pilled her milk; a man tumbled off
his ladder; and the walnut tree fell with a crash, upsetting
everything and burying Titty in the ruins. They all learned to convey
the same message. The common and customary became uncommon and unusual
with extraordinary life, feeling, and lively movement.

Other romantic tales with a large realistic element are _The Three
Bears_, _The Three Pigs_, and _The Three Billy-Goats_, animal tales
which of necessity must be largely realistic, for their foundation is
in the facts of the nature, habits, and traits of the animal
characters they portray.

V. The Romantic Tale

The romantic tale reflects emotion and it contains adventure and the
picturesque; it deals with dreams, distant places, the sea, the sky,
and objects of wonder touched with beauty and strangeness. The purpose
of the romantic is to arouse emotion, pity, or the sense of the
heroic; and it often exaggerates character and incidents beyond the
normal. The test of the romantic tale as well as of the realistic tale
is in the reality it possesses. This reality it will possess, not only
because it is true, but because it is also true to life. And it is to
be remembered that because of the unusual setting in a romantic tale
the truth it presents stands out very clearly with much
impressiveness. _Red Riding Hood_ is a more impressive tale than _The
Three Bears_.

_Cinderella_ is a good type of the old romantic tale. It has a
never-ending attraction for children just as it has had for all
peoples of the world; for this tale has as many as three hundred and
forty-five variants, which have been examined by Miss Cox. In these
variants there are many common incidents, such as the hearth abode,
the helpful animal, the heroine disguise, the ill-treated heroine, the
lost shoe, the love-sick prince, magic dresses, the magic tree, the
threefold flight, the false bride, and many others. But the one
incident which claims the tale as a Cinderella tale proper, is the
recognition of the heroine by means of her shoe. In the Greek
_Rhodope_, the slipper is carried off by an eagle and dropped into the
lap of the King of Egypt, who seeks and marries the owner. In the
Hindu tale the Rajah's daughter loses her slipper in the forest where
it is found by the Prince. The interpretation of _Cinderella_ is that
the Maiden, the Dawn, is dull and gray away from the brightness of the
sun. The Sisters are the Clouds that shadow the Dawn, and the
Stepmother