Tattercoats

Last updated April 28, 2022

"Tattercoats" is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his More English Fairy Tales.^[1]

It is Aarne–Thompson type 510B, the persecuted heroine. Others of this type include "Cap O' Rushes", "Catskin", "Little Cat Skin", "Allerleirauh", "The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter", "The She-Bear", "Donkeyskin", "Mossycoat", "The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress", and "The Bear".^[2]

Synopsis

A great lord had no living relatives except a little granddaughter, and because her mother, his daughter, had died in childbirth, he swore that he would never look at her. He sat in his castle and mourned his dead daughter. The granddaughter grew up quite neglected, and was called "Tattercoats" for her ragged clothing. She spent her days in the fields with only a gooseherd for her companion.

Her grandfather was invited to a royal ball. He had his hair sheared off, for it had bound him to his chair, and made preparations to go. Tattercoats's old nurse begged him to take her, but he refused. Her gooseherd friend proposed they should go and watch. He played his pipe, and they danced merrily along the way. A richly dressed young man asked them the way to the city. When he heard they were going there, walked along with them, and asked Tattercoats to marry him. She told him to choose his bride at the king's ball. He told her to come, just as she was, to the king's ball at midnight, and he would dance with her.

She went, and the gooseherd went with all his geese. Everyone stared, but the prince, who was the finely dressed young man, rose up and told his father that this was the woman he wished to marry. The gooseherd played on his pipe, and all Tattercoats's clothing was transformed into shining robes, and the geese into pages holding her train. Everyone approved, and the prince married her.

The gooseherd vanished and was never seen again.

Tattercoats's grandfather, because he had vowed never to look on her, went back to his castle and is still mourning there.

Commentary

This is an unusual variant on 510B, in which the heroine is usually persecuted by her father rather than her grandfather, and in which she runs away prior to the ball to escape him. Marian Roalfe Cox classified it not with "Catskin" but as an "indeterminate" version.^[3]

It is also unusual in the hero in 510B usually finds the heroine repulsive in her poor clothing: whether a catskin coat in "Catskin", an overdress of rushes "Cap O' Rushes", or a gown of all kinds of fur, in "Allerleirauh".

The gooseherd, despite his unusual place in the opening of the tales, acts the function of the donor figure commonly found in fairy tales.

Related Research Articles

"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world. The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.

The Wonderful Birch is a Finnish/Russian fairy tale. A variant on Cinderella, it is Aarne–Thompson folktale type 510A, the persecuted heroine. It makes use of shapeshifting motifs. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.

"Cap-o'-Rushes" is an English fairy tale published by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales.

Catskin is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs, in More English Fairy Tales. Marian Roalfe Cox, in her pioneering study of Cinderella, identified as one of the basic types, the Unnatural Father, contrasting with Cinderella itself and Cap O' Rushes.

"Allerleirauh" is a fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, it has been recorded as Tale no. 65. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book.

"Katie Woodencloak" or "Kari Woodengown" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.

Donkeyskin is a French literary fairytale written in verse by Charles Perrault. It was first published in 1695 in a small volume and republished in 1697 in Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé. Andrew Lang included it, somewhat euphemized, in The Grey Fairy Book. It is classed among folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 510B, unnatural love.

Morphology, broadly, is the study of form or structure. Folkloristic morphology, then, is the study of the structure of folklore and fairy tales.

"The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter" is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, listing his informant as Ann Darroch from Islay.

Finette Cendron is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy.

"The She-bear" is an Italian literary fairy tale, written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.

The Bear is a fairy tale collected by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson classification system type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, Little Cat Skin, Allerleirauh, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Tattercoats, Mossycoat, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and Donkeyskin, or the legend of Saint Dymphna.

"The True Bride" or "The True Sweetheart" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale 186.

"Mossycoat" is a fairy tale collected by Katherine M. Briggs and Ruth I. Tongue in Folktales of England. It appears in A Book of British Fairy Tales by Alan Garner. The story known by folklorists was told was Taimi Boswell, a Romani, at Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, January 9, 1915.

Little Catskin is an American fairy tale from Kentucky, collected by Marie Campbell in Tales from the Cloud Walking Country, listing her informant as Big Nelt.

"The Princess That Wore a Rabbit-skin Dress" is an American fairy tale from Kentucky, collected by Marie Campbell in Tales from the Cloud Walking Country, listing her informant as Uncle Tom Dixon.

Emaré is a Middle English Breton lai, a form of mediaeval romance poem, told in 1035 lines. The author of Emaré is unknown and it exists in only one manuscript, Cotton Caligula A. ii, which contains ten metrical narratives. Emaré seems to date from the late fourteenth century, possibly written in the North East Midlands. The iambic pattern is rather rough.

Marian Roalfe Cox (1860–1916) was an English folklorist who pioneered studies in Morphology for the fairy tale Cinderella.

The Princess in the Suit of Leather is an Egyptian folktale. It may also be referred to as The Princess in the Leather Burqa. This story was originally published in translation in Inea Bushnaq's 1986 collection Arab Folktales.

Hachikazuki or Hachi Katsugi is a Japanese folktale of the Otogi-zōshi genre. It refers to a maiden of noble birth who wears a bowl on her head and marries a prince.

References

1 2 Jacobs, Joseph; Batten, John D. (1894). "Tattercoats". More English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. pp. 61–5 & notes: 226.
↑ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Donkeyskin"
↑ Marian Roalfe Cox, Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and, Cap O' Rushes, Abstracted and Tabulated with a Discussion of Medieval Analogues and Notes p274

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Jacobs-1] 1 2 Jacobs, Joseph; Batten, John D. (1894). "Tattercoats". More English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. pp. 61–5 & notes: 226.

[2] Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Donkeyskin"

[3] Marian Roalfe Cox, Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and, Cap O' Rushes, Abstracted and Tabulated with a Discussion of Medieval Analogues and Notes p274

[1]

[2]

[3]