But in Mr. Macleod's version the
helpful animal, a sheep, is the heroine's mother herself! This is indeed
an archaic touch, which seems to hark back to primitive times and
totemistic beliefs. And more important still, it is a touch which
vitalises the other variants in which the helpful animal is rather
dragged in by the horns. Mr. Nutt's lucky find at the last moment seems
to throw more light on the origin of the tale than almost the whole of
the remaining collection.
But does this find necessarily prove an original Celtic origin for
Cinderella? Scarcely. It remains to be proved that this introductory
part of the story with helpful animal was necessarily part of the
original. Having regard to the feudal character underlying the whole
conception, it remains possible that the earlier part was ingeniously
dovetailed on to the latter from some pre-existing and more archaic
tale, perhaps that represented by the Grimms' _One Eyed, Two Eyes, and
Three Eyes_. The possibility of the introduction of an archaic formula
which had become a convention of folk-telling cannot be left out of
account.
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