(A Chinese Folktale)

There are many variations of the Cinderella story, but this is the oldest by 1,000 years in comparison to the western world.

There once was a rich merchant who married a beautiful lady, they had a had called Beauty and sadly the wife died. Despite the death of her mother Beauty had a happy life until her father re-married to her now Step Mother, who brought with her, her daughter called Pukface, from another marriage. Beauty became lonely and isolated until one day her birth mother re-appeared to her as a talking yellow cow, who now lives with them in the yard. Whenever Beauty was given demeaning choirs, she would go & speak to her mum/cow, her mother would comfort her. One night her Step mother & Pukface went to the theatre, Beauty asked if she could go. They said no, but if you cleaned the hemp in my room, you could go next time. The cow said to bring the hemp to her to clean. She ate it & then threw it up cleaned. The step mother was angry when she returned. She said now you need to separate the pile of sesame seeds & Beans. The cow said sort them by using a fan, as the sesame seeds are lighter. The Step mother again returned angry. This time the Step mother agreed Beauty could come with them to the theatre next time. Beauty was excited to finally get out of her dirt rags & hopefully meet someone at the theatre. The next day at dinner they had steak. Beauty asked where the steak came from? The Step mother killed the yellow cow from the yard. Beauty’s mum had died again. Beauty went out into the yard and wept. When she came back in her Step mother & Pukface had gone to the theatre without her. Beauty was angry and smashed a pot on the stove & was blown back by a blinding light. She rose to her feet to see a tall stallion, with a dress and shoes draped across its back. She could now go to the theatre. 

On her way to the theatre her shoe came off & fell into a ditch. A fishmonger approached & she asked him to pick up her shoe. He said he would if she would marry him. She said no & he left. Next an Oil Merchant came by & she asked him to pick up the shoe. He too asked her to marry him, if he did. She refused, so he left. The next person who came by was a Scholar. He asked her to marry him if he picked up her shoe, she said yes and they went back to his house and were married that night. 3 days later Beauty & her husband returned to her old home, to tell everyone she was collecting her things & leaving to live with her new husband. The Step mother & Pukface were really nice to her & asked her to stay a few nights & they would help her pack. Beauty agreed & her husband went back home to wait for her. The next morning Pukface woke Beauty up telling her to come & look at the well. Since they killed her mother/cow something has appeared in the well. Beauty followed her & looked down the well, but before she could say anything Pukface had flipped Beauty’s ankles up & she tumbled down into the well, she lost consciousness when she hit her head as she fell & landed face down in the water & died. 10 days later the Step mother started to receive letters from Beauty’s new husband asking for her. 2 moths later he came to find her. Pukface pretended to be Beauty & dressed up as Beauty, saying she had not been well, hence her slightly different appearance. The husband had his doubts but he & Pukface returned to his home. The now spirit of Beauty turned herself into a sparrow & followed them. When the sparrow/Beauty arrived she saw Pukface combing her hair & said to her ‘Comb once peep, comb twice peep, comb thrice peep, up the spine of Pukface’. Pukface retaliated with the same lines but with Beauty’s name. This went back & forth for weeks. The husband over heard Pukface & the sparrow talking.  

He said to the sparrow chirp 3 times if you are my wife? 3 chirps came from the sparrow. So he built her a beautiful golden bird cage to keep her safe. We Pukface saw the sparrow in the cage, she waited till her husband wasn’t around and killed the bird and threw her out of the window into the garden below. That evening Pukface and her husband were eating bamboo leaves when she felt a pain in her stomach and asked where did you get these bamboo leaves from. He said from the garden just outside the window. Pukface took a machete and chopped down the bamboo tree & thought that would be the end of Beauty. That night she lay on her bed which all of a sudden felt like a thousand needles. She jumped to her feet. The husband said ‘You don’t like the bed?’ She said ‘no’. He said ‘I just made it out of all the bamboo you chopped down. The next day Pukface dragged the bed outside so any passer by could take the mattress away. The neighbour next door who lived alone saw it & took it inside. She worked as a bag maker & after a few days when she came back home from work, she started to to notice meals appearing on her table. Which was very strange as she lived alone. One day she came back earlier than usual & saw the ghost of Beauty in her house. Before the lady could panic, Beauty told her everything. The neighbour asked Beauty, how she could help her. Beauty said she needed a rice bowl, for her head, sticks, for her arms, old dish towels, as entrails & fire hooks as legs. The lady put all these things over Beauty’s spirit body & everything crashed to the ground & there stood Beauty. She now needed the neighbour to try & convince her husband to buy a bag from her. The lady went next door & as she was speaking to Beauty’s husband, he asked about a bag she had, which looked identical to a bag he gave to his wife. The neighbour told him that Beauty was in her house waiting for him. Later that day Pukface went out for the evening & Beauty came round. As soon as they saw each other, they embraced. Pukface came back earlier than expected to find them both together. Pukface said she is not Beauty & I challenge her to three separate competitions.

First competition was to walk on egg shells without breaking them. Beauty went first & walked over them all hassle free. Pukface’s feet were covered in broken egg shells. Second competition was to climb a ladder of knives. Beauty went first & climbed top the top without a single mark or scratch. Pukface climbed in pain, every step cut her hands & Feet, till she reached the top. The Third & final competition, Pukface filled a cauldron with boiling oil. Beauty climbed in & survived without any scalding. Pukface got in & within minutes died. All that was left of her was bones, after the oil had cooled. Beauty & her husband gathered the bones up & took them to her step mother. The step mother opened the box, at first she was confused & then she realised it was Pukface. The shock was so great, the step mother died. Beauty & her husband lived happily ever after.

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