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 Gnome (fairy tale) The Gnome (fairy tale) "The Gnome" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in "Grimm's Fairy Tales", tale number 91. It is Aarne-Thompson type 301A, The Quest for the Vanished Princesses. A king owns a poison tree, and whoever eats a fruit from it will vanish underground. His three daughters want to see if that really happens. The youngest says that their father loves them too much for that, so they eat the fruit and sink underground. The king becomes so worried about his daughters vanished underground, that he offers their hand to whoever saves them. Three