The Enchanted Snake

A poor woman longed for a child. One day, she saw a little snake in the forest and said that even snakes had children; the little snake offered to be hers. The woman and her husband raised the snake. When it was grown, it wanted to marry, and not to another snake but to the king's daughter. The father went to ask, and the king said that the snake should have her if he could turn all the fruit in the orchard into gold. The snake told his father to gather up all the pits he could find and sow them in the orchard; when they sprang up, all the fruits were gold.

The king then demanded that the walls and paths of his palace be turned to precious stones; the snake had his father gathered up broken crockery and threw it at the walls and paths, which transformed them, making them glitter with the many coloured gems.

The king then demanded that the castle be turned to gold; the snake had his father rub the walls with a herb, which transformed them.

The king told his daughter, Grannonia, he had tried to put off this suitor but failed. Grannonia said that she would obey him. The snake came in a car of gold, drawn by elephants; everyone else ran off in fright, but Grannonia stood her ground. The snake took her into a room, where he shed his skin and became a handsome young man. The king, fearing that his daughter was being eaten, looked through the keyhole, and seeing this, grabbed the skin and burned it. The youth exclaimed that the king was a fool, turned into a dove, and flew off.

Grannonia set out in search of him. She met a fox and traveled with him. In the morning as the princess remarked on the wondrous sounds of the birdsongs, the fox told her the birdsong would be even better if she knew what the birds were saying: that a prince had been cursed to take a snake's form for seven years, that near the end of the time, he had fallen in love with and married a princess, but that his snake skin had been burned, and he had struck his head while he fled, and was now in the care of doctors. The fox then told her that the blood of the birds would cure him, and he caught them for her. Then he told her that his blood was also needed; she persuaded him to go with her and killed him.

She went to her husband's father and promised to cure the prince if he would marry her; the king agreed and she cured him. The prince refused because he had already pledged himself to another woman. The princess, pleased, revealed that she was that woman and they married.

The urging of her father to marry the beast because he had promised her represents a factor clearly present in arranged marriages. This tale has been interpreted as symbolically representing an arranged marriage; the bride's revulsion to marrying a stranger being symbolized by his bestial form.[4]

The tale was also part of Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations, a compilation of fairy tales by famed illustrator Edmund Dulac, with the name The Serpent Prince.[5]

In a Belarussian tale published by folklorist Lev Barag and translated as Der Krebs als Zarensohn ("The Crab as Son-in-Law"), a old couple suffers for they have no son. One day, the old man captures a crab in a bucket and the animal tells him he wants to be his son. Some time later, the crab son asks his father to go to court and ask for the hand of the czar's daughter in marriage. The czar laughs at the silly proposition and orders the poor man three tasks for his crab son: to build a bridge encrusted with gold and silver between the palace and the old couple's hut; to plant a tree along the road that yield golden and silver fruits, and to have a marching band with fine garment and a fine horse. The crab prince tells his father not to worry, and goes to the lake where he was found; he takes off his crab shell and summons the fishes and crabs to provide him with the tasks. The czar admits his prospective son-in-law must be someone magical and marries one of his daughters to the crab. The princess discovers the crab prince becomes a handsome man at night and tells her sisters as rebuttal to their mockery, and her sisters say they will burn the shell. That night, while the crab prince and the princess are asleep, they burn the shell; the crab prince awakens, sensing something is afoot, and learns of the burnt shell. He admonishes his wife and tells her to find him after wearing down three pairs of iron boots, three iron canes and eating three iron loaves of bread. He summons his magical horse Sivko-Burko, his father's mount, and vanishes into the sky. The princess follows through with his directions and walks a long road: she meets on the way her sisters-in-law, who shelter her and each give her an item (a cloth embroidered with gold and silver, a golden and silver haircomb, and a spinning wheel with a spindle). Her third sister-in-law advises her to reach the next town with a bazaar, open up shop and put the items on show, for a noblewoman will come to buy the objects, but she must refuse money and ask to sleep with her husband for three nights. Twice it happens, but the princess fails to awake her husband, because the noblewoman gave him a sleeping potion. He only awakens on her third attempt and recognizes her.[6]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Serpent

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• The Green Knight
• The Snake Prince
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