Donor (fairy tale) by Giambattista Basile. In the Grimm Brothers' variant of "Cinderella", the protagonist is aided not by her fairy godmother but by her dead mother, as is the heroine of the Finnish variant, "The Wonderful Birch". A great variety of other figures may also take this place. In "Vasilissa the Beautiful", the heroine is aided by a wooden doll that her dying mother had given her; in "Rushen Coatie", by a red calf sent to her by her dead mother, a calf that can continue to aid her after its death; in "Katie Woodencloak" by a mysterious dun bull; in "Tattercoats",
The Duration of Life (fairy tale) wanted more years, and so God gave him the years from the others. For this reason, a man is a man only for his first thirty years; he carries burdens like donkey, then must sit in the corner like the dog, and then becomes silly and simple like the monkey. This fairy tale recounts a progression through life with a pessimistic outcome similar to that in William Shakespeare's stage of life speech from "As You Like It". The Duration of Life (fairy tale) "The Duration of Life" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in "Grimm's Fairy