Tale of Donkey Skin

## Story

A king loses his wife; on her death bed, she demands that he promise not to remarry except to a woman more beautiful than she is. The king finds it impossible to find such a woman, until he realizes that his daughter is the only one who surpasses her mother's beauty.

The king therefore plans to marry his daughter. The princess in despair begs for her Fairy Godmother's help, and the godmother advises her to declare that she will not marry unless she is brought three impossible dresses: one which is of the color of sky, one which shines like the moon, and a third like the sun. When the king succeeds in providing each of these three dresses in turn, the fairy godmother advises the princess to ask for the skin of the king's magic donkey, from the ears of which tumble gold pieces.

Despite the animal's usefulness, the king slaughters it and presents the unfortunate princess with the skin. The princess then decides to run away, and on her fairy godmother's advice clothes herself in the donkey's skin so that no one will recognize her.

She travels to a far-away kingdom, and takes a menial job at a farm, calling herself "Donkeyskin." The kingdom's prince happens to pass by Donkeyskin's hut while she is entertaining herself by dressing up in her sun-gold dress. He is very taken with her, and in an effort to ascertain her identity he requests that she bake him a cake, in which he finds the princess's ring. The prince then announces that he will marry only the girl on whose finger the ring fits, and tries it on every woman in the kingdom. When the ring fits Donkeyskin's finger, her identity is revealed and the two are married.

## Variants

-Like Rapunzel, Donkey skin story is a retelling of a story of a saint, without a much downer ending. Saint Dymphna of Geel was an Irish princess that her pagan father wished to marry after his christian wife passed away. The christian Dymphna ran away to the place that would become Belgium, but when her father found her, she refused once again to marry him and he killed her.

-The *Donkey Skin* version was written by Charles Perrault; the brothers Grimm recorded a version named "All-Kind-of-Furs" , with no fairy godmother. The princess had a coat made of furs of multiple animals instead of a Donkey skin.

-Basile wrote a version *(The Bear)* where princess Precioza used the skin of a bear instead.

-in the TV series *The Storyteller*, the princess was named Sapsorrow. The story was mixed with Cinderella, as Sapsorrow had two wicked sisters, and when she put on her dead mother's ring, she had to marry her father. She run away after she made a disguise from feathers and hairs of her friends animals of the forest. She attend three balls in a nearby country, and loose a shoe at the end of one of them, found by a prince. The three dresses shine like sun, moon, and sparkling with stars as a variant.

-The tale was often bowdlerized due to the incest theme. Sometimes, the father is made even more evil like in *Thibaud and Doralice* by Giovanni Straparola. Thibaud do not only want to marry his daughter, he kill his grandchildren and made his daughter accused, even if he's finally executed instead. And/or is actually the stepfather of the heroin. Or he is bound to his wife's promise, or under a bad spell. Or he tries to pressure his daughter in an arranged marriage with a man she does not like, and she runs away.

-There's also version that look nothing like the original story but the name. For instance, a kid book version where the heroin (named Rose) had a wicked stepmother like Cinderella, and nothing else to wear in winter but a donkey skin . To escape her wicked stepsister mockeries, Rose ran away and fortunately met a prince charming.

- The donkey is bowdlerized as well; it could actually poop gold coins.