Marian Roalfe Cox (1860–1916) was an English folklorist who pioneered studies in Morphology for the fairy tale Cinderella.
In 1893, after being commissioned by the Folklore Society of Britain, she produced 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, a seminal work in the study of Cinderella, introduced by Andrew Lang. Prior to anthologization and folklore indices, she identified five broad types:
- A – Ill-treated heroine. Recognition by means of a shoe. Among the examples included: Cinderella, Katie Woodencloak, Finette Cendron, The Sharp Grey Sheep, Fair, Brown and Trembling, Aschenputtel, Rushen Coatie, and The Wonderful Birch. It corresponds to Aarne-Thompson type 510A.
- B – Unnatural father. Heroine flight. Among the examples included: Catskin, Donkeyskin, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, Allerleirauh. It corresponds to Aarne-Thompson type 510B.
- C – King Lear judgment. Outcast heroine. Among the examples included: Cap O' Rushes, The Goose-Girl at the Well. Includes tales later classified as ATU 923, "Love Like Salt".
- D – Indeterminate Among the examples included: One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes (which she listed as approximating "Cinderella"), The Bear (which she listed as approximating "Catskin") and Tattercoats (which approximated neither)
- E – Hero Tales (Masculine Cinderella.) Among the examples included: The Little Bull-Calf, The Glass Mountain.
She also wrote An Introduction to Folk-Lore.
References
Further reading
- Cox, Marian Roalfe (1907). "Cinderella". Folklore. 18 (2): 191–208. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1907.9719772.
- Schaefer, Pat (2003). "Unknown Cinderella: The Contribution of Marian Roalfe Cox to the Study of Fairy Tale". In Davidson, Hilda Ellis; Chaudhri, Anna (eds.). A Companion to the Fairy Tale. Rochester, New York: D. S. Brewer. pp. 137–148.
External links
- Works by or about Marian Roalfe Cox at the Internet Archive
- Text of 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
- Burne, Charlotte S. "Obituary: Marian Emily Roalfe Cox" Folk-Lore. Volume 27, 1916. pp. 434–435.
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