Frog & the Chief’s Son.” In “Cinderella in Africa.”

Journal of the Folklore Institute, 9 (1972), 54-70. Rpt. in Dundes, Cinderella: A Casebook (pp. 151-156).

[A man has two wives, each with a daughter. The wife he dislikes dies, and her daughter is raised by the other. She makes her gather wood and eat scrapings with the frogs in the borrow pit. She is not permitted to go to the festival but must work. A frog asks her what’s wrong and offers to help. He swallows her, then vomits her up. She comes out crooked, so he does it again. Then he vomits up clothes, jewelry, and a silver and gold shoe, telling her to enjoy the dance but to leave the gold shoe behind. She goes, the chief’s son is wowed, she returns as instructed, is swallowed again and made a sorry sight as before. The wife and her daughter return and drive the disliked child out of the house. She goes to her elder brother’s compound. The chief’s son wants to marry the girl with the silver and golden shoes and searches for her. When they come to her brother’s compound the gold shoe runs to meet her. The other mother tries to claim the girl as her daughter’s slave. But the chief’s son takes her with him, and they spend the night together. The frogs gather and bring a great dowry–a silver bed, a brass one, a copper one, and an iron one, plus woollen blankets, rugs, and cola-nuts and cowrie shells for the chief’s other wives and concubines. Her stepmother visits and takes her away, substituting her own daughter after inquiring about life in the compound. But the chief’s new wife tricks her stepsister into behaving badly, so the chief and his women know that the switch has been made. They murder the substitute and find the true wife lying in the fireplace of the stepmother’s home. She returns to the chief’s son and the frogs come too and live in a well that is dig next to her hut.]

Catskinella. In Virginia Hamilton, Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and

True Tales. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. New York: The Blue Sky Press, 1995. Pp. 22-27.

[A beautiful girl named Ella does not want to marry a woodsman. She tries to reject him by asking for an impossible gift, a talking mirror, which he promptly supplies. With the advice of her godmother, Mattie, she next tells her father to make a dress of catskin and asks the woodsman for a ring. She escapes through the window in her catskin dress while the talking mirror makes it seem as though she is still in her room. She flees to the king’s castle where the prince notices her beautiful face. He falls sick with love. She bakes him a cake with her ring inside. Next day the king summons all the unmarried women of the kingdom to try on the ring. It fits only Catskinella’s finger. Her cat skin suddenly changes into a diamond dress, and she marries the prince.]

Collins, Sheila Hébert. Cendrillon: A Cajun Cinderella. Illustrated by Patrick

Soper. French editing by Barbara H. Hébert. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1998.

[A widower in New Orleans loves his très belle daughter and gives her everything she wants. She yearns for a mother, so the man remarries a woman with two daughters. The new belle-mère favors her own daughters, and the petite fille is pushed aside to the fireplace. The mean stepsisters rename her Cendrillon. The father dies, the estate decays, and the widow is forced to sell the estate and buy a shabby shotgun house across the river. Cendrillon lives in the dirty attic in rags. But she makes friends with the pigeons, an alligator, a duck, a crab, a seagull, a pelican, and the crawfish. Across the river lives Alphonse Thibeaux and his son Ovey. The boy is named king of Carnival, and at Mardi Gras he invites every unmarried girl in New Orleans so that he may choose a bride. The stepdaughters go, but Cendrillon must stay home. Her animal friends make her a beautiful party dress. Cendrillon runs to catch up with the carriage, but her stepsisters tear her dress to shreds - “My beads! My ribbon! My bows.” La chére petite fille runs to the levee in tears. A beautiful lady appears, turns a cushaw into a carriage, six crawfish into red horses, the pigeon into a footman, and a crab into a fat coachman. Then, voilà, with a touch of her wand, la marraine dresses Cendrillon in a Mardi Gras gown with tiny mother-of-pearl souliers (slippers). La marraine tells Cendrillon to return by midnight, then wishes her bonne chance. The carnival king dances with no one but Cendrillon. But at midnight she flees, losing her slipper on the dock as she jumps for the ferry. Back in her attic she places the remaining slipper under her moss pillow. Ovey seeks the mademoiselle whose foot fits the slipper. Les belles-soeurs try on the slipper, but their gros feet don’t fit. Cendrillon asks if she might try? “Mais oui,” says the man, and the slipper fits. “Mon Dieu!” scream les belles-soeurs, but Cendrillon forgives them. Ovey Thibeaux awaits her. “Kee yah!” (Wow!) all exclaim when they see her. Cendrillon and her Rex are married and live in a mansion next to the Mississippi. The book concludes with a recipe for Red Beans and Rice - Çe c’est bon!.]

Chinye: a West African Folk Tale. Retold by Obi Onyefulu. Illustrated by Evie

Safarewicz. New York: Viking: The Penguin Group, 1994.

[An evil stepmother favors her daughter Adanma but sends Chinye into the forest at night to fetch water. She is helped by an antelope and hyena, then an old woman who instructs her on how to get a small, quiet but magical gourd. Next day she breaks open the gourd and is given great wealth. The stepmother sends Adanma into the forest, hoping for the same result. But Adanma does not follow the old woman’s advice and chooses the largest gourd that noisily calls out “Take me!” But when she and her mother break it open a great whirlwind sprang up and destroyed their pots, pans, clothes, and cowrie shells. They lost everything. Too proud to ask Chinye for help they depart for another village. Chinye uses her wealth to help the people of her village and they live happily ever after.]

Egyptian Cinderella. By Shirley Climo. Illustrated by Ruth Heller. New York:

Crowell, 1989.

[Based on Strabo’s “historical” account. The maiden Rhodopis is stolen from her home in Greece by pirates who sell her as a slave in Egypt. Although her master is kind the other servant girls scorn her and force her to do menial tasks. She finds friends with the birds and animals. Her master sees her beauty as she dances barefoot and gives her a pair of slippers. The servants are jealous and scorn her further. They are invited to Memphis to see the Pharaoh, but Rhodopis must stay behind to weed the garden and grind the grain. As she polishes her shoes a great falcon, symbol of the god Horus, swoops down, takes one of her slippers, and drops it in the lap of Pharaoh. He searches for the owner. None fit except Rhodopis. The servants rage that she is a slave and not even Egyptian. But Pharaoh says she is most Egyptian of all and weds her. See also Green and Reiff. As an analogue to Rhodopis being sold into slavery by pirates, see The Tale of Apollonius under Cinderella Sources and Analogues: The Ancients.]

Green, Roger Lancelyn. Tales of Ancient Egypt. Illustrated by Heather Copley. London: Bodley

Head Btd., 1967. Rpt. Puffin Books, 1970, 1995.

[Includes “Girl with the Red Rose Slippers,” a version of the story found in Strabo's Egyptian collection of mythologies.]

Lawrence, Jacob. Harriet and the Promised Land. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

[The story of Harriet Tubman’s childhood in slavery, her escape, and her helping of others to make the journey North. In rhyme. Uses Cinderella typology in thoughtful ways. See entry under Miscellaneous Cinderellas for synopsis.]

The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. Collected by Diane Wolkstein.

Drawings by Elsa Henriquez. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978; rpt. Schocken Books, 1980, pp 13-21.

[In this Haitian tale a girl’s mother dies when she is born, and the father remarries a cruel woman who gives the girl little to eat. The girl consumes three oranges from the table, and the woman drives her from the house. She flees through the woods to her mother’s grave where she prays and weeps herself to sleep. In the morning an orange pit drops from her skirt and springs to life. The girl sings to the tree and nourishes it, the song being repeated at each stage of the tree’s growth. The tree responds to the girl’s wishes. She returns home laden with oranges which the stepmother devours, demanding that the girl show her where she got them. When the woman climbs into the tree the girl wishes the tree were of great height. The stepmother eats all the tree’s fruit and demands that she be brought down. The girl wishes the tree to explode, which it does, killing the stepmother. She then plants another seed, enjoys her new tree, and sells its sweet fruit at market. The story-teller asks her for a free one, but she replies, “After all I’ve been through!” and gives the teller a kick in the pants. But that’s how she got the story.

[One reason for the popularity of this tale in Haiti is linked to rural practices of childbearing. Wolkstein reports: “When a child is born in the countryside, the umbilical cord may be saved and dried and planted in the earth, with a pit from a fruit tree placed on top of the cord. The tree that grows then belongs to the child. And when the tree gives fruit in five or six years, that fruit is considered the property of the child, who can barter or sell it. (Young children in Haiti very quickly become economically active.) Trees in Haiti are thus thought to protect children and are sometimes referred to as the guardian angel of the child. However, if the tree should die or grow in a deformed manner, that would be considered an evil omen for the child who owned the tree” (p. 14). In the Introduction to the volume (pp. 2-12) Wolkstein describes story-telling practices where the would-be teller calls out “Cric?” and the audience, if it wishes to hear the story, responds “Crack.” Tellers vie for a hearty endorsement, which constitutes a contract of support for the telling. “The Magic Orange Tree” includes a song with progressive verses that is sung, presumably by everyone. Wolkstein reports that she has heard groups “joyously sing the chorus ten and twenty times.”]

