My favourite fairytale is The Cat Who Was King. I believe that was what it was called. I do not know where my mother's copy has got to and neither does said mother. It was yellow and the pictures looked nothing like these.
Searching for it on the internet I found this tale by the famed fairytale writer Andrew Lang. He wrote all the coloured fairy books - The Blue Fairy Book etc. Also, I may have heard of him because he gave his name to a lecture series at St Andrews. This would be the kind of thing I would go to. These lecture series with prestigious names always have canapes. Lang's tale is called The Colony of Cats and has some dissimilarities from the storybook I read as a child. The tale I remember did not have the girls working as servants for the cat king - who was definitely a king - they were just there on errands.
I have made my heroine Jewish, because of the star on her forehead reminding me of the Star of David. I suppose she could have just as well have been pagan. Next time.
The nasty stepsister kicks a kitten!
Despite the donkey's tail, the prince engaged to the heroine is tricked into getting into the wedding carriage with nasty girl wearing a huge, thick veil. He gets suspicious when she won't let him see under her veil, sounds entirely different - claiming she has a cold - and is just a grumpy-pants. So he tears off the veil, sees it's not his fiancee and pushes her out of the carriage. This latter part, seems somewhat unnecessary, seeing as how he could've just called the driver to stop. However, we must make allowances for the poor boy, since he's probably just had a nasty fright.
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