Note 16 — PERRAULT'S
Reading edition
The Fables d'animaux are probably even older than contes Diamonds and Toads. A Mouse and a Frog, as well as the Old Woman who survives as La Fée, take part in the tale as the Kaffirs tell it in The Story of Five Heads, in Theal's Kaffir Folk Lore, pp. 48, 49. The Kaffir story slides into a form of Beauty and the Beast. By some unexplained accident a story of Mlle. L'Heritier's L'Adroite Princesse slipped into editions of Perrault's Contes, in 1721, if not earlier, and holds its place even now.