Moe, Moltke, Unpublished Collection. Christiania. (From Bo, Thelemarken.)
"KAELLDOTTERA"
(The Old Man's Daughter).
ABSTRACT
Ill-treated heroine (by step-mother)--Menial heroine (herds cattle)----Heroine shares her scanty fare with birds; receives in return Magic dresses; hides them in hollow oak--Meeting-place (church)--Threefold flight--Lost shoe--Shoe marriage test-- Mutilated foot witness (bird)---Happy marriage.
TABULATION
(1) Man's daughter is sent by her stepmother to herd cattle, with little or nothing to eat.-- (2) One day some small birds come and ask heroine for some food. She gives them part of the little she has for herself, and receives in return a dress like the sun, one like the moon, and a third like the stars. The birds tell her to hide them in a hollow oak.-- (3) Stepmother and daughter go to church, bidding heroine stay behind in the stable. Heroine dons star-dress and follows them. Next Sunday she wears the moon-dress, and on the third Sunday the sun-dress. "White before, black behind! that none may see me!" she says on leaving church.-- (4) Third Sunday she loses her shoe. King goes about trying it on everyone, and at last comes to stepmother's house.-- (5) Stepsister cuts her heel and her toe. The birds sing, "Cut heel, cut toe! in the stable sits the owner of the shoe!"
