comeuppance they have to endure. Then, finally free from abuse and enslavement, Aschenputtel leaves her family forever to be a princess with her prince, while the stepsisters live their lives in blinding, as her father and stepmother are in disgrace. Plot variations and alternative tellings Folklorists have long studied variants on this tale across cultures. In 1893, Marian Roalfe Cox, commissioned by the Folklore Society of Britain, produced Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and, Cap o'Rushes, Abstracted and Tabulated with a Discussion of Medieval Analogues and Notes. Further morphology studies have continued on this seminal work. Joseph Jacobs has attempted to reconstruct the original tale as The Cinder Maid by comparing the common features among hundreds of variants collected across Europe. The Aarne–Thompson–Uther system classifies Cinderella as type 510A, "Persecuted Heroine". Others of this type include The Sharp Grey Sheep; The Golden Slipper; The Story of Tam and Cam; Rushen Coatie; The Wonderful Birch; Fair, Brown and Trembling; and Katie Woodencloak. The magical help International versions lack the fairy godmother present in the famous Perrault's tale. Instead, the donor is her mother, incarnated into an animal (if she is dead) or transformed into a cow (if alive). In other versions, the helper is an animal, such as a cow, a bull, a pike, or a saint or angel. The bovine helper appears in some Greek versions, in "the Balkan-Slavonic tradition of the tale", and in some Central Asian variants. The mother-as-cow is killed by the heroine's sisters, her bones gathered and from her grave the heroine gets the wonderful dresses. Africanist Sigrid Schmidt stated that "a typical scene" in Kapmalaien (Cape Malays) tales is the mother becoming a fish, being eaten in fish form, the daughter burying her bones and a tree sprouting from her grave. Professor Gražina Skabeikytė-Kazlauskienė recognizes that the fish, the cow, even a female dog (in other variants), these animals represent "the [heroine's] mother's legacy". Jack Zipes, commenting on a Sicilian variant, concluded much the same: Cinderella is helped by her mother "in the guise of doves, fairies, and godmothers". In his notes to his own reconstruction, Joseph Jacobs acknowledged that the heroine's animal helper (e.g., cow or sheep) was "clearly identified with her mother", as well as the tree on Cinderella's mother's grave was connected to her. Villains Although many variants of Cinderella feature the wicked stepmother, the defining trait of