ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 89 



have a brother at home, but we don't like to name the 

 fellow, for he does nothing else but sit in the ashes and 

 pluck out his scurf ; and, besides that, he was not at the 

 contests." Euobba is sent for, and the princess's name 

 found impressed on his forehead. He reappears in his 

 fine clothes, and the bridal feast lasts three full days. 



So far it will be seen the Northern version, with its 

 Ash-lad in place of the Cinder-girl, is exactly parallel to 

 the German, and is as widely spread. But the reader 

 may ask : What reason, beyond the assumed older law 

 of inheritance, beyond the disappearance of the ride to 

 church with the prince, have we for asserting that Aske- 

 lad is the original version of Cinderella ? Why, after 

 all, may not the girl have been converted into a boy, 

 as the story passed northwards ? The answer is fairly 

 conclusive. While, in the nineteenth century, the 

 Brothers Grimm could find a variety of versions of 

 the Cinderella tale, yet all the references to this tale 

 from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Germany 

 itself point to an Ash-lad and not to a Cinder-girl. Thus 

 Kollenhagen speaks of the wonderful tale of the " De- 

 spised and pious Aschenpossel, and his proud and 

 scornful brothers." More than one mediaeval preacher 

 refers to the male Ashiepattle, and even Luther compares 

 Abel and Cain to Asclienbrodel and his proud brother. 1 

 Thus, in Germany itself, the matriarchal form of the 

 tale is seen to be the older. Nor is this transfer of 

 sex and detail, so that they fit better with patriarchal 

 customs, confined only to Cinderella. Allerleirauh, 



1 For further references see Grimm, Kinder- und Haus-Mdrchen, Bd. iii. 

 p. 38. Berlin, 1822. 



