The next set of tales I've read in Cinderella Tales from Around the World hail from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Denmark.

*One Icelandic tale, which Heiner's book features in three variations, is The Story of Mjadveig, the Daughter of Mani, also known as Stepmother Story. The heroine, Mjadveig, is a princess, and after her mother dies, her father King Mani's advisors urge him to remarry. In a foreign land he finds a charming widow and marries her. But unbeknownst to him, both the new queen and her own daughter are evil giantesses magically disguised as humans, and depending on the retelling, they either abuse Mjadveig or tie her up and abandon her in the wilderness. But either way, Mjadveig has a dream at night in which her mother advises her to follow a certain path, and the next day she obeys and finds a little house, where she lives in safety. On the way there, or at some point when she goes out, she loses a shoe. Soon afterward, a prince arrives from another land, and he finds the shoe, is struck by its delicacy, and sets out to find the owner. The giantess queen lies that it's her own daughter's and secretly cuts her daughter's foot to make it fit, but of course a bird reveals the truth to the prince, and then he finds Mjadveig and falls in love with her. He forces the giantess stepsister to appear in her true form, then kills her and tricks her mother into eating her flesh. This causes the queen to reveal her own giantess form, and the prince kills her too.

**One of the three variants ends with Mjadveig's marriage, but in the other two, some time later, she meets her dead stepmother's sister, an equally wicked giantess. The new giantess magically takes Mjadveig's shape to replace her, and sends the real Mjadveig to her brother, a giant who imprisons her under the sea. But a herdsman and a dwarf ultimately rescue her and return her to her husband, and the giant and giantess are killed. (This is obviously similar to Gaelic versions like Fair, Brown, and Trembling.)

*The book also includes another Icelandic story, The Tale of How Three Damsels Went to Fetch Fire, though this is less of a Cinderella story and more of a "Kind and Unkind Girls" story combined with Beauty and the Beast. There are three sisters, and both of their parents spoil the older two but abuse the youngest. One day each sister in turn goes out to fetch fire, and each in turn comes to a cave where a hideous yet polite giant and his dog live. Of course the older two sisters behave badly, but the youngest is kind despite her fear. The giant turns out to be an enchanted prince whose spell the youngest girl breaks, and he marries her.

*There's also one story from the Faroe Islands, The Girl Who Got Meat and Clothes in the Mound. Again, this is really more of a "Kind and Unkind Girls" tale. An abused and starved stepdaughter finds an earthen mound containing a table with rich food, remembers to thank God in prayer before she eats, and later she finds elegant clothes inside the mound, which attract the attention of a prince, who marries her; but when her stepsister goes to the mound, she eats without praying, and gets nothing more.

*Now we move on to Denmark. There are many different Danish Cinderella stories, but most of them include similar motifs.

**Most Danish Cinderellas are abused by a stepmother and one or two stepsisters. But some give her two biological sisters who abuse her after their father's death. Still others have her run away from her stepfamily, or be left all alone in the world after her father dies, and become a servant at the prince's castle in the tradition of Donkeyskin/All-Kinds-of-Fur.

**Her magical helper is most often an animal – typically a dog, but sometimes a red calf, a cat, a dove, or in one version an eel in a pond. A few versions feature a dwarf, though, a few others have her mother rise from her grave to help her, one other has an old woman who gives her three linseeds that contain three beautiful dresses, and yet another has her her helped by a merman she meets when her sisters send her to catch a fish.

***The versions with the red calf are basically the same story as The Blue Bull from France – she and the calf run away together, the calf is killed but still grants her wishes in death, and the rest of the story is a Donkeyskin/All-Kinds-of-Fur variant.

**Sometimes she also receives finery and a coach from a tree, often a lime tree, which either her dog or her mother's spirit tells her will give them to her. Sometimes while the tree gives her the finery, the dog or other animal does her chores for her while she's gone.

**Some versions start out like Puss in Boots. The three sisters' father dies, and leaves all his property and money to the older two, but just a dog to the youngest. Then the two older sisters treat the youngest like a scullery maid, but the dog becomes her magical helper.

**The event she attends is nearly always church. Only two variants have a ball instead, and those two show obvious signs of being based on the Grimms' and Perrault's versions, not authentic folk versions.

**In many versions, when she goes to church, she chants "Light before! Darkness behind!" or some variation on it (sometimes with "Mist behind" instead). This ensures that no one who tries to follow her can see where she goes, either on the way or coming back.

**Almost all versions include the theme of the (step)sisters (or other ladies, in the Donkeyskin variants) cutting their feet to make the shoe fit, only for a bird to reveal the trick.

**In one version, after the prince has the church steps smeared with pitch and the heroine's shoe sticks, he also steals a ring from her finger just before she escapes. Thus all the ladies have to try on both the shoe and the ring: some can wear just the shoe, others just the ring, but none except the heroine fit both.

**Only three variants continue the story after the heroine's marriage, but none have her stepmother or sisters try to murder her. Instead it's her children who are endangered. In two, the magical helper – a dog in one, a strange man in the other – wants to take away her children as payment for his help, and the last part of the story becomes a version of Rumpelstiltskin. (Silly note: When I read these versions, I couldn't help but think of "Cinderumpelstiltskin" from The Stinky Cheese Man.) In the third, the stepmother throws each of the heroine's newborn babies into the pond. But the magical eel in the pond who helped her earlier brings them back – but only after he's been appeased with a gift of many bushels of salt, which she promised to give him earlier but then forgot.

Next country on the list: Sweden.

The Faroes 🤩

📸 by Mads Peter Iversen Photography

Ingálvur av Reyni (Dec. 18, 1920 - 2005) was a Faroese expressionist painter, inspired by Cézanne  and Matisse and later colorists…

Above: Vildbrænding, hærgende storm, 2003 - oil on canvas (SMK)

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