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.
It is Aarne-Thompson type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Catskin, Cap O' Rushes, Donkeyskin, Allerleirauh, The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Mossycoat, Tattercoats, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, The Bear and The Princess in the Suit of Leather.
Synopsis
A man puts away his dead wife's wedding gown, saying he would not remarry to a less pretty woman. His two older daughters mistreat the youngest daughter until she has to patch her gowns with catskin. One day, she puts on her mother's gown. Her father begged her to tell him who she was. She demanded and got a dress the color of all the clouds that go by, and another of all the flowers that bloom; then she told him that she was his daughter Little Cat Skin. He drove her away, and she took the dresses and went to work in a queen's kitchen. The queen had a party, and told Little Cat Skin she could come, and even gave her an old dress, but Little Cat Skin wore the dress of clouds. The queen's son fell in love with her. She went to another party in that dress, and then a third in the dress of flowers. The son gave her a ring and fell sick with love. Little Cat Skin offered to cook something for him, and she put the ring in the dish. He saw her and thought she looked like the girl, and when he found the ring, he knew she was. They married.
Analysis
Tale type
In his 1987 guide to folktales, folklorist D. L. Ashliman classified the tale, according to the international Aarne-Thompson Index, as type AaTh 510B, "A King Tries To Marry His Daughter", thus related to French tale Donkeyskin, by Charles Perrault, and other variants, such as Allerleirauh, Cap O' Rushes, Mossycoat, The Bear, The She-Bear and The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter.
Variants
Researcher Isabel Gordon Carter collected and published a North Carolinian variant from Southern Blue Ridge. In this tale, titled Old Catkins, a widowed man has three daughters. One of the daughters is lazy and hated by the other two. The man puts away his deceased wife's dress and promises to marry one that can fit in that dress. One day, his youngest daughter wears it, her father sees someone wearing the dress from the fields and rushes back home. He asks his daughter who waswearing the dress, but the girl asks her father a dress before she confesses: the father gives her a dress "the color of every cloud ... of the ereal", another the colour of every bird, and a third the colour of every fish in the sea. She then reveals she was the one who wore her mother's dress; her father beats her and expels her from home. She leaves home, takes the dresses to a dressmaker, and finds work as a queen's servant. Due to her diligence, the queen becomes fond of her, and invites her to a big dance at a "club house", and promises to lend her some clothes for her to wear. The girl - named Catskin or Catskins - is given the queen's clothes, but goes to the dance with the dresses she brought with her from home. She dances with the king's son. The king's son falls in love with her, but, after three nights of her presence at the dance, he cannot find her again, and grows sick with love. The girl then promises to bake a cake for him, and places her ring inside it. The girl takes the cake to the prince, he gets better and marries the girl.