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Cinderella #307 King Mani and His Beautiful Daughter, Mjadveig (Number Two)
Once upon a time, there was a king whose queen had died. The princess Mjadveig was therefore left without a mother. So the king "marries a woman with two hideous daughters." Soon, this stepmother becomes jealous of Mjadveig's beauty, and begins to hide her whenever suitors come to call. That is when she sends her own ugly girls out. One day however, Mjadveig loses one of her little tiny shoes. "A king's son finds [it] and vows he will only wed [the] woman who can wear it." At length, the king's son reaches the castle of King Mani, and tries the shoe on the oldest stepdaughter. But the girl's mother helps her "cut off her heel, so as to wear the shoe." And so the shoe does fit, and the prince must honor his oath to marry the girl who can wear the slipper. So he takes her aboard his ship and sets out for home. But when they begin to leave the port, the gulls circle, singing, "Hewn-heel sits at the prow, her shoe is full of blood. Mjadveig, Mani's daughter, sits at home, a doubly-deserving bride."
From: Cox, M. R. (1893/2011) p. 316
Notes: This story comes with a footnote, saying that the "narrator could not remember more of the story, except that the prince, in the end, obtained Mjadveig." See Cinderella #135 for Judy Sierra's full length version of this story.