The Magic Orange Tree. In Joanna Cole, Best-Loved Folktales of the World. New York:

Doubleday, 1982. Pp. 727-730.

[The story is essentially the same as Wolkstein’s, above.]

“The Maiden, the Frog, and the Chief’s Son.” Trans. Neil Skinner. In William Bascom,

“Cinderella in Africa,” Journal of the Folklore Institute, 9 (1972), 54-70; rpt in Dundes, Cinderella: A Casebook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Pp. 151-156.

[Skinner translated the story from Frank Edgar’s Litafi Na Tatsuiyoyi Na Hausa. Litafi Na Farako vol. 2 (Belfast, 1911). Bascom cites numerous analogues to the story. A disliked daughter is pushed out of the house to live on pot scrapings with frogs, whom she befriends. Through the assistance of an old frog who swallows her and vomits her up again (several analogues here) she becomes the prince’s favorite wife (though there are many twists and turns along the way, including a dance and slipper test, and mutilation). Once secure, she has a new well dug close to her hut for the frog. See also Frank Edgar, Hausa Tales and Traditions, trans. Neil Skinner (New York: Africana Publishing Corp., 1973).]

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale (Zimbabwe). Told by John Steptoe.

Illustrated by the author. London: William Morrow & Co., 1987.

[A South African Cinderella tale that draws upon the story of the wise serpent who transforms into the king. Mufaro’s pretty but deceitful daughter goes first to meet the prince, scorning the poor and unfortunate along the way. Instead of a prince, she encounters a serpent, who frightens her away. The good daughter assists the unfortunate on the way to the palace, recognizes the good serpent who had been her friend, and participates in the serpent’s transformation (cf. Beauty and the Beast). Steptoe is a good illustrator as well as narrator.]

A Spanish edition of Steptoe’s book has been issued as: John Steptoe. Las bellas hijas de Mufaro: Cuento Popular Africano. Translated by Clarita Kohen. A Reading Rainbow Book. New York: Lathrop, Lee & Shepard, 1997.

Nomi and the Magic Fish: A Story from Africa. Told by Phumla M’bane. Illustrated by

Carole Bayard. New York: Doubleday, 1972.

[This Fingo Zulu story was recorded in English by Phumla M’bane, age 15, in 1969. Sierra includes the tale in her Cinderella anthology, pp. 111-113. (See Modern Collections) When Nomi’s mother died her father married a woman with a daughter called Nomsa. Nomi was tall and beautiful, Nomsa short and ugly. The stepmother gives Nomi little food and makes her herd cattle on the veld. Her dog is starving too. One day she comes upon a pond with a fish that provides her and her dog with food. They grow fat and no longer eat the scraps the stepmother leaves for them. Nomi won’t tell the source of their meals, but after a beating the dog does. The stepmother feigns illness, saying she must eat fish to get well. Nomi warns the fish, but it says not to worry. Only save its bones and secretly throw them in the chief’s garden. The father catches the fish and cooks it. The woman eats it and makes Nomi dispose of the bones. She hides them and at night casts them into the chief’s garden. The chief sees them and orders his men to bring them to him. They slip through the fingers of all who try to pick them up. The chief tries himself but is unable to pick them up. Then he says he will marry the one who can pick them up. All women try but fail. Then Nomi is brought from the veld. She picks the bones up and gives them to the chief, her dog barking behind her. A great feast is prepared and the wedding takes place. Nomsa and her mother hide in the forest.]

Reiff, Tana. “ Rhodopis and the Golden Shoes.” In Love Stories. Timeless Tales Series.

New Readers Press, 1994.

[Based on Strabo. See Egyptian Cinderella for summary.]

San Souci, Robert D.. Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella. New York: Simon Schuster,

1998.

[See Perrault for detailed description.]

Sierra, Judy. The Gift of the Crocodile: A Cinderella Story. Illustrated by Reynold

Ruffins. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000.

[Damura lived in the Spice Islands. A widow gives her a doll, then marries her father, bringing with her a daughter of her own. Damura is forced to do all the chores and sleep on the floor amidst the cold ashes of the hearth. One day while washing clothes in the river she meets a crocodile whom she calls grandmother. The crocodile is pleased. Damura loses her sarong in the river and the crocodile fetches it while Damura looks after the baby crocodile, who stinks, but Damura says she smells like a nutmeg tree. The crocodile brings back a sarong made of silver that is much finer than the lost one. The stepsister is jealous and tries to get a fine sarong by the same means. She says the baby crocodile smells like garbage. When the crocodile brings a beautiful sarong from the river it turns to garbage when the girl touches it. She tries to take it off, but it sticks like glue for a year. Rumor has it that the prince will marry. Damura would like to go to the party wearing the silver sarong. But she is forced to stay home while her “sister” wears the dress. The crocodile produces a dress of gold with slippers to match, but tells Damura that she must leave the party when the first rooster crows and return the gown and shoes to the crocodile. A shining carriage takes her to the palace. The prince wishes she would be his bride. But when the cock crows she flees, losing a slipper. She returns the remaining clothes to the crocodile with an apology. The crocodile says not to worry - the slipper will make her a princess. And so it happens. The slipper fits only Damura, and she is to go to the palace. The sister asks to go too. In the middle of the river the stepmother and daughter push Damura overboard, and she is swallowed by a crocodile. The stepsister hopes to marry the prince in her place. But upon learning of the disaster the prince goes to the river and calls upon grandmother crocodile and tells her the story. The grandmother calls all the other crocodiles and makes the guilty one spit up Damura. She licks the girl’s face clean and brings her back to life, ordering the crocodiles to eat the stepmother or stepsister at once, should they see them. The two overhear and flee, never to be seen again. Damura and the prince raise their children in the shade of the clove and nutmeg trees. This tale was first collected around 1900 by G. J. Ellen, a missionary and was published in 1916 in Woordenlijst van het Pagoe op Noord-Halmahera.]

Sukey and the Mermaid. Told by Robert D. San Souci. Illustrated by Brian Pickney.

New York: Four Winds Press, 1992.

[Based on a fragment recorded in Elsie Clews Parsons’s Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina (American Folk-Lore Society, 1923), with elements from a West African tale of a young girl’s encounter with a female water-spirit to provide missing elements. Various clues in the South Carolina story point to Africa as the likely source for the original story. Sukey lives with her ma and step-pa, who makes her work hard hoeing the garden and doing mean chores. Sukey sneaks away to the sea where a brown-skinned mermaid named Mama Jo invites her to swim. When Sukey realizes how late it is she worries about going home, but Mama Jo gives her a gold coin. She gives it to her ma and step-pa who sends her back next day to find more. Ma spies on her and step-pa tries to catch Mama Jo in a net, hoping to sell her. The mermaid disappears and does not answer Sukey’s call. But she does appear in her dreams and invites her into the sea. Sukey goes to the bottom of the ocean, her new home. Sukey wishes to go home but Mama Jo says no, unless Sukey can stump her with a riddle, which she does: “There’s something that walks all day and when night come, she go under the bed and rest. What’s that?” Mama Jo is stumped. “That’s a shoe,” says Sukey, who’d picked the riddle because the mermaid had no feet. Mama Jo lets her return with a bag of gold and an admonition to marry only Dembo. Dembo comes visiting. The night before the wedding Step-pa slays Dembo and steals the treasure. Sukey flees to Mama Jo who gives her a seed pearl to touch Dembo’s lips with, her last act of kindness for Sukey. Sukey touches his lips as he lies in the coffin. Dembo comes back to life and identifies Mr. Jones, the step-pa, as his assailant. Jones flees by boat but is destroyed at sea. Sukey’s ma allows as how Mr. Jones wasn’t much but he was all she had in this world. Sukey assures her ma that she has “us” and that they will all get along just fine now. After the wedding the couple sits by the sea. Sukey wriggles her toes deep in the sand and finds the lost treasure bag. At sea they catch a glimpse of sunlight on green scales. Sukey blows a kiss to sea and hears sweet laughter in return.]

The Talking Eggs. Told by Robert D. San Souci. Pictures by Jerry Pickney. New York:

Dial Books for Young Readers, 1989. Rpt. Ballantine Books, 1992.

[An adaptation of a Creole folktale originally collected by Alcee Fortier. Analogues in Cajun and Gullah. Blanche does all the work at home for her mother and lazy sister. While fetching a bucket of water she meets an old woman who’s thirsty. The woman takes her to her house deep in the woods where Blanche keeps her promise not to laugh at the many strange things. She is given talking eggs which turn into riches when tossed over her shoulder. A carriage appears and carries her home. Mother and sister Rose are jealous and seek out the lady. Rose laughs at the strangeness, chooses the gilded talking eggs instead of the plain (despite their protest), which turn into wolves, yellow jackets, whip snakes, and toads that pursue them all the way home. Blanche has gone to the city to live like a grand lady, but Rose and mother can never again find the old woman or the strange place.]

