ATU 480: The Kind and the Unkind Girls

**ATU 480: The Kind and the Unkind Girls**, formerly known as **AT 480: The Spinning-Women by the Well**, is a wonder tale type in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.

## General Description

A step-daughter, or less favored of two daughters, leaves home seeking employement, or is thrown at a well for losing a spinning contest, or is sent to fetch water with some object that it's impossible to fetch water with and that falls into the water, or it's sent at midwinter to the woods to look for some fruit like strawberries or flower that doesn't grow at that time of the year. The girl encounters several animals, persons and objects that need help because they're neglected, and the girl helps them. She finally reaches a house where she's hired as a servant. Because she's dilligent and kind she's given the option to choose as her payment luxurious rewards or more humble ones, and the girl always chooses the most humble ones. Because of that she receives the most luxurious. Or she's forbidden to enter some chamber, that she does when the witch is absent. The room is full of treasures, and the girl takes some of them and runs away. The witch follows her, but in the path the same animals and objects that the girl helped pay her back helping her escape from the witch. Seeing that her step-daughter has returned successful the step-mother sends her own daughter expecting her to return with the same results, but because she doesn't help anyone when she's asked, is lazy and always chooses the most luxurious rewards when she's asked, she receives the worst gifts possible, or is overtaken by the witch when she tries to escape her house.

## Characteristics

This tale type belongs to the category *Supernatural Tasks*, that means that the heroine has to accomplish several tasks of supernatural nature. It tends to have predomenently female protagonists and antagonists in almost of all its variants. Because of how extended it is, some variants tend to have more in common than others depending of its geographical region. Some tale types that tend to appear combined with this one are the type number 403 *The Black Bride and the White Bride* and 510A *Cinderella*.

### Western Europe

The most common plot in the variants that came from here is: the step-daughter has to fetch water with some object like a sieve or a basket that doesn't retain water as well as a pitcher or a bucket, or she must wash the entrails of some animal. The river carries awway the object or the entrails, and the girl follows it untill she reaches a house that it's all dirty and messy. The girl cleans the house, and when its inhabitants arrive she hides. The inhabitants are so glad with the person that cleaned their house that the girl cames out, or a dog reveals where she is. The inhabitants gave several gifts to the girl, included a star on her forehead, that appears when she looks up into the sky when she hears the cock sing. Sometimes is advised to say everything in reverse if her step-family asks her how did she got all those gifts. Wanting to got marvelous gifts too the step-sister tries it to, but because she's lazy, rude, or because the heroine told her everything in reverse she dirties and messes the clean house, she's curses, including having donkey's ears, testicles or tails growing out of her head instead of a golden star, normally because she's told to rise her head when she hears the donkey bray on the way back home. Predomenently in Spain and Portugal this story tend to appear as an episode of the *Cinderella* variants.

### Latin America

Because of the Spanish and Portuguese influence during colonisation in most of Central and South America, most variants collected there tend to follow a plot really similar to the variants from western Europe. It's also pretty common to appear the story as an episode in *Cinderella* variants.

## Sub-types

Because of the big number of folktales that can be classified in this type, there can be a big amount of different from one variant to another, so there have been created several sub-types to group the variants that have more in common between them.

* 480A *Girl and Devil in a Strange House* To get rid of her step-sister a step-mother sends her step-daughter to some place at midnight, like a bath-house or a mill, when they say that at that time demons or goblins appear and they kill every human who dares to be there. When the demons appear they invite the girl to dance with them, but the girl is clever and rejects their invitation saying she doesn't have clothes to dance with them. The demons bring her the clothing, but she keeps asking for more clothes until it's dawn and the demons have to go. Or instead she spends the night spinning, and when the demons appear and invite her to dance with her she starts to tell them all the process flax goes, from its plantation to when clothes are made. And because they learned something new the demons gave her the clothing as a way to thank her. Seeing that her step-daughter has not only returned alive, but bringing beautiful gowns with her the next night the step-mother sends her own daughter, who's less cunning and falls into the demon's trap. This sub-type is really common in eastern Europe.
* 480A\* *Three Sisters Set Out to Save Their Little Brother*: Brother is kidnapped and his elder sisters go to rescue him. In the path they met an oven, a tree... that asked them favors. Because the two eldest refuse to do it, when they try to escape from the witch the ones that asked them for help before refuse one to help them, so they're overtaken by the witch who kidnapped their little brother, who takes him back. Because the youngest daughter helped the objects when they asked, when she tries to escape from the witch with his brother she's helped, and they reach home safe. This sub-type is also really common in eastern Europe.
* 480B *The Roads of Heaven and Hell* (created by Spanish folklorist Julio Camarena and French folklorist Maxime Chevalier) A girl sends both of their daughters to bring food to their father who's working, and tells them that if some beggar asked them to give them some of it, they must reply that if they wanna eat they should earn it working like everbody else does. Both sisters met with a releigious figure (Virgin Mary, Jesuschrist, Saint Peter) disguised as a beggar, and one of them does as her mother told her, while the other disobeys her and gives some of the food the the beggar. Because of that the sister that didn't share the food follows a path that goes to Hell, while the other follows a path that goes to Heaven. This sub-type is pretty common in Spain.
* 480C *The Cat's House* (created by Camarena and Chevalier)
* 480C\* *Transporting White Bread to Hell*
* 480D\* *Girl Sent to Watch for Fire* (formerly known as AT 480B\*)

## Examples

**Germany:** Grimm nº 13 *The Three Little Men in the Woods* nº 24 *Old Mother Holle* Bechstein *DMB* p. 62 nº 13 = p. 59 nº 11 *Gold-Maria and Pitch-Maria* Pröhle *MfdJ* nº 5 *The Golden Daughter and the Horned Daughter* **Austria:** Vernaleken nº 27 *The Two Sisters* **Denmark:** Winther p. 36 nº 8 *The Bad Stepmother* Kristensen vol. I p. 125 nº 17 *The Girls in the Well* **Sweden:** Hyltén-Cavallius & Stephens nº 22 *The Two Caskets* **England:** Halliwell *PRNT* p. 39 = Jacobs *EFT* p. 222 nº 43 *The Three Heads of the Well* **France:** Dardy p. 23 nº 7 *The Little Girl's Sieve* **Italy:** Basile III nº 10 *The Three Fairies* Imbriani nº 15 = Nerucci nº 5 La Bella Caterina Comparetti p. 129 nº 31 *The Basket* Pitrè vol. II p. 90 nº 63 *Mamadràga the Ogress* **Spain:** Maspons i Labrós vol. I p. 97 nº 22 *The Step-Daughter* **Slovakia:** Rimavský p. 115 nº 10 = Němcová vol. I p. 204 nº 25 = Dobšinský vol. VI p. 3 nº 61 *Bless You, Bench* Němcová vol. I p. 239 nº 28 = Dobšinský vol. II p. 40 nº 14 *The Twelve Months*