pursuit by the guards (Pursuit Rhyme), and the calling attention of the Prince to the mutilated feet of the stepsisters (Feet Rhyme).
Now some of these rhymes are found in similar and almost identical shape in collections made in different countries and different languages; thus the Tree Rhyme is found in the Archivio (Cox, p. 139) and in Ive (p. 265), in Bechstein (p. 166), and in Grimm (p. 222), and in Hahn (p. 244), and Moe (p. 322), each pair having practically identical rhymes. Thus we have the existence of a Tree Rhyme, shown in Italy and Germany, Greece and Denmark. So, too, the Feet Rhyme is found in Scotland and Denmark, Germany and Brittany. It is scarcely possible to doubt that all these came from one original form of the story in which similar rhymes occurred at the same stage of the narrative. The possibility of such coincidences arising casually may fairly be regarded as out of the question.
The subordinate incidents growing out of these essential elements of the formula are of course more flexible, but the Shoe Marriage Test itself involves some remarkable dresses used to disguise the identity of the Cinder Maid at her meetings with the hero, and this again involves, though not so directly, a series of metal carriages. The Pursuit Rhyme might easily give rise to the expedients of the Honey and Tar Traps though these do not occur in very many of the variants. I have nevertheless inserted them for the sake of the children if not for that of Folk-Lore Science.
Thus, from what may be called the artistic logic of the Cinderella story, one is enabled to reconstitute its original formula somewhat as follows:
Noble—Father—Single Daughter—Mother's Death—Tree Planted on Mother's Grave—Second Marriage—Two Ugly Step-Sisters—Menial Heroine—Cinder-Maid—Prince Coming of Age—Royal Ball—Step-Sisters Dressing—Tree Rhyme—Bird Aid—Magic Dress (blue heaven with stars)
