《叶限》 / Ye Xian

《叶限》 / Ye Xian is the famous tale in [[YouyangZazu|《酉阳杂俎》]] discussed in 90.酉阳杂俎：血滴子和武则天手指上的黑毛. The episode presents it as a Cinderella-like story: Ye Xian is abused by her stepmother, aided by the bones of a beloved fish, receives splendid clothing and a golden shoe, loses the shoe while escaping, and is later found by a ruler through the shoe’s trail.

The source treats the tale as a Story Motif Transmission case rather than as a single-origin proof. Possible links to Southeast Asia, the Rodopis shoe story, and later Grimm-family Cinderella variants show how animal helpers, lost shoes, persecuted daughters, festival display, and royal search plots can travel or recur across cultures while changing local details.

Connections

• [[YouyangZazu|《酉阳杂俎》]] - source collection.
• [[DuanChengshi|段成式]] - authorial collector through whom the tale is preserved.
• Story Motif Transmission - main conceptual frame.
• Mythic Source Layering and Interpretation And Overinterpretation - guardrails for cross-cultural comparison without overclaiming direct descent.
• Classic Reading Complexity - broader frame for rereading familiar or seemingly simple tales.