is called "Askepot,"[1] a Danish word which the readers of Grimm's Tales will see at once is own brother to Aschenpüttel. The meaning of the word is "one who pokes about the ashes and blows up the fire"; one who does dirty work, in short; and in Norway, according to M. Moe, the term is almost universally applied to the youngest son of the family. He is Cinderella's brother, in fact; and just as she had all the dirty work put upon her by her sisters, he meets with the same fate from his brothers. He is generally the youngest of three, whose names are often Peter and Paul, as in No. XLII. (p. 295), and who despise, cry down, and mock him. But he hasin him that deep strength of character and natural power upon which the good powers always smile. He is the man whom Heaven helps, because he can help himself; and so, after his brothers try and fail, he alone can watch in the barn, and tame the steed, and ride up the glass hill, and gain the Princess and half the kingdom. The Norse "Boots" shares these qualities in common with the "Pinkel" of the Swedes, and the Dummling of the
- ↑ After all, there is, it seems, a Scottish word which answers to Askepot to a hair. See Jamieson's Dictionary, where the reader will find Ashiepattie as used in Shetland for "a neglected child"; and not in Shetland alone, but in Ayrshire, Ashypet, an adjective, or rather a substantive degraded to do the dirty work of an adjective, "one employed in the lowest kitchen work." See too the quotation, "when I reached Mrs. Damask's house she was gone to bed, and nobody to let me in, dripping wet as I was, but an ashypet lassie, that helps her for a servant."—Steamboat, page 259. So again Assiepet, substantive, "a dirty little creature, one that is constantly soiled with ass or ashes."
