NOTES I hope to give ‘Catskin’ in ‘The Oldest English
Fairy Tales.’ In German the story is ‘Aschenputtel.’
It was certainly known in Germany at the begin-

“ning of the 16th century, for it is referred to by
Thomas Murner in 1515. In Scotland Cinderella
was called Assiepet or Ashiepattle.

There are traces of the story in very remote
antiquity: Strabo (xxii. 808) tells the story of
Rhodopis, who by losing her slipper became
Queen of Egypt, and the same tale is referred to
by Aelian (Hist. var. xiii. 33).

The tale is this. Rhodopis was one day bathing,
when an eagle picked up one of her sandals and
flew away with it, and dropped it in the lap of the
Egyptian King, as he was administering justice
at Memphis. Surprised at its smallness and
beauty, he had no rest till he found the owner of
the sandal, and then he raised her from the basest
and most despised condition to be his queen.

The old German Heldenlied of Gudran is but a
version of the Ashputel fable. Perrault took his
story from the Pentamerone.

VALENTINE AND ORSON.—This is one of the
latest of the cycle of metrical French Romances,
turning about Charlemagne and his family. It
was written in prose on the reign of Charles VIII.
It first appeared in print at Lyons in 1489. Again
in1495. It was translated into Italian and published
at Venice in 1558. In England it was printed by
Copland as ‘The hystorie of the two valyante
brethern Valentyne and Orson’; no date. Again
in 1637, 1649, 1688, 1694. It was published in Dutch
in Holland, and even found entry into Iceland.
It was dramatised by Lope de Vega in Spain. In
Germany it was printed at Frankfurt-am-Main in
1572, and at Basle in 1604. I have not thought it ad-
visable to alter much the somewhat stilted style
of this tale, which is characteristic of its origin.
238