The runner joined in with them, and presently they came to a man who was wearing his cap on one side, with the flap over one of his ears.

When the prince and his bride walked into the church, the older sister walked on their right and the younger sister on their left, and the doves flew down and pecked out one eye from each of them.

She has many names. The Grimms call her Aschenputtel, but she is firmly Cinderella in English. In our centrally heated homes today, when few children have ever seen a cinder or know what one is, Cinderella just sounds like a pretty name, but I thought it needed a little context.

‘And what about you, Cinderella?’ he said.

‘The Little Shroud’ is unclassified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index, and the only tale listed there to exemplify this type is this tale itself, under the title of ‘The Child’s Grave’.

but the first half, with the comedy of the three little men, has a quite different tone.

As for the sound of the poor old lame horse’s hooves, in English versions we have a choice of ‘higgledy-hop’ (D. L. Ashliman, A Guide to Folktales in the English Language), ‘clippety clop’ (Ralph Mannheim, The Penguin Complete Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old), ‘hobblety jig’ (Margaret Hunt, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales), ‘hippety-hop’ (Jack

Once there was a poor man who couldn’t support his only son any more.

‘Oh, that’s not right,’ said the chief. ‘That’s a dirty trick.’ Even the robbers, hard-hearted as they were, were moved to pity.