American Ghosts and Old World Wonders 精彩片段：
Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost -2
Came the time for that curious fair they used to hold in that country, when all the resident virgins went to dance in front of the kings son so that he could pick out the girl he wanted to marry.
The turtle dove was mad for that, for her daughter to marry the prince. You might have thought her own experience of marriage might have taught her to be wary, but no, needs must, what else is a girl to do? The turtle dove was mad for her daughter to marry so she flew in and picked up the new silk dress with her beak, dragged it to the open window, threw it down to Ashputtle. She did the same with the string of pearls. Ashputtle had a good wash under the pump in the yard, put on her stolen finery and crept out the back way, secretly, to the dancing grounds, but the stepsisters had to stay home and sulk because they had nothing to wear.
The turtle dove stayed close to Ashputtle, pecking her ears to make her dance vivaciously, so that the prince would see her, so that the prince would love her, so that he would follow her and find the clue of the fallen slipper, for the story is not complete without the ritual humiliation of the other woman and the mutilation of her daughters.
The search for the foot that fits the slipper is essential to the enactment of this ritual humiliation.
The other woman wants that young man desperately. She would do anything to catch him. Not losing a daughter, but gaining a son. She wants a son so badly she is prepared to cripple her daughters. She takes up a carving knife and chops off her elder daughters big toe, so that her foot will fit the little shoe.
Imagine.
Brandishing the carving knife, the woman bears down on her child, who is as distraught as if she had not been a girl but a boy and the old woman was after a more essential portion than a toe. "No!" she screams. "Mother! No! Not the knife! No!" But off it comes, all the same, and she throws it in the fire, among the ashes, where Ashputtle finds it, wonders at it, and feels both awe and fear at the phenomenon of mother love.
Mother love, which winds about these daughters like a shroud.
The prince saw nothing familiar in the face of the tearful young woman, one shoe off, one shoe on, displayed to him in triumph by her mother, but he said: "I promised I would marry whoever the shoe fitted so I will marry you," and they rode off together.
The turtle dove came flying round and did not croon or coo to the bridal pair but sang a horrid song: "Look! Look! Theres blood in the shoe!"
The prince returned the ersatz ex-fiancee at once, angry at the trick, but the stepmother hastily lopped off her other daughters heel and pushed that poor foot into the bloody shoe as soon as it was vacant so, nothing for it, a man of his word, the prince helped up the new girl and once again he rode away.
Back came the nagging turtle dove: "Look!" And, sure enough, the shoe was full of blood again.
"Let Ashputtle try," said the eager turtle dove.
So now Ashputtle must put her foot into the hideous receptacle, this open wound, still slick and warm as it is, for nothing in any of the many texts of this tale suggests the prince washed the shoe out between the fittings. It was an ordeal in itself to put a naked foot into the bloody shoe, but her mother, the turtle dove, urged her to do so in a soft, cooing croon that could not be denied.