Puss in Boots

Analysis

Tale type

In folkloristics, Puss in Boots is classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther ATU 545B, "Puss in Boots", a subtype of ATU 545, "The Cat as Helper". Folklorists Joseph Jacobs and Stith Thompson point that the Perrault tale is the possible source of the Cat Helper story in later European folkloric traditions. Similarly, Frisian professor Jurjen van der Kooi noted that variants from oral tradition were only starting to be recorded from the 19th century onwards, and tales from Central and Western Europe follow Perrault's and Grimm's redaction very closely. In the same vein, French folklorists Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Ténèze, editors of the French Folktale Catalogue, concur that oral variants where the cat appears as the helper (especially those in which he wears boots) were influenced by Perrault's tale.

Motifs

The animal helper

According to scholars (e.g., van der Kooi, Hans-Jörg Uther, Stith Thompson and Ines Köhler-Zülch), while the cat appears mostly in Europe as the animal helper, variants across cultures replace the cat with a jackal, a fox or another species of animal, like a dog, a rooster, or an ape. German folklorist Köhler-Zulch noted the geographical distribution of the different animal helpers: a fox in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well in the Caucasus and Central Asia; and an ape, a jackal or a gazelle in Southern Asia and in Africa. For instance, professor Damiana Eugenio remarked that the helpful animal is a monkey "in all Philippine variants".

In the Hungarian National Catalogue of Folktales (MNK), in tale type 545B, A csizmás kandúr ("The (Tom)cat with boots"), the protagonist may be helped either by a cat or a rooster received from his father as his inheritance, or rescues a fox from peril (e.g., starvation or hunters), and the animal promises to help him in return.

According to Swedish scholar Waldemar Liungman, a cycle of tales that developed in Northern Europe involves the spirit of a dead man instead of a cat. This cycle is found in Denmark, Finland and Estonia.

The fox helper

French folklorists Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Ténèze, editors of the French Folktale Catalogue, argued that the existence of variants with a helpful fox instead of a cat indicate an "oral tradition [that is] independent from the printed versions". As such, they locate such variants in - besides some tales in France - peninsular Italy, in Sicily, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Finland, Turkey and Mongolia. Similarly, folklorist Erika Taube noted that "the Asian Central version" has the fox instead of the cat, a feature that also appears in Eastern Europe.

According to the description of the tale type in the East Slavic Folktale Catalogue (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS), last updated by scholar Lev Barag in 1979, the hero may be helped either by a cat (Russian: кот), or by a fox (Russian: лиса). Similarly, the Bulgarian Folktale Catalogue names type 545B as Воденичарят и лисицата ("The Miller and the Fox").

In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars listed the variants with the fox as the animal helper under Turkish type TTV 34, Der Müller und der Fuchs ("The Miller and the Fox"), which corresponds in the international classification to tale type ATU 545B.

Hungarian orientalist László L. Lőrincz established the classification of the Mongolian tale corpus. In his system, the story appears as type 32, Der Dank des schlauen roten Fuchs ("The grateful, sly red fox"), in two variations: the fox replaces the cat as the protagonist's helper; the protagonist either hunts the fox himself and releases it (variation "A"), or he hides the fox from a hunter (variation "B"); in return, the red fox helps the protagonist marry a khan's daughter.

Tales of the Caucasian Region also register the fox in the place of the cat. For example, Georgian scholarship registers tale type ATU 545B in Georgia, with the name "The Fox and the Peasant", wherein the cat is replaced by the helpful fox. Similarly, in the index of Adyghe folktale corpus, a fox helps a poor carpenter to marry the daughter of a knyaz (lord), and in the Azerbaijani Folktale Index, in Azeri type 545B, Armudan bəy, the fox helps the miller's son in marrying the padishah's daughter.

Distribution

The tale has also spread to the Americas, and is known in Asia (India, Indonesia and Philippines). Greek scholar Marianthi Kaplanoglou states that the tale type ATU 545B, "Puss in Boots" (or, locally, "The Helpful Fox"), is an "example" of "widely known stories (...) in the repertoires of Greek refugees from Asia Minor".

Adaptations

The saying "enough to make a cat laugh" dates from the mid-1800s and is associated with the tale of Puss in Boots.

The Bibliothèque de Carabas book series was published by David Nutt in London in the late 19th century, in which the front cover of each volume depicts Puss in Boots reading a book.