A Spanish edition of San Souci’s book has been issued as: Los Huevos Parlantes: Cuento popular del sur de los Estados Unidos. Illustrations by Jerry Pinkney. Translation by Osvaldo Blanco. Dial Books for Young Readers. New York: Penguin Ediciones, 1996. [A Caldecott Honor Book and recipient of the Coretta King Award for Peace, Non-Violent Social Change, and Brotherhood.]

For another telling of this story see “Good Blanche, Bad Rose, and the Talking Eggs.” In Virginia Hamilton, Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. New York: The Blue Sky Press, 1995. Pp. 28-32.

Thomas, Joyce Carol. When the Nightingale Sings. New York: Harper-Collins, 1992.

[Three sisters near south Sweet Earth Swamp live at odds with each other. Letty, called Queen Mother Rhythm, is the soloist in the Gospel Choir. Melissa, married to Sweet Jimmy, has left the community and lives in poverty. Her first two children have been stillborn. Sister Ruby lives apart in the swamp, filled with envy as she raises her twin daughters Arlita and Carita. At the outset of the story an old Swamp Woman approaches the Gospel Choir asking for Letty to tell her that her sister Melissa is dying in the swamp, having just given birth to a daughter. The Letty rushes to her sister’s side to witness her death. But after the turmoil of the scene is over the newborn child is discovered missing, and they think Swamp Woman must have stolen her. Years later the Gospel Choir is in search of a replacement for Queen Mother Rhythm, who is becoming elderly. They search everywhere for a suitable nightingale to take her seat. Melissa’s daughter was abducted by Aunt Ruby, not Swamp Woman, and is being raised as a servant to her twins. They call her Marigold. She has a lovely singing voice, writes songs, loves books, especially Shakespeare, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Phillis Wheatley, and Jean Toomer. She gives voice lessons to Arlita and Carita, but to little advantage: crows sound like crows. Anthony, the young male soloist in the Gospel Choir, searches the region diligently for a new soprano soloist. He hears Marigold singing in the swamp and is enchanted. But he only finds the twins. Queen Mother Rhythm joins in the search. She too hears the nightingale sing, but the song is drowned out by a hurricane that strikes, and they fear the girl with the wondrous voice has been lost in the storm. The storm did indeed have its effect: Marigold is nearly drowned in quicksand, and though she escapes she loses her book in which she has been writing down all her songs. But the storm unearths her mother's silver box with four letters to her sister Letty which never got mailed but which tell of her last days with Sweet Jimmy and her pregnancy. Marigold finds the box but does not know what the letters mean. Meanwhile the Gospel Choir has a festival in which they hope to find a nightingale who can take Queen Mother Rhythm’s place. No voices are satisfactory. The twins sing last and are mocked by the crowd. Then Ruby tells Marigold to help out, from behind the curtain. Hers is the voice they heard in the swamp and that they have been seeking. She is discovered, learns that Anthony loves her, meets her kinfolk, is reconciled with Ruby who is most apologetic. The Gospel Choir at last has its new Queen Mother Rhythm.]

Wolkstein, Dianne. See The Magic Orange Tree, above.

-----. The Gospel Cinderella. Illustrated by David Diaz. New York: Amistad, an imprint

of HarperCollins Publishers, 2004.

[An illustrated children's book based on Carol Thomas'novel. The Queen Mother Rhythm, leader of the Great Gospel Choir, lives in a swamp with her beautiful baby daughter. A hurricane strikes carrying the sleeping baby in her basket down the river where she is found by Crooked Foster Mother, who wants a servant to work in the kitchen and look after her two daughters Hennie and Minnie. The baby makes a lovely cooing sound, but she is dirty as a cinder pile, so she is called Cinderella. Cinderella never complains but sings with the birds while she works. The Queen Mother Rhythm, having looked in vain for her child, keeps the choir going but then decides to retire. The piano-playing Pince of Music sends out runners for an audition to replace Queen Mother Rhythm. Cinderella tries to teach Hennie and Minnie to sing, but they sound awful. Crooked Foster Mother gets mad and chases Cinderella into the chicken coup, then calls her back to make fancy clothes for the girls. The unlovely trio set out for the audition leaving Cinderella. She hears a beautyiful voice coming from the swamp, goes past hungry crocodiles and serpents, passes over quick sand, collecting swamp vines which she braids into a lovely belt. She follows the voice to the Great Gospel Convention.The choir sings its best, but no voice is right for Queen Mother Rhythm. When the stepsisters sing everyone plugs their ears. Then Cinderella begins singing from way in back of the audience. The Prince of Music sees her and the crowd goes crazy, clapping and cheering. But before the Crooked Foster Mother and the twins can recognize her, she flees back across the swamp to the ramshackle cottage. The Prince sends out his runners to find her. They come to Crooked Foster Mother and her two no-singing daughters. The sing so bad the Royal Runners' ears ache. But just as the Prince is leaving he hears humming near the henhouse, a voice so beautiful it makes everything around her sparkle. They take her to Queen Mother Rhythm, who recognizes her. Every sorrow is wiped away, and together the three lead the Great Gospel Choir.]

Asian Cinderellas:

Adams, Edward, ed. Korean Cinderella. Illustrated by Dong Ho Choi. Seoul: Seoul

International Publishing House, 1982.

[The story of Kongjee and Patjee, abbreviated to conclude with the marriage of Kongjee and the governor. Text in Korean and English. See Tae Hung Ha below for a precise of the longer version.]

Bain, R. Nesbet. “The Cinder-Youth.” In Turkish Fairy Tales and Folktales. London:

A. H. Buller, 1901. Pp. 84-96.

Carpenter, Frances. “A Korean Cinderella.” In Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Seoul:

Royal Asiatic Society, 1973. Pp. 119-124.

Climo, Shirley. The Korean Cinderella. Illustrated by Ruth Heller. New York: Harper-Collins,

1993.

[After her mother’s death, Pear Blossom’s father marries Omoni (mother), who has a daughter named Peony. Pear Blossom is relegated to the hearth with the ashes and crickets and is forced to do the cooking and cleaning until midnight. Peony calls her Piglet. Obliged to carry water in a pail with a hole in it she gets help from a large frog who presses his body across the hole; Peony spills the water and makes Pear Blossom crawl in the puddle to lick it up. Then she is forced to collect a sack of rice scattered in the courtyard and to remove the husks. Sparrows help her and the rice is polished and bagged. Peony mocks her for cheating but the sparrows attack her. Peony and her mother go to the festival but Pear Blossom must stay home and weed the rice paddies. A huge black ox appears who eats all the weeds and gives food to Pear Blossom. She hastens down the road by the stream but stops to remove a stone from her sandal. The magistrate comes by, and she flees losing her sandal in the stream. The magistrate fetches it and would marry its owner. At the festival Pear Blossom eats from her basket and watches the entertainments. Her stepsister and Omoni find her and ridicule her. The magistrate seeks the woman missing a sandal. Peony, thinking they want Pear Blossom for stealing, singles her out. When they learn she’s to be his bride, the mother tries to push forward Peony, who has two shoes. Peony runs to the field to seek the black ox, but the ox flees. The wedding takes place and the sparrows and the great frog say “ewha,” which means Pear Blossom. The author’s note points out that the frog, sparrows, and black ox are tokgabis, who, in Korean folk literature are sometimes like goblins, but, to those they favor, rather like fairy godmothers. Here they perhaps are the spirit of Pear Blossom’s own mother. Heller has been meticulous in coordinating the iconography of her illustrations with traditional Korean motifs. Michael Shapiro, New York Times Book Review, Oct. 31, 1993, p. 26, notes the skillful translation of traditional Korean cultural conflicts between bitterness and love in Climo’s rendition and calls it “an enduring parable.”]

-----. Persian Cinderella. Art by Robert Florczak. New York: Harper-Collins, 1999.

