Slaying of Slaying of Flight twofold.  Flight threefold.
  helpful helpful
  animal animal.
  mother.

Revivified Revivified Lost shoe.  Lost shoe.
  bones. bones.

Magic dresses.  Step-sister Shoe marriage Shoe marriage
                     substitute. test. test.

Golden shoe gift   Heroine under       Mutilated foot.
(from hero).      washtub.

Meeting-place Meeting-place Happy marriage.  Happy marriage.
  (feast). (sermon).

Flight threefold.  Flight Substituted Substituted bride
                     threefold. bride. (eldest sister).

Lost shoe Lost shoe.  Jonah heroine.  Jonah heroine. (golden).

Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Three Three
  test. test. reappearances. reappearances.

Mutilated foot.  Mutilated foot.  Reunion.  Reunion.

False bride.  Villain Nemesis.

Bird witness.  Bird witness.

Happy marriage.  Happy marriage.

Now, in the “English” versions there is practical unanimity in the concluding portions of the tale. Magic dresses—­Meeting-place (Church)—­Flight—­Lost Shoe—­Shoe Marriage-test—­Mutilated foot—­False Bride—­Bird witness—­Happy Marriage_, follow one another with exemplary regularity in all four (six) versions.[2] The introductory incidents vary somewhat.  Chambers has evidently a maimed version of the introduction of Catskin (see No. lxxxiii.).  The remaining three enable us, however, to restore with some confidence the Ur-Cinderella in English somewhat as follows:  Helpful animal given by dying mother—­Ill-treated heroine—­Menial heroine—­cornucopia—­Spy on heroine—­Slaying by helpful animal—­Tasks—­Revivified bones.  I have attempted in my version to reconstruct the “English” Cinderella according to these formulae.  It will be observed that the helpful animal is helpful in two ways (a) in helping the heroine to perform tasks; (b) in providing her with magic dresses.  It is the same with the Grimms’ Aschenputtel and other Continental variants.

Turning to the Celtic variants, these divide into two sets.  Campbell’s and Macleod’s versions are practically at one with the English formula, the latter with an important variation which will concern us later.  But the other two, Curtin’s and Sinclair’s, one collected in Ireland and the other in Scotland, both continue the formula with the conclusion of the Sea Maiden tale (on which see the Notes of my Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xvii.).  This is a specifically Celtic formula, and would seem therefore to claim Cinderella for the Celts.  But the welding of the Sea Maiden ending on to the Cinderella formula is clearly a later and inartistic junction, and implies rather imperfect assimilation of the Cinderella formula.  To determine the question of origin we must turn to the purer type given by the other two Celtic versions.