Supplementary  Materials  

Ross,  R.  M.,  Greenhill,  S.  J.,  &  Atkinson,  Q.  D.  (2013)  Population  structure  

and  cultural  geography  of  a  folktale  in  Europe  

 

Summary  of  the  Tale  of  the  Kind  and  the  Unkind  Girls  

“[T]he  story  is  concerned  with  two  girls,  one  of  whom  is  good  and  kind  while  the  

other  is  evil  and  unkind.  The  good  girl  leaves  her  home  and  sets  out  on  a  journey  

for  some  reason.  Her  bucket  may  fall  into  a  well  and  she  climbs  after  it,  or  she  

may  pursue  a  rolling  cake.  During  her  journey,  in  one  important  form  of  the  

story,  she  usually  meets  a  cow,  an  apple  tree,  and  an  oven  which  ask  her  to  help  

them.  She  complies  with  these  requests  and  continues  her  journey  until  she  

comes  to  a  house.  These  encounters  on  the  way  are  absent  from  the  second  

important  form  of  the  tale.  At  the  house  she  takes  services  with  an  old  woman  or  

witch  and  performs  housekeeping  chores  and  other  tasks.  At  the  end  of  a  year  

the  girl  wishes  to  return  to  her  home.  As  a  recompense  for  her  labor  the  old  

woman  offers  the  girl  her  choice  between  several  boxes.  The  girl  modestly  

chooses  the  smallest  and  least  attractive  box.  When  she  reaches  home  and  opens  

her  box  she  finds  it  is  full  of  gold.  The  bad  girl  is  jealous  and  resolves  to  try  her  

fortune.  She  sets  out  in  the  same  way  that  the  heroine  did.  She  haughtily  refuses  

to  help  the  animals  or  things  she  meets  on  the  way  and  at  the  house  either  

refuses  to  work  altogether  or  does  a  very  poor  job.  She  greedily  chooses  the  

biggest  box,  which  when  opened  at  home,  is  found  to  be  full  of  snakes.  

 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  above  outline  is  only  a  rough  generalization  and  

that  there  are  innumerable  variations  upon  this  simple  theme.”  (pp.  3)  [1]  

Supplementary  Figures  

 

Figure S1 – Location of folktales across Europe. Folktale locations were assigned

based on information provided by Roberts [1]. Points are coloured to show different

ethnolinguistic groups. The size of each point is proportional to the number of

variants sampled from that location.

 

 

References  

 

1.   Roberts  W.E.  1958  The  tale  of  the  kind  and  the  unkind  girls:  Aa-­‐Th  480  and  

related  tales.  Berlin,  De  Gruyter.