[Settareh received her name from the star on her left cheek, which she was born with. Her mother died shortly after her birth and she was raised with a stepmother, two stepsisters, three aunts, and four female cousins in the women’s part of the house. The stepfamily ignores her and she is raised in poverty, surviving on old melon rinds and cast off clothes. But she grows into a beauty, which only adds to her misery. Her father visits, the women’s quarters, announcing Prince Mehdrdad’s New Year’s feast. He gives each of the women a gold coin to buy their gowns for the party. He pats Settareh’s hand, telling her to choose wisely. At the bazaar, Settareh gives money to an old woman in need and buys only a small blue jug for herself. The others buy fine clothes. When it comes time to go to the festival, the others dress well and leave Settareh behind. She admires the jug and wishes it were filled with jasmine. The vessel jiggles, becomes warm, and soon is brimming with white flowers. There is a pari inside. So she wishes for food, then clothing, then goes to the festival. She finds a handsome youth admiring her and joins the women. None recognize her. She returns home early so that she will not be embarrassed before the other women of the family. On the way she loses one of her diamond anklets in a stream. The anklet is given to the prince who, through his mother, seeks the owner. It fits none but Settareh, who appears in her splendor. She is amazed, when viewing her husband to be in a mirror, that he is the youth she had seen at the festival. He sees her star and knows that they were destined for each other. She is wedded to the prince but the sisters get the jug and wish that Settareh be destroyed. The jug jiggles so violently that they drop it and it breaks into fragments. They find six jeweled hairpins inside which they, pretending to comb Settareh’s hair, stick into her head. She vanishes in the form of a dove. The other women attempt to convince the prince to choose one of them. But he grieves for his lost bride, consoled only by a dove. He strokes the dove and feels the pins in its skull, pulls them out, and reclaims his wife. The stepsisters are so filled with rage that their hearts burst. But the Persian Cinderella and her prince enjoy happiness. The story is based on one of the Arabian Nights. In the author’s note Climo indicates that Settareh is a popular name for girls, while Mehrdad means “one who shows compassion.”]

Coburn, Jewell Reinhart. Angkat: The Cambodian Cinderella. Illustrated by Eddie

Flotte. Auburn, CA: Shen’s Books, 1998.

[Coburn first found “Angkat” - child of ashes - in an essay entitled “Le Conte de Cendrillo ches Les Cham” written by Adhemard Leclérc, a French folklorist who lived in Cambodia in the late 1800s. With the help and support of Mr. Riem Men, a Cambodian educator, this tale of Cinderella is adapted for the first time into the English language. In this story Angkat upholds the traditional Khmer values of duty, loyalty, and perseverance which are also prevalent in Cinderella’s European versions” - Author’s Note.

[A fisherman remarries. His daughter Angkat wishes to be Number One daughter, but the stepmother prefers her own daughter, Kantok. The honor will go to the one who brings home the most fish. Angkat catches three while the lazy Kantok plays around. But while Angkat sleeps Kantok steals the two larger fish and claims the prize. Angkat lets the remaining small fish go. Later the fish speaks to Angkat, who feeds it rice. Kantok catches the fish and eats it. The Spirit of Virtue tells Angkat what has happened and directs her to the fishbones hidden under a mat. She finds the bones and they turn into slippers. A bird seizes one of them and flies away, dropping it in the hands of the prince. He seeks its owner as his bride. Kantok tries to fit the slipper but fails. To keep Angkat from attending the feast the stepmother casts rice in a field and orders Angkat to pick it up. Chickens come to her rescue and gather the rice, so she goes to the feast despite the hardship. The slipper fits, and she is married to the prince. The jealous stepmother writes a letter telling of the fisherman’s illness. Angkat returns home to attend her father. She is ordered to make soup for him. As she does so the stepmother turns the stone cauldron over, crushing Angkat to death. The prince takes Kantok as a substitute bride, but continues to grieve. A banana tree grows where Angkat died. The father cuts it down, fearing evil spirits, but the stump immediately multiplies into a grove of bamboo. The prince, in grief, enters the grove where he senses the spirit of his wife. He has the grove cut down and born to the palace. The Spirit of Virtue appears before him explaining what has happened. He prays that Angkat be restored, and it is done. Kantok sees Angkat returned to life and flees in terror, pursued by cats, dogs, and birds. The prince becomes king, and he and Angkat rule in prosperity and peace over Cambodia for many years.]

Danandjaja, James. “Andé-Andé Lumut” (Indonesia). In “A Javanese Cinderella Tale

and Its Pedagogical Value.” Majalah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra Indonesia, 6, no. 2 (1976), 15-29. Rpt. in Dundes, Cinderella: A Casebook (pp. 170-174).

[The youngest of three daughters is given little food and much work. A stork helps her with the washing. All are amazed at the quality of the work. The prince Andé-Andé Lumut would marry. Many apply for the position but he rejects them all. The two older girls dress up to make their offer. They are unable to cross a river without the help of a large crab who will transport them for a kiss. They comply, but the prince then rejects them for being already “used.” The stork advises Kleting Kuning, the youngest daughter, to apply and gives her a large magic coconut-palm leaf. Her mother tells her to stay home and take care of her, but the Kleting Kuning insists that she will go. The mother tells her not to wash or change her ragged clothes. She obeys. When she comes to the river the crab tries to make his bargain, but she dries up the river with her palm leaf and crosses. The crab pleads for forgiveness, and she returns the water to the river. At the palace she is scorned for looking like a beggar. But the prince says she is the one he has been expecting. She is washed, dressed, and becomes beautiful as a fairy. The wedding takes place, and they live as harmoniously as hermit crabs.]

de la Paz, Myrna J. Abadeha. The Philippine Cinderella. Los Angeles: Pazific Queen

Communications, 1991.

[Colorful retelling of Tagalog “Maria,” with illustrations by the author. With the death of Abadeha’s mother, Abak her father marries a woman with three daughters. The stepmother makes a slave of Abadeha, beats her, and starves her. She gives her a black and a white handkerchief and tells her to wash them until they reverse colors. Abadeha goes weeping to a stream where the Spirit of the Forest appears. With the help of a magic dance the task is accomplished. The stepmother is astonished. She gives Abadeha another task harvesting, drying, pounding, and winnowing rice, which must then be cooked in a clay pot. While Abadeha is cooking some of the rice, a pig gobbles up the green rice that is drying in the sun and tears the mat to tatters. The stepmother beats her for her failure and tells her to reweave the mat. Abadeha goes again to the riverbank where the Spirit of the Forest accomplishes the task, invites her to her home, and gives her a beautiful chicken. The annoyed stepmother kills the chicken and cooks it. Abadeha takes the chicken feet to the Spirit of the Forest who tells her to plant them on her mothers’ grave. She does and after her prayers rain falls, an enchanted tree grows on the grave. It yields jewelry and a golden gown. Abadeha keeps such matters secret. The Prince passes by the tree and sees a beautiful chicken of many colors in it. He takes a ring from the tree and returns home. His finger swells, causing him great pain. In his delirium the rooster appears and gives him an orchid that turns into a beautiful maiden. He tells his dream and vows to marry the woman who can remove the ring. The stepsisters try but fail. Against objections Abadeha tries and removes the ring. The island rejoices and the wedding transpires.]

-----. Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella. Illustrated by Youshan Tang. Auburn, CA:

Shen Books, 2001.

[Essentially the same story as the earlier version by de la Paz, though here the stepmother has only two daughters. The stepmother repeatedly threatens to beat the child and break her bones, though she does not in fact beat her. At the end, the stepmother and two daughters are banished to the chicken yard where they spend the rest of their lives.]

Eberhard, Wolfram, ed. “Cinderella.” In Folktales of China. Forward by Richard M.

Dorson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1965. Pp. 156-161.

[There were two women, Beauty (the elder, whose mother had died) and stepsister Pock Face (the younger who was spoiled and mean). After her death Beauty’s mother was turned into a cow and lived in the garden where Beauty tended her. Stepmother and Pock Face go to the theater leaving Beauty to straighten the hemp. The cow swallows it all and spits it out straightened. But stepmother still refuses to let Beauty attend the theater and makes her separate sesame seeds from beans. This she accomplishes by using her fan. Stepmother is outraged at her success and inquires how she managed. She admits having help from the cow. Stepmother kills the cow and eats it. Beauty places the bones in an earthen pot and hides them in her room. Still stepmother refuses to take her to the theater and in a rage Beauty smashes up her room, including the earthen pot. Instantly there is a loud crackling sound and a white horse, a new dress, and a pair of embroidered shoes appear. Beauty dresses, jumps on the horse, and rides out the gate. One of her shoes falls off. She asks a fishmonger to pick it up. He says he will do it only if she marry him. She declines. A clerk from the rice shop comes by. He will pick it up for marriage. Again she declines. The same happens with an oil merchant. Then a handsome scholar comes by. She agrees to marriage if he pick the shoe up and so it is done. Three days later she pays respects to her parents. The stepmother and Pock Face change their manner and seem kind. She spends a couple of days with them but they shove her into a well and she drowns. Ten days later the scholar wonders why his wife does not return. He is told she has had smallpox. Two months later Pock Face goes to him as his wife, insisting the smallpox caused the deformity. Beauty is transformed into a sparrow and goes to Pock Face as she combs her hair and mocks her. The scholar hears the conversation and keeps the sparrow in a golden cage. But Pock Face kills the sparrow and throws it in the garden. A bamboo shoot springs up. Pock Face eats the bamboos shoots and gets blisters on her tongue, though they taste excellent to the scholar. Suspicious Pock Face cuts down the bamboo tree and has a bed made of it. The bed pricks her with innumerable needles, though the scholar finds it comfortable. An old woman picks the bed up when Pock Face discards it. When the hag comes home she finds food prepared. She eats but wonders how the food got there. She spies and finds that a dark shadow prepares it. The shadow explains the disasters of her life and asks the old woman for a rice pot for a head, a stick for hands, a dish cloth for entrails, and firehooks for feet so that she can assume her former shape. The old woman complies and Beauty reappears. She gives the old woman an embroidered bag to take to the scholar. He recognises it as Beauty’s and comes for her. When he brings Beauty home Pock Face is amazed. She would have tests to see who the real wife is. First they will walk on eggs. The one who breaks any loses. Beauty walks over them lightly; Pock Face smashes them. But Pock Face demands a second test–jumping into a cauldron of boiling oil, thinking Beauty will go first and be destroyed. Beauty jumps in without harm, but Pock Face is cooked. They send her flesh to her mother, who thinks it is carp. But when she sees the charred bones of her daughter she screams and drops dead.]

