The Enchanted Snake or The Snake is an Italian fairy tale.

Giambattista Basile Giambattista Basile (February 1566 – February 1632) was an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector. His collections include the oldest recorded forms of many well-known (and more obscure) European fairy tales. He is chiefly remembere ...

wrote a variant in the ''

Pentamerone The ''Pentamerone'', subtitled ''Lo cunto de li cunti'' ("The Tale of Tales"), is a seventeenth-century Neapolitan fairy tale collection by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile. Background The stories in the ''Pentamerone'' were colle ...

''.

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University o ...

drew upon this variant,Heidi Anne Heiner,
Tales Similar to East of the Sun & West of the Moon
for inclusion in ''

The Green Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collecti ...

''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 425A, the search for the lost husband. Others of this type include ''

The Black Bull of Norroway The Black Bull of Norroway is a fairy tale from Scotland. A similar story titled The Red Bull of Norroway first appeared in print in ''Popular Rhymes of Scotland'' by Robert Chambers in 1842. A version titled The Black Bull of Norroway in the 1 ...

'', '' The Brown Bear of Norway'', ''

The Daughter of the Skies The Daughter of the Skies (Scottish Gaelic: ''Nighean Righ nan Speur''; English: 'Daughter of the King of the Skies') is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in ''Popular Tales of the West Highlands'', listing his informant as ...

'', '' The Enchanted Pig'', '' The Tale of the Hoodie'', ''

Master Semolina Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

'', ''

The Sprig of Rosemary The Sprig of Rosemary is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Dr. D. Francisco de S. Maspons y Labros in ''Cuentos Populars Catalans''. Andrew Lang included it in '' The Pink Fairy Book''. It is related to the international cycle of '' The Search fo ...

'', ''

East of the Sun and West of the Moon "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" ( no, Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne) is a Norwegian fairy tale. It was included by Andrew Lang in ''The Blue Fairy Book'' (1890). "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" was collected by Peter Christen ...

'', and ''

White-Bear-King-Valemon White-Bear-King-Valemon (''Kvitebjørn kong Valemon'') is a Norwegian fairy tale. The tale was published as No. 90 in Asbjørnsen and Moe's '' Norske Folke-Eventyr. Ny Samling'' (1871). George Webbe Dasent translated it for his ''Tales from th ...

''.

Synopsis

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 Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve s ...

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.

Analysis

Motifs

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. The episode of the heroine overhearing the animals that talk about how to cure the ailed prince occurs in tale type ATU 432, " The Prince as Bird".

Adaptations

The tale was also part of ''Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations'', a compilation of fairy tales by famed illustrator

Edmund Dulac Edmund Dulac (born Edmond Dulac; 22 October 1882 – 25 May 1953) was a French-British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse he studied law but later turned to the study of art at the École ...

, with the name ''The Serpent Prince''.Dulac, Edmund. ''Edmund Dulac’s Fairy-Book: Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations''. New York: George H. Doran Company. 1916. pp. 31-44.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Enchanted Snake, The Italian fairy tales Fiction about shapeshifting Fictional snakes ATU 400-459

Synopsis

Analysis

Motifs

Adaptations

See also

References