Music, dance and storytellingEurope
Rushen Coatie
A Scottish fairy tale of a girl in a coat of rushes, helped by a red calf
Rushen Coatie is a Scottish fairy tale that Joseph Jacobs gathered into More English Fairy Tales. It tells of a girl whose mother dies, whose stepmother and stepsisters dress her in a coat of rushes and keep her hungry, and who is helped by a red calf until a prince picks her out with a glass shoe.
Rushen Coatie is a Scottish fairy tale about a girl who is left with nothing but a coat of rushes and who is helped by a red calf. Joseph Jacobs put it in More English Fairy Tales, and it is told as one version of the Cinderella story, in which a badly treated girl ends up married to a prince after a glass shoe is found.
What it is
Rushen Coatie is a Scottish fairy tale, printed in Joseph Jacobs's collection More English Fairy Tales. Its heroine takes her name from the garment she is made to wear: a coat of rushes, a marsh plant with tough stems. The spelling Rashin-Coatie appears too. Collectors file the tale under Aarne-Thompson type 510A, the persecuted heroine, the same group as Cinderella. The story is short and plain. It moves from a mother's death to a wedding, and it asks only that the listener follow a girl who has lost her place at home.
How the story opens
A queen lies dying and calls her daughter to her. She tells the girl that a red calf will come when she needs it, and that she may ask the calf for help. After the queen dies, the king marries a widow who already has three daughters. Those three stepsisters treat their new sister badly. They dress her in a coat of rushes, which is how she gets her nickname, and they give her too little to eat. The red calf arrives as promised. When the girl says she is hungry, the calf tells her to pull food from its ears, and she is fed.
The red calf
One of the stepsisters is sent to watch the girl and discovers the calf. Then the stepmother pretends to be ill. She says she needs the sweetbread of the red calf, and the king has the animal slaughtered. The dead calf still speaks. It asks the girl to bury its body, and she does, though she cannot find the shankbone and leaves that one bone in the open. Later, at Yuletide, the calf comes back to the kitchen, lame. It brings her clothes to put on and teaches her a charm for cooking the supper.
Three church visits
Her stepmother and her father make fun of her wish to go to church, and she is kept at home to get the dinner ready instead. The red calf comes into the kitchen, gives her something to wear and tells her the charm that cooks the meal. A young prince falls in love with her at the church. She goes twice more. On the third visit he sets a watch to hold her, but she leaps over the watchers and a glass shoe slips from her foot. The prince says he will wed the woman the shoe fits. One stepsister cuts her own foot, and the bleeding betrays her. Everyone else has tried and failed, so he asks Rushen Coatie to try. It fits, and they marry.
Other tellings
Rushen Coatie is listed alongside other stories of its kind. Cap O' Rushes, Katie Woodencloak and The Sharp Grey Sheep are close cousins, and so are The Golden Slipper, One-Eye, Two-Eyes and Three-Eyes, Vasilissa the Beautiful and Bawang Putih Bawang Merah. Each of them turns on a girl who is badly used at home and is finally recognised for what she is. Cinderella stands at the head of the same group. Here the help comes from the red calf, which feeds the girl, brings her clothing and speaks after it is killed.
When and where
Scotland. The tale belongs to Scottish storytelling, and it reached print in an English collection. The sources name no town, city or region as the place it comes from, so Scotland as a whole is where it is rooted.
What Rushen Coatie means
For those who tell and read it, Rushen Coatie is a story about a girl who has lost everything and is still cared for. The dead calf keeps faith with her, and the coat of rushes that marks her low place at home is answered by the glass shoe that marks her as the prince's choice. Collectors place the tale with Cinderella for that reason: a child who is badly used is at last seen.
Questions people ask about Rushen Coatie
What is Rushen Coatie?
It is a Scottish fairy tale, printed by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales. The name comes from the coat of rushes its heroine has to wear. The story follows the Cinderella pattern: a girl who is badly treated at home is helped and finally marries a prince.
Where does the tale come from?
Scotland. Jacobs placed it in his collection More English Fairy Tales, and the story is told in English. No single town, city or region is named as its home in the sources we have.
When is the story set?
The story is not dated. Its turning point falls at Yuletide, the winter feast, when the red calf returns and the girl goes to church. There she meets the prince, and the search for the owner of the glass shoe begins.
Who helps the girl?
A red calf, promised to her by her dying mother. It feeds her when she is hungry, and after the king has it killed it still speaks, asking her to bury its body. At Yuletide it limps back with clothes and a cooking charm.
How does the story end?
A prince searches for the woman whose foot fits a glass shoe. A stepsister cuts her foot to make it fit, and the blood reveals the trick. Rushen Coatie tries the shoe, it fits, and the prince marries her.
See also
Christmas carolFestive songs and hymns sung during the Christmas season and door to door
SteelpanA tuned percussion tradition forged from industrial steel containers in Trinidad
Morris danceA rhythmic English folk dance performed in costume with bells, sticks and handkerchiefs
Fleadh CheoilAn annual gathering of Irish traditional music and dance, featuring competitions, public sessions, and concerts across IGood reading and sources
The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Rushen Coatie", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryParampara rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-12.
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