Moe, Moltke, Unpublished Collection. Christiania. (From Bö, in Thelemarken, South Norway.)
" KARI TRESTAKK" (4).
ABSTRACT
Menial heroine (at palace)--Wooden dress worn out of poverty--Heroine carries water to king; he throws it over her; she is sent to rivulet for more; catches fish, sets it free, receiving as reward gold horse and saddle, and Magic dress--Meeting-place (church)---Plight---Lost shoe--Shoe marriage test-- Mutilated foot (not step-sister's)--False bride--Animal ,witness (bird)-- Happy marriage.
TABULATION
(1) Heroine takes service in king's castle. She is so poor that she wears a wooden petticoat (stakk).-- (2) She is told to carry bath-water to king, who, hearing noise on the stairs, looks out and throws the water over heroine's head.-- (3) She is ordered to fetch more water, which cook is to carry up. stairs. Sinking the tub in the rivulet, she catches a fish which asks to be set free, promising as reward a gold dress, a horse, and a golden saddle. Heroine liberates the fish and gets the promised reward.-- (4) Presently she asks to go to church. "What do you want with going to church, having nothing but a wooden dress?" But she gets permission, then hies to the rivulet for her golden dress and all. King sees her and falls in love. She escapes, saying:
"Light before, behind me dark!
Whither I ride shall no one mark."
(5) She loses her shoe; it is taken to king, who has it tried on all the girls. One of them cuts her heel and toe, and squeezes her foot into it. A small bird in a tree warbles:
"Cut off your heel, cut off your toe!
The gold shoe fits a girl I know."
King turns back with the false bride, and the shoe is tried on Kari's foot, and fits her.