The Golden Slipper: A Vietnamese Legend. Retold by Darrell Lum. Illustrated by

Makiko Nagano. Troll Associates, 1994.

[Tam’s mother dies and her father marries a woman with a daughter named Cam. Tam is much abused. The stepmother sends the two girls to collect prawns. Cam idles the day away, but Tam collects a basket full. Cam asks Tam to bring her a lotus flower. As Tam goes to collect the flower Cam steals her prawns and goes home. Tam weeps for having been tricked, but she is comforted by a fish, who tells her to listen to the animals around her. So Tam is consoled and brings food to the fish at night. A rooster likewise becomes her friend along with a horse. When the Autumn Festival arrives Cam and her mother go, leaving Tam home to husk rice. Birds come to Tam’s aid, sorting the rice, and the catfish makes her black flowing trousers. The rooster finishes her elegant costume, and the old horse escorts her to the Festival with such velocity that she loses a slipper. A soldier takes it to the Prince, who would marry its owner. It fits only Tam. She and the Prince marry, to the chagrin of the stepmother and Cam. See also the first-start version of the legend under Tam’s Slipper, below.]

Ha, Tae Hung. “Kongjwi and Padjwi.” In Folk Tales of Old Korea. Korean Cultural Series,

Vol. VI. Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1958. Pp. 12-28.

[Kongjwi, persecuted by stepmother and stepsister Padjwi, is helped by a cow, a toad, birds, and a celestial lady, who dresses her for her uncle’s feast. Fearful of a crowd of noblemen, she loses a slipper by the stream; the Governor finds it and seeks its owner. Meanwhile Kongjwi is well fed by her affectionate uncle and aunt. The Governor’s messenger comes in search of the owner of the slipper. Padjwi tries to make it fit but fails. It fits only Kongjwi, who is married to the Governor. Kongjwi welcomes Padjwi into her palace home. Padjwi drowns Kongjwi in a pond and dresses in her clothes to be the Governor’s wife. When questioned about her ugliness she says she fell and bruised her face. Kongjwi becomes a lotus flower and tells her story to an old woman who invites the Governor to eat with uneven chopsticks. When he objects she scolds him for mistaking the mismatched women. Kongjwi appears and he realizes his mistake. He drains the pond and finds her body, which returns to life. He pulls Padjwi to pieces by tying her limbs to four ox-carts, puts her mutilated body in a jar and sends it to her mother who, expecting an expensive gift from her daughter, gets a letter warning that anyone with evil designs becomes canned meat, while the mother of that person shall eat that meat. The mother dies and goes to hell with her daughter. Kongjwi and the Governor have three sons and two daughters and live contentedly amidst the fragrance of the lotus. They make all people happy.]

Han, Oki S., and Stephanie Haboush Plunkett. Kongi and Potgi: A Cinderella Story

from Korea. Pictures by Oki S. Han. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996.

[Begins with some “facts” about Korean culture. Synopsis: Konji’s mother dies and her father remarries. The new wife, Doki, has a daughter named Potgi. Kongi is displaced and forced to sleep in a cold room off the pantry and must do all the house chores and laundry. She becomes pale. When spring comes she is forced to work in the fields. There she meets an ox who helps her remove stones from the field and gives her food. The May festival approaches. Kongi is sent to fill the jar with water using a heavy bucket with a hole in the bottom. A toad helps her by plugging up the hole. But Doki still blocks Konji from going to the festival by insisting that she sort rice, husking it and filling a large jar. Hundreds of sparrows come to her aid and swiftly the job is done. But Doki and Potgi have gone on without her. She thinks of her mother. Suddenly four men appear carrying a sedan chair and bear her to the festival. The prince favors her but in her shyness she is unable to speak. She then flees, losing her jewel-like slipper. The prince seeks its owner. It fits none. Doki tries to force it onto Potgi’s foot. Then Kongi gets her turn and the shoe fits. The villagers are glad, for they know that Kongi is deserving. Her father is proud of her and even Doki and Potgi learn to praise her and help others with good deeds.]

Han, Suzanne Crowder. “The Value of Salt.” In Korean Folk and Fairy Tales. Seoul:

Hollym Corporation, 1991. Pp. 244-246.

[A salt peddler’s daughter is married to a wealthy son but is scorned by her in-laws. Her parents serve them a meal without salt to clarify the point of their daughter’s worth.]

Hume, Lotta. “A Chinese Cinderella.” In Favorite Children’s Stories from China and

Tibet. Illustrated by Lo Koon-chiu. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1962. Pp. 15-22.

Jouanah: The Hmong Cinderella. Retold by Jewell Reinhart Coburn with Tzexa

Cherta Lee. Illustrated by Anne O’Brien. Arcadia, California: Shen’s Books, 1996. Also available in Spanish and Hmong through Shen’s Books.

[To prosper Jouanah’s parents need a cow to help with the planting. After the farmer fails to purchase a cow at market his wife asks to be turned into a cow. When this feat is accomplished by the binding of magical cords about the mother’s feet the farmer succeeds well with his farming and remarries, leaving the lovely Jouanah to care for the cow. She is abused by her cruel stepmother, who treats her as an orphan slave. The spirit of her mother helps Jouanah, however, through the cow, who provides her with fine silk. The stepmother tricks the father into burning the silk, then into killing the cow. When the New Year festival arrives the stepmother forces Jouanah to adorn her and her daughter, then orders Jouanah to sort tiny pebbles from a basket of rice. On the third day Jouanah finishes her task and is aided by the spirit of her mother, who provides her with exquisite clothes and delicate sandals so that she might attend the Festival. At the Festival she meets the handsome Shee-Nang who adores her and will play only with her. When she sees her stepmother and her daughter Ding leaving in anger she knows that she must arrive home first to have the meal ready. As she flees she loses one of her shoes in the mud. Shee-Nang finds it and searches for its owner. When they come to Jouanah’s house Ding tries to fit into the shoe but cannot. But the shoe fits Jouanah and the prince weds her, despite the stepmother’s schemes to keep them apart. Another version of this Laotian story, “Ngao Nao and Shee Na,” can be found in Folk Stories of the Hmong: Peoples of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, by Norma J. Livo and Dia Cha (Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1991), pp. 93-100. JO-a-nah (Ntsuag Nos) means a young orphan, either male or female. For a teacher’s guide to Jouanah: A Hmong Cinderella, see Sharon Cook and Jean Rusting, under Criticism.]

Jewell Reinhart Coburn’s edition of Jouanah has been printed in Hmong as: Ntsuag Nos: Ib Tug Cinderella Hmoob. Illustrated by Anne Sibley O’Brien. Translated by Jean Moua and Tzexa Cherta Lee. Arcadia, CA: Shen’s Books, 1996; and into Spanish, translated by Clarita Kohen, Shen’s Books, 1996.

Kao and the Golden Fish: A Folktale from Thailand as Remembered by Wilai

Punpattanakul-Crouch. Retold by Cheryl Hamada. Illustrated by Monica Liu. Chicago: Childrens Press, 1993. With an Introduction to Storytelling by Janice M. Del Negro.

[This publication comes with an audio tape of Cheryl Hamada telling the story. The book consists of pictures, with the story printed at the end: Kao’s mother dies and her father marries Sang, who has a daughter named Sri. He then dies leaving Kao at the mercy of the cruel stepfamily. Kao consoles herself by a lake where a golden fish speaks to her telling her that she is her mother. Kao and the fish converse each morning as she bathes. Sang wonders why she is so happy and sends Sri to spy. Out of jealousy Sri dresses in Kao’s clothes, catches the fish, and Sang cooks it. Kao weeps and buries the bones. An eggplant grows on the spot. Sang and Sri steal the eggplant and cook it too. Kao finds some seeds and plants them. Two trees grow. In the murmur of their branches Kao can hear her mother’s pleasant voice. The Prince comes by and rests under the trees. He too hears the music and would have the trees for his palace. He sends men to uproot them but they cannot. They try pulling them with elephants, with no more success. The Prince posts notices to determine the owner of the trees. Kao comes forward. He asks her if she would allow him to transplant the trees in the palace grounds. Kao returns to the trees and talks with her mother. She agrees to the move. The trees release themselves from the ground and the Prince transplants them at the Palace. Under their bows the Prince proposes and Kao says yes. They rest happily together listening to the voice of Kao’s mother in the singing trees.]

