Cap O’ Rushes Interpretation

There is an interesting link with this story and the story of King Lear, which has a fairy tale structure of its own. There are similarities to Cinderella and also All Kinds of Fur.

The father of the youngest daughter of three does not recognise his daughter’s wisdom, or her truthful quality of offering true love. He can only respond to the flattery offered by the older sisters and outraged that his youngest daughter should value him only as salt, throws her out of the house. She does have the clothing she is dressed in – her ‘fine clothes’. These clothes symbolise her true estate, the glory of her native wisdom. But she cannot make her way in the world dressed in such finery and so she dresses herself in reeds, which grow where water meets earth – which symbolises beginnings. (Like Moses in the bull rushes.)

In her simple garb she goes to a fine house, where (like Cinderella) she has to work in the kitchens and tend the hearth. The fine house may both symbolise the person-in-full (body, emotions, soul, intellect and spirit) and can also symbolise the manifested world.

Having tended the hearth, which implies transformation, she is able to go to the ball in disguise. Here her finery can be shown once more for the prince or young master of the house, can recognise the quality of her apparel even if he is unable to know (just yet) who she is. Here the prince is the higher aspect of the mind or intellect, ‘that which knows’. He is able to recognise the value of the golden tokens Cap O’ rushes places in the soup she has prepared for him. This soup is real sustenance, the nutriment of truth.

Seeking for who the beautiful girl is he cannot (yet) find her. She has not (yet) fully come into her own, and can only appear as herself at the party, but cannot sustain her new estate. After three repetitions the prince can see her as she truly is and then she is able, finally to face her father (her origins) and his recognition of the value of salt shows the transformation is now complete.