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 Lost Children (French fairy tale) The Lost Children (French fairy tale) The Lost Children is a French fairy tale collected by Antoinette Bon in "Revue des traditions populaires". It is Aarne-Thompson type 327A. Another tale of this type is "Hansel and Gretel"; "The Lost Children" combines with that type several motifs typical of "Hop o' My Thumb", which is typical of French variants. A couple, Jacques and Toinon, were very stingy. Their children – Jean, who was twelve, and his sister Jeanette, who was eight – suffered because of this, and finally they decided to lose them in the forest. Toinon took them and left