Landes, A. “The Story of Tam and Cam” (Vietnam). In Contes et legendes annamites.

Saigon: Imprimerie Coloniale, 1886. Included in Sierra (pp. 141-144). Translated by Sierra.

[A husband and wife each had a daughter of the same age from a previous marriage. The man’s daughter was Cam; the wife’s was Tam. The girls are sent to catch fish. Tam steals all Cam’s fish except for a small bong mó and returns home. Cam weeps but a spirit reassures her that she should keep the little fish and care for it. Cam feeds it rice and it grows wondrously. But Tam spies on her, catches the fish, and cooks it. Cam returns to find the fish gone. A rooster tells her where to find its bones. The spirit tells her to place the bones in pots at the corners of her bed. In three months and ten days she finds a beautiful dress, pants, and a pair of golden slippers. She sneaks into the field to try them on, but a crow steals one of the slippers and drops it in the palace courtyard. The prince finds it and would marry the one it fits. Tam goes to the palace to try it on, but the stepmother makes Cam stay home to sort lentils from sesame seeds. The spirit sends pigeons to help. With the task done the stepmother is forced to let Cam go to the palace. The slipper fits her and she becomes the bride. Later her father becomes ill. The stepmother tells Cam that the only thing that can cure him is the fruit of a tree in the garden. When Cam climbs to get the fruit Tam cuts down the tree, and Cam falls to the ground. But rather than die, she is transformed into a bird. Tam takes Cam’s clothes and goes to the prince with the news of Cam’s death and becomes bride herself. The bird watches her doing the washing and scolds her for doing it poorly. The prince recognizes Cam’s voice and takes the bird for a pet. Tam kills the bird and eats it. The prince seeks out the bird’s feathers and finds a bamboo shoot growing from them. He waters the shoot and talks with it. But Tam cooks the bamboo shoot. From its bark grows a durian tree with a wonderfully pungent fruit. A beggar woman asks the tree for food. It drops fruit into her basket. Later the old woman finds that her hut has been cleaned. She watches the tree and sees Cam emerge from it to do such kindnesses. She claims Cam as daughter, but Cam tells her to invite the prince to dinner. The old woman does; he refuses unless she prepare a silken carpet that reaches from his door to hers. Cam provides the carpet in one night. He comes, recognizes Cam’s splendid cooking, and reclaims his bride. Tam is astonished to see her stepsister return. She wonders how Cam has become so beautiful. Cam tells her to jump into a pot of boiling water, which she does and is cooked. They salt her flesh and send it to the stepmother who, believing it to be pork, eats it. A bird warns her that it is her child, but she wont believe the bird until at the bottom of the barrel she finds Tam’s head.]

-----. “Kajong and Haloek.” In Contes Tjames, traduits et annotès. Saigon: Imprimerie

Coloniale, 1887. Trans. Neil Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski, 1989.

[Kajong and Haloek are two daughters, one true and one adopted, though the mother does not know which is which. Through treachery the adopted daughter (Haloek) displaces the true (Kajong) and eats her pet fish. The bones of the fish turn into slippers, one of which a crow delivers to the king, who will marry the owner. After he finds Kajong and weds her, the false daughter does all she can to destroy her. Kajong goes through several transformations, often being devoured by Haloek. Ultimately Haloek, trying to imitate the true daughter leaps into boiling water and is cooked. She is served to her mother, who learns that Kajong is supernatural and has come back to life.]

Lang, Andrew, ed. The Bones of Djulung. In The Lilac Fairy Book. London: Longmans,

Green & Co., 1910. Rpt. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1968. Pp. 209-215.

[Lang attributes the tale to “Folklore,” by A. F. Mackenzie: On an island in the southern seas there was a family of seven sisters. The eldest ruled over them all and the youngest had the hardest task, cutting wood to keep the fire continually burning. One day, hot and exhausted from her labor, she tends the fire then hastens to bathe in the river. There she discovers a little fish, brilliant as the rainbow. So each day she takes her food and feeds the fish, whose name was Djulung-djulung. The other sisters wonder why she is becoming thin, so they follow her to the river and see her feeding her meal to the fish. They catch the fish and boil it for supper. Next morning the girl tries to talk with her fish but is unable to. One morning the cock awakens her and tells her what happened: the fish’s bones are hidden in the ashes. She takes the bones and buries them in the forest. A splendid and exotic tree grows from them. The king is called to view the tree. He learns of the house with the seven girls and inquires if they know of the tree. The six girls, hoping to receive favor from the king, are unable to answer the king’s questions. When asked about the seventh sister, they say that she is worthless, fit only to cut wood and tend the fire. But the king insists that she be summoned. As she comes, the tree bows before her, yielding to her its exotic leaves and flowers, which she gives to the king. The king marries her and takes her across the sea to his own home. See also Kao and the Golden Fish and The Story of Tam and Cam, below.]

Louie, Ai-Ling. Yeh-Shen, A Cinderella Story from China. Illustrated by Ed Young.

Philomel, 1982.

[Adapted from Tuan Ch’eng-Shih’s version from the T’ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.). After her mother and father’s deaths, Yeh-Shen is raised by a cruel step-mother who favors her own daughter. Yeh-Shen’s one consolation is a goldfish whom she feeds until the stepmother kills it. But the bones of the fish protect her, grant her wishes, get her to the festival well-clad with golden slippers, and, ultimately, to the prince. The stepmother is excluded from the court and dies in her cave from falling rocks. An animated movie based on Ms Louie’s story was made for CBS Storybreak in 1985. See Yeh-Shen, under Movies.]

Mehta, Lila. The Enchanted Anklet: A Cinderella Story from India. Illustrated by

Neela Chhaniara. Foreword by Joseph T. O’Connell. Toronto: Lilmur Publishing, 1985; second edition 1990.

[A farmer named Cindur has two wives. Each bears him a baby daughter. The first wife’s daughter is named Cinduri, the second is named Lata. The first wife dies, then the father does, too, of cholera. Cinduri is forced to work hard carrying waterpots on her head and doing dirty work. She is ill-fed and ill-clothed. One day a Godfather Snake appears with a jewel on his head. The snake feeds her and bestows magic on her life. As Cinduri becomes beautiful the wicked stepmother becomes jealous. Lata spies and discovers the strange magic provided by the snake. The stepmother is determined to ruin Cinduri’s life. The Crown Prince of Suryanagar announces the Navaratri festival. The stepfamily plans to attend but gives Cinduri too much work so she cannot attend. Though disappointed Cinduri sings and the serpent appears and gives her the jewel from his head. If rubbed and held firmly in her hand the jewel makes wishes come true. Cinduri follows instructions and is transformed into a beautiful princess. The Godfather Snake wishes her well but tells her she must be back home at midnight. Cinduri attends the festival and the Prince falls in love with her. She is the life and soul of the festival. At midnight, at the aarti ceremony, Cinduri remembers her promise and flees, losing one of her leg anklets. The Prince finds it and vows to marry the owner of the anklet. The Prince comes to Cinduri’s house but the Stepmother makes her leave to herd the buffalo. Cinduri rubs her jewel and in a twinkling of an eye is in the presence of the Crown Prince. The anklet has fit none of the others, but it fits Cinduri. The Prince is overjoyed and they are married. The Stepmother and Lata are not permitted to live in the Castle. They attempt to tend the little farm but they don’t like hardship and the farm deteriorates. They go on the road as beggars. While they sleep under a tree they are struck by lightning and crushed to death by the uprooted tree.]

Mizusawa, Kenichi. Echigo no Shinderera (Cinderella in Echigo). Sanjo-shi, Niigata:

Nojima Shuppa, 1964.

[Ninety-four Cinderella variants collected from a single Japanese district.]

Nguyen Thi Nhuan and Nguyen Thi Hop. Tám Cám: The Vietnamese Cinderella Story.

A Bilingual Children’s Book. San Jose: Gioi Publishing Co., 1992.

[Tám’s mother dies and she lives with her father, stepmother, and lazy stepsister Cám. The girls are sent to catch fish. Tám fills her basket but Cám chases butterflies. At the end of the day Cám accuses Tám of being dirty and steals her fish as she bathes. Tám fears going home empty handed and weeps. But (a wise old man) appears and instructs her to take the very small fish remaining in her container and feed it in her backyard pond. She does and the friendly fish, named Bong, grows magnificently. But the spying stepkin kill the fish and eat it. Again Tám weeps, but But appears and tells her to fetch Bong’s bones and bury them. On the tenth day she digs up the bones and finds a pair of wonderful slippers. The Stepmother orders Tám to take the buffalo to pasture. She does but gets her slippers wet. She places them on the horns of the buffalo to dry but a crow steals one of them and drops it at the Palace. The Prince vows to marry the one the shoe fits and calls all eligible women to come to the Palace to try it on. It fits none. Tám is the last to try. It fits, the Prince sees that she is beautiful, and they marry and live happily together. Full page blue ink drawings on every other page.]

