Page 49 - La Gatta racconta la sua storia - Puss Tells the History of Her Fairy Tale

married. In the Perrault’s version, finally, we get to
the happy ending not just thanks to luck, but thanks
to my imagination and smarts. If I had not been
able to defeat that stupid ogre, my ruses would
have been useless. If the King had known that the
Marquis of Carabas actually had neither a mansion
nor even a hovel, he would have executed both the
lad and me together with him.
Now you might ask: why did Perrault make me
perform that feat with that ogre, which fits me just
as well as my boots, with the result that I still wear
those boots and still challenge the ogre in every tale
which tells about me? To answer this question I will
tell you a tale belonging to The Thousand and One
Nights, that Europeans were able read for the first
time thanks to Antoine Galland, a contemporary of
Charles Perrault. _

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