- ✔ The Gipsy Princess: A little peasant girl is spotted by a princess dancing with a bear. I think the bear's name is something like 'Babalatzi' (phonetically). The girl and the bear join the princess in her palace, but the princess soon tires of the bear, and he leaves to roam the world alone. The little girl eventually tires of her life in the pallace, missing her friend. She runs away and gets lost, her beautiful dress from the palace trips her up and gets caught in thorns. Starving, muddy and worse for wear all-round, she finally reunites with the bear and they dance again.
- ✔ The Haughty Princess: A beautiful and haughty princess rejects all the suitors her father finds for her. He informs her that she will marry the next person who arrives at the gate of their palace, rich or poor. The next day she is sent off with a traveling fiddler, who, unbeknownst to her is one of the rejected suitors (a king) in disguise. They travel to his hut and she is forced to peel potatoes for a feasts at the nearby palace all day every day. One day she travels to the palace with her husband, who will be performing for the king. She sits in the kitchen pealing potatoes all evening and being treated quite poorly by the cooks. Somehow she winds up dancing with the King, who she later realizes is her husband. Etc, etc, happily ever after.
- ✔ Traditional: Allerleirauh, Modern: Princess Furball A Cinderella-like story in which a poor kitchen girl marries a king. Not Cinderella, Ashenputel or East of the Sun and West of the moon. She arrives at the palace of the king to work with nothing but the cloak of rags she is wearing and three nutshells given to her by a dying woman (maybe a relation?). Each shell contains a small token which she gives to the king and a dress, the first bronze, the next silver, the final gold. She cracks open each nut on special feast nights and dances with the king, who becomes quite enchanted with the mysterious woman. Eventually he discovers that she is one of the cooks in his kitchen, and asks her to marry him. Perhaps Catskin Princess more research required. See link. Of German origin (Allerleirauh means lost-of-furs).
nov 24 2012 ∞
jan 23 2013 +