Old Black Snake. Storyteller: Muang Yoon Saechao. Collector and Translator:

Judy Thungc. In Loz-Hnoi, Loz-Hnoi Uov: In the Old, Old Days, ed. Tim Beard, Betsey Warrick, Kao Cho Saefong. Traditional Stories of the Iu-Mienh (Laos). Iu-Mienh Stories Project. Vol. I, Berkeley, CA: Laotian Handcraft Project, 1993. Pp. 60-64.

[A king has three daughters. He would make a rice field covering twelve mountains and twelve valleys. He and his daughters clear the area of small growth but offers one of his daughters in marriage to the one who can clear the area of trees. A large black snake performs the task. The two older daughters refuse the snake but the third daughter named Faam gets water for the snake to wash up, then makes his bed, and agrees to pack her bag and go with him. Irritated at her circumstance she steps on his tail; he in turn bites her, but as she weeps and can walk no more he puts saliva on the bite to make her feel better. They come to a river and the snake tells her not to point if the water changes color and to close her eyes as a young man appears; she should keep her eyes closed until she hears the sound of seven waves. She obeys and the Old Black Snake takes her to his house in the city. As she lives with the family of snakes they all turn into humans. They ask her what kind of chair she would like. She says an old cutting board would do, and they give her a gold chair instead. They ask her what kind of chopsticks she would have. She says old wood, and they give her gold. When asked what bowl she would eat from she says the pig’s bowl will do, but they give her a gold rice bowl. After a time she has a child and returns to her parents for a visit. Her older sister Naix is jealous and would return with her to her husband. She drowns Faam and goes to Old Black Snake as her sister’s substitute. She asks for a gold chair and gets a cutting board; for gold chopsticks and gets wood; and for a golden bowl. They give her an old pig’s bowl. The baby cries and won’t sleep. A stable boy hears a bird singing and is so pleased with the music that he comes home late. Old Black Snake inquires of his tardiness and goes to hear the bird himself. He recognizes the spirit of his wife and brings the bird home on his wrist. Naix kills the bird and serves it for supper. The meal is delicious for everyone except Naix, for whom the meal tastes like woodchips. She throws it out the window and from it a bamboo bush grows. The bamboo helps them clean themselves after going to the bathroom. Naix tries it but it pokes her in a vulnerable place. She cuts the bamboo down and makes a bed of it, but it makes her itch as if ants were biting her. She cuts the bamboo frame open and finds Faam inside, as beautiful as ever. She asks how Faam has managed to stay young and beautiful after having been fried and boiled by Naix many times. Faam suggests that Naix try bathing in the boiling water. Naix climbs into the scalding tub and is killed.]

The Princess and the Beggar: A Korean Folktale. Adapted and illustrated by Anne

Sibley O’Brien. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1993.

[The royal sedan chair is stopped by congestion in a market street. The princess sees a beggar boy Pabo Ondal being kicked. She weeps for the youth but is mocked by her mother, “No man wants a wife who cries all the time!” But the princess continues to weep for the beggar and her father rebukes her. Would you marry such a person? He wears animal skins and sleeps in a cave. He tears raw meat from bones. But their mockery only makes her weep more. When she is older the king would make her the wife of the son of noble Ko. But he says no — she would marry Pabo Ondal. In a rage they cast her from the palace. She goes to the mountains, to Peony Peak where she meets the beggar. He takes pity on her and cares for her and she teaches him royal arts and to read and write. A year passes and the royal hunting party passes that way. Ondal proves himself to be the master hunter. He is invited to the festival, where there is a poetry contest. He competes and to the amazement of the scholars wins the prize–such simplicity, such swiftness, such strength, verses such as only royalty could write. All are amazed to find the winner is a peasant. Then he is brought before the king, who recognizes him as the hunter. He presents his wife and teacher to the king who sees that it is his daughter. Pabo receives royal preferment, but their happiest time is at the foot of Peony Peak.]

Schroeder, Alan. Lily and the Wooden Bowl. Illustrated by Yoriko Ito. New York:

Doubleday, 1994.

[When Japan was still known as “Island of the Dragonfly,” a woman named Aya lived with her beautiful granddaughter Lily. On her deathbed Aya gave Lily three gifts: a small wooden rice paddle, a folded paper crane, and a lacquered wooden bowl which she turned upside down and placed over Lily’s head, warning her to hide her beauty from the world and reassuring her that the gifts would protect Lily after Aya’s departure. At first Lily worked in the rice fields where she was ridiculed because of the bowl. But once when workers suddenly attacked her to remove the bowl the paper crane set up a ruckus and drove them away. Later Yamoto, a wealthy farmer, hired Lily to look after his wife Matsu, who was ill. Lily restored Matsu to health. But Matsu was cruel and spiteful and hated Lily. She would not rest until she drove Lily from the house in disgrace. Yamato’s eldest son Kumaso returned from university. He was attracted to Lily but Matsu insisted that Lily was deformed by smallpox and thus wore the bowl. Still Kumaso fell in love with her and once slipped the bowl off just enough to see her beauty before the paper crane drove him away. With that glimpse he determined, however, to marry her. Yamato agreed and so too Matsu, though with guile. She asked Lily to prepare the rice for the wedding guests, then gave her one grain only, and locked her in a room. Lily remembered her mother’s rice paddle: as she stirred the water the kernel became two, then four, then eight, until all dishes were filled with rice. But Matsu was a witch and conjured rats, hundreds of them, to enter the room, devour all the rice, and break the dishes. Then Matsu entered the room and began to beat Lily, but Yamato appeared and stopped the violence. Lily explained what happened and Yamato believed her. He sent Matsu away permanently. When the wedding was ready Kumaso tried to remove the bowl but could not. Only after the ceremony, as Lily sipped the wedding wine, did the bowl break in half, spilling gold and jewels all about. But even more astonishing than the gems was the beauty of the bride, revealed for the first time to the eyes of the world.]

Seki, Keigo. “Benizara and Kakezara.” In Folktales of Japan, trans. Robert J. Adams.

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963.

[The tales were collected in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka-ken, by Hana Watanabe. “Benizara” means “Crimson Dish”; Kakezara means “Broken Dish.” A mother sends her two girls to collect chestnuts, giving Benizara a bag with a hole in it. Kakezara fills her bag quickly and returns home. Honest Benizara works hard trying to fill her bag but night falls and her bag is still empty. She fears wolves and takes refuge with an old woman who gives her a magic box, some rice, a bag of chestnuts, and advice on what to do if she should meet her two sons, who are oni. She meets them, chews some rice but does not swallow it, then lies down as if dead. The oni plan on eating her, but don’t, thinking the rice in her mouth is worms and that she is indeed dead. She then returns home. Kakezara and her mother go to a play, leaving Benizara with a day’s work and nothing to wear. She uses the wishing box to obtain a kimono and goes to the play. A nobleman sees her give Kakezara some candles that she asks for and, next day, seeks out the kind girl at her house. The stepmother hides her in a bathtub and insists that the girl the nobleman saw and liked was Kakezara. Benizara is brought forth upon demand, and the two are told to write poems about a pile of salt with a pine needle stuck in the top. Kakezara’s poem is silly and mismetered; Benizara is correct and beautiful. The nobleman takes Benizara to his palace. The jealous stepmother puts Kakezara in a basket and starts dragging her along, but the basket tumbles over the edge of a deep ditch, and Kakezara falls to her death. This story is included in Neil Philip’sThe Cinderella Story (pp. 32-35) and Judith Sierra’s Cinderella (pp. 134-137).]

Sierra, Judy. "Maria" (Philippines). In Cinderella. Phoenix, Arizona: Oryx Press, 1992,

pp. 138-140.

[Sierra combines parts of two similar tales collected in Mindoro by Fletcher Gardner, “Filipino (Tagalog) Versions of Cinderella,” Journal of American Folklore, 19 (October-December, 1906). [A man and his wife had a beautiful daughter, Maria. He fell in love with a widow with three children and drowned his wife to marry the widow. She greatly abused Maria, making her do all the dirty work. She made Maria kill her pet pig and dress it, then clean the entrails in the river. Maria does as she must but a piece of the entrails washes away. A crocodile retrieves it and splashes a drop of water on Maria’s forehead which becomes a bright jewel. The stepmother sends her daughter to kill a pig and wash the entrails, hoping for a share of good fortune. But the drop of water turns into a bell that cannot be removed; it makes a loud noise and brings great shame upon the girl and her mother. So the mother works Maria even harder, then orders her to bathe in the river and return utterly clean or be beaten to death. Maria can’t reach her back to scrub, but a she-crab cleans her then tells her to eat her and bury her shell in the yard. From the shell grows a grapefruit tree. The stepmother and daughter go to church and leave Maria to fix a dinner that must be neither hot nor cold. Maria weeps over the impossible task, but an old woman comes to her aid. She sends Maria to the grapefruit tree which supplies her with a lovely dress, slippers, and a coach with eight horses. She goes to the church by way of the king’s palace. The king sees the shining jewel and sends soldiers to find out who she is. They find only her slipper. The king searches for the woman whom the slipper fits. The stepmother hides Maria wrapped in a mat. But the soldiers find her, wash her, and are astonished at her beauty. The shoe fits and the king marries her with pomp and feasting. They live happily together for many years.]

