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",
Prunella (fairy tale) Prunella (fairy tale) Prunella is an Italian fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it "The Grey Fairy Book". It is Aarne-Thompson type 310, the Maiden in the Tower. A version of the tale also appears in "A Book of Witches", by Ruth Manning-Sanders. Italo Calvino included a variant Prezzemolina in his "Italian Folktales". He took a variant from Florence, but noted that variants were found over all of Italy. The captor who demands his captive to do impossible tasks, and the person, usually the captor's child, who helps with them, is a very common fairy tale theme -- Nix Nought Nothing,