The Wicked Stepmother from Kashmir

I found “The Wicked Stepmother” (from Kashmir) on Ashliman’s folk site to be very interesting. In it, a husband and wife promise each other not to eat anything, lest they turn into animals. One day, the husband came home to find a goat in his house, and knew it must be his wife, so he kept it tied up in the yard. The husband remarried, and the new wife was mean to the children and would not feed them, so the goat told her children to tap her horns with a stick and food would fall down. The stepmother was confused about how the children were getting bigger and stronger, so she sent her one-eyed daughter to watch them for a day and note where they got any food. Then, the stepmother faked an illness and convinced the doctor to have the goat killed and eaten as a remedy. The children were instructed by the goat to gather her bones and bury them and then food would be provided, and it was. One day, one of the daughters was washing her face in a river when her nose ring fell out and a fish ate it. The Prince’s cook found the ring in the fish, and the Prince wanted its owner to find him. He was so enamored with her beauty that he married her and provided for her family.

I thought this version of Cinderella was so interesting because of its staggering differences from the version I was brought up with. First, the Prince does not have parties to meet his wife. He simply wants to return a nose ring to its owner, and happens to find her beautiful. He did not have any goal of finding a Queen. Second, the man’s first wife did not die, but rather was turned into an animal and then acted as the “fairy godmother.” In the versions I am used to, the wife dies and another person acts as fairy godmother. Third, there is not a rivalry between the children of the first wife and the child of the second wife. The only resentment happens between the new wife and the old children. The lack of evil step-sisters really surprised me. Overall, the differences between cultures leading to the extremely different Cinderella stories are what brought my attention to this tale.