Tam’s Slipper: A Story from Vietnam. Retold by Janet Palazzo-Craig. Illustrated by

Makiko Nagano. First-Start Legends. Troll Communications, 1996.

[A Yeh Shen narrative; a simplified retelling of The Golden Slipper, above; in large typefont.]

Ting, Nai-Tung. The Cinderella Cycle in China and Indo-China. Folklore Fellows

Communications no. 213. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1974.

Vuong, Lynette. The Brocaded Slipper and Other Vietnamese Tales. Illustrated by

Vo-Dinh Alo Mai. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1982; rpt. New York: Harper-Collins, 1992. Pp. 1-26.

[Tam, a beautiful girl, endures the death of her mother and the marriage of her father to a woman with an ugly daughter named Cam. Tam is forced to work as servant, tending the buffalo and cleaning house while Cam sleeps. The mother sends both girls with a basket and pail to get fish from the pond. The one with the most fish will receive a new blouse. Tam empties out the pond and fills her basket with fish. Cam steals her pail of fish. As Tam weeps in frustration her fairy godmother tells her to take a small fish home and raise it in the well for good luck. But the stepfamily sees what is happening and cook and eat the fish. Tam finds the bones and places them under the feet of her bed. Her good luck continues as she finds jars of clothing and a pair of brocaded slippers. A crow steals one of the slippers and takes it to the Prince. The Prince will marry the owner. He has a festival and tries it on everyone. It fits only Tam who becomes his Princess. Out of jealousy Cam and her mother kill Tam by making her fall. She then convinces the Prince that he should marry her. But she returns as a bird to comfort her husband. But Cam kills the bird, too. The Prince is much aggrieved. Then she appears to him as he lies in his hammock. Cam chops down the trees and burns them. So she reappears in the loom and scolds Cam as she works. Cam chops the loom to pieces with an axe. Then he Prince seeks out live help in the way of an old widow. There he finds Tam in a rice jar. She cooks for him and he recognizes that Tam must be the cook. Cam dies when a rock strikes her. Tam and the Prince marry and live well.]

Waley, Arthur. “The Chinese Cinderella Story,” Folk-Lore, 58 (1947), 226-38.

[The earliest recorded Chinese version of the Cinderella story is "Yeh-hsien." Translated from Tuan Ch’eng-shih, ca. 850-60 AD. Tuan says his source was “Li Shih-yuan, who has been in the service of my family for a long while. He was himself originally a man from the caves of Yung-chou and remembers many strange things of the South” (as cited by Neil Philip, The Cinderella Story, p. 17.) Ai-Lang Louie’s children’s book is based on this version.]

Wishbones: A Folk Tale from China. Retold by Barbara Ker Wilson. Illustrated by Meilo

So. New York: Bradbury Press, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.

[Chieftain Wu’s first wife dies, leaving him a daughter, Yeh Hsien. His second wife has her own daughter and makes Yeh Hsien chop wood and draw water from dangerous places. Yeh Hsien befriends a small fish with red fins and golden eyes and feeds it rice from her own plate. The fish grows so large that Yeh Hsien keeps it in a pond near the family cave. It talks to her alone. The stepmother gives Yeh Hsien good clothes to wear and sends her on an errand. Then her daughter puts on Yeh Hsien’s rags and calls the fish. When it appears the stepmother kills it, cooks it for supper, and discards the bones in a dunghill. Yeh Hsien is heart-broken to discover that her fish is gone, but an old man appears from the sky and tells her what happened. She should collect the bones, and they will give her her wishes–jewels, carved jade, embroidered robes, silk slippers. The time of the Cave Festival comes, but Yeh Hsien must stay home to guard the fruit orchard. After the others leave, however, she dresses according to her wishes and attends. She eats well and enjoys herself fully. But when her stepmother starts staring at her she flees, losing her silken slipper. The King of T’o Huan seeks the owner of the slipper, whom he vows will be his queen. All eligible women try it on but it is far to small to fit any of them. Then Yeh Hsien tries: it fits, and she produces the other slipper as well. The King makes her queen of all the land. He is pleased to have the wishing bones too and gets much wealth during the first year of their marriage. But at last the fishbones refuse to grant any more of his desires. “Husband, you have worn out their magic,” Yeh Hsien gently chides him. In shame he buries the bones near a seashore and the tide carries them away.]

Allerleirauh (Grimm), Tattercoats, Cat Skin, Donkey Skin (Perrault’s Peau d’Ane):

For a synopsis of Allerleirauh see Grimm’s German Folk Tales under Basic European Texts; for Donkey Skin, see Perrault’s Histoires ou Contes du Tempes Passé under Basic European Texts. See also Robin McKinley, Deerskin, under Modern Fiction.

Allerleirauh (The Coat of All Colours). In Grimms’ Fairy Tales. With Illustrations in Line

and Colour by Anne Anderson. London: Collins’ Clear-Type Press, n.d. (1935?). Pp. 201-206.

[Begins with an interesting line drawing of hunters and their dogs finding the Princess asleep in the boll of a tree, wrapped in her coat of a thousands of skins and hides. Also drawings of her peeling vegetables and appearing before the king in her splendid gown. In the main the narrative follows Grimm, except at the outset where the daughter is pledged to the king’s oldest councillor, rather than sought in marriage by the king himself out of deference to a promise to the deceased queen. Thus there is no threat of incest in this version. She flees out of an aversion to the mismatch with so old a man.]

Carruth, Jane. “Donkey-Skin.” In Fairy Tale Time. London: Octopus Books Ltd., 1979.

Rpt. Treasure Press, 1984. Original edition Milan: Fabbri Editori, 1976. Pp. 91-113.

[For some reason the king cherishes a little donkey above all his grand possessions. When his wife dies he reluctantly agrees at her request to remarry a wife more beautiful and wise than herself. A strange madness takes possession of the king. He sees his daughter in the garden and, not recognizing her, concludes he must marry her. Through the advice of her fairy godmother she attempts to divert him by asking that impossible clothes be made–a dress the color of the sky, another as bright as the sun. When these are produced the fairy asks if there is something the king loves above all else, and the princess tells of the donkey whose skin she reluctantly requests. When it is produced the fairy tells her she must leave the palace, taking the magic wand and a chest with her clothing which will appear when she requires it. She escapes to another country where she works on a great farm, tending pigs and doing the washing. She is called Donkey-Skin by lads who mock her. The Prince visits the farm to view its exotic birds. She admires him and dresses in her finery to console herself. He sees her through the peephole and falls in love. He finds out who she is from the farmer and asks that a cake be made by her. She complies, putting her ring in the batter. When he finds the ring he vows to marry only the one whom the ring fits. Though high-born ladies vie to force the ring on to their fingers, none succeed. At last Donkey-Skin takes her turn and to shouts of amazement it fits. She asks to return to the farm to make herself presentable and then comes back in her dress like the sun. Her father attends the wedding, restored from his madness when he sees her dressed as a bride. The story is handsomely illustrated by Ferri.]

Chase, Richard. Catskins. In Grandfather Tales. Selected and retold by Richard Chase. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948. Pp. 106-114.

[Introduced by Granny London, but told by Deely, Jeems’ stoutish wife, at about 10:00 p.m.: An orphan girl worked for people who fed her but didn’t pay her. Her dress became so ragged she patched it with old cat-hides until it was nothing but catskins, thus her name. The wife dies and the old man would marry Catskins. She agrees if he would get her a dress the color of all the fish in the sea. He does, but she asks for a dress the color of all the birds that fly. He gets its, but she asks for a dress the color of all the flowers in the world. Then she asks for his flying box, puts the dresses in, and flies away till she sees a big house. She hides the box under a rock, puts on her catskin dress, and asks for work. They put her in the kitchen where she scares folks half to death. There’s a big dance at the king’s house. The poor folk go to look in through the window, but Catskins stays behind. She goes to her box, puts on the fish dress and flies to the king’s house. She captivates the king’s boy but slips out during “Lady-’Round-the-Gent-and-the-Gent-Don’t-Go.” Back by the kitchen fire she tells others she saw it all. Next night she helps others get ready, waits, then goes herself to the dance in her bird dress. She slips out early again, and tells others she was there. The king’s boy is stuck on the girl and has another dance next night. Catskins asks if she might borrow a dress. The old woman refuses, but the girl Catskin helped get ready the other