(1) It omits the Mother’s death-bed injunction to Cinderella.

(2) It omits the wooden shoes and the cloak.

(3) The Stepmother assigns more modern tasks.  It omits the
pease-and-beans task.

(4) It shows Cinderella sleeping in a garret instead of on
the hearth.

(5) It omits the Father.

(6) It omits the hazel bough.

(7) It omits the three wishes.

(8) It substitutes the fairy Godmother for the hazel tree
and the friendly doves.

(9) It substitutes transformation for tree-shaking.

(10) It omits the episode of the pear tree and of the
pigeon-house.

(11) It omits the use of pitch and axe-cutting.

(12) It omits the false bride and the two doves.

(13) It substitutes two nights at the ball for three nights.

(14) It makes C. forgiving and generous at the end.  The Sisters
are not punished.

(15) It contains slippers of glass instead of slippers of gold.

(16) It simplifies the narrative, improves the structure, and puts
in the condition, which is a keystone to the structure.

(17) It has no poetical refrain.

(18) It is more direct and dramatic.

(19) It draws the characters more clearly.

(20) Is it not more artificial and conventional?

This contrast shows the Grimm tale to be the more poetical, while it is the more complex, and contains more barbarous and gruesome elements unsuited to the child of to-day.  Of the two forms, the Grimm tale seems the superior tale, however, and if rewritten in a literary form suited to the child, might become even preferable.

Sleeping Beauty, which is another romantic tale that might claim to be the most popular fairy tale, has for its theme the long sleep of winter and the awakening of spring.  The Earth goddess, pricked by winter’s dart, falls into a deep sleep from which she is awakened by the Sun who searches far for her.  This tale is similar to the Norse Balder and the Greek Persephone.  Some of its incidents appear also in The Two Brothers, an Egyptian tale of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Seti II, in which the Hathors who pronounce the fate of the Prince correspond to the wicked old Fairy.  The spindle whose prick caused slumber is the arrow that wounded Achilles, the thorn which pricked Siegfried, the mistle-toe which wounded Balder, and the poisoned nail of the demon in Surya Bai.  In the northern form of the story we find the ivy, which is the one plant that can endure winter’s touch.  The theme of the long sleep occurs in the mediaeval legend of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, in the English The King of England and His Three Sons, poetically as Tennyson has given it in his Day-Dream, and in the Story of Brunhilde, in Siegfried.  Here a hedge of flames encircles Brunhilde who is awakened at the touch of Siegfried’s magic sword,