The Snake-Prince Sleepy-Head is an Iranian folktale published by Emily Lorimer and David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer in their collection Persian Tales, in 1919. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a human princess marries a supernatural husband or man in animal form, loses him and has to seek him out.
According to scholarship, many variants of the cycle are reported to exist in Iran, and the usual form of the animal husband is that of a snake or serpent.
Sources The Lorimer couple sourced the tale from Kermānī. German scholar sourced it from Kermān.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 84-86 (entry nr. 4).
Translations The tale was also translated into Italian as Il principe serpenteFiabe Persiane e Siriane. A cura di Inge Hoepfner. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., 1997. pp. 61-68. and Mir Mast, il Principe Serpente,Storie di Amore e Psiche. A cura di Annamaria Zesi. Roma: L'Asino d'Oro Edizioni. 2010. p. 68. . and into German as Der Schlangenprinz,Höpfner, Inge. Märchen aus Persien. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2014 . pp. 49-54 (text), 124 (source). . and into Hungarian as A kígyóherceg meséje.Ortutay Gyula; Simon Róbert; Prileszky Csilla. A kék szarvas: PERZSA, ARAB, TÖRÖK, HÉBER MESÉK. Budapest: Móra Ferenc Ifjúsági Könyvkiadó, 1964. pp. 58-65.
Summary In a kingdom, a king's wife and a wazīr's wife are expecting their respective children, and promise to marry their children to each other. The king's wife gives birth to a black serpent named Mir Mast or Khumar (Mīz Mast o Khumār, or "Prince Sleepy-Head"), and the vizir's wife to a girl they name Mèr-Nigā ("Eye of Grace").Lorimer, David Lockhart Robertson; Lorimer, Emily Overend. Persian tales. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 1919. p. 25. They grow up together and, when they reach marriageable age, the king orders the wazīr to marry their children to each other. Out of fear for the monarch, the wazīr consents to Mer-Niga's marriage to the snake.
On the wedding night, the prince takes off the snakeskin and becomes a handsome youth, then wears back the skin in the morning. Time passes, the queen learns of her son's true nature, then talks to her daughter-in-law, asking her to destroy the snakeskin. Mer-Niga does as the queen suggested: the prince tells her she must burn the shed snakeskin in a special pyre, "made with the shell of an egg, the handle of a sweeping-brush, and the hair of a dog's tail", but warns her that if she does that, she will never see him again. Mer-Niga burns the snakeskin in the pyre; Miz Mast o Khumar appears and curses her to never see him again until she wears down seven pairs of iron shoes and seven paper cloaks, then vanishes.
Mer-Niga regrets her actions but cannot bear to be away from her husband. She does as instructed and walks for a long time, until she reaches a stream where a slave-girl is fetching water. The princess asks the slave-girl about her master and she answers: Prince Sleepy-Head, whom she is fetching water to, since the prince is marrying his aunt's daughter. Mer-Niga requests the girl to throw her ring into the jug for Prince Sleepy-Head. The slave-girl gets the ring inside the jug and takes it to her master. When Mir Mast or Khumar is washing his hands, the ring drops from the jug, which he recognizes. He then asks the slave-girl the meaning of the ring, and the slave-girl informs him about the wanderer by the stream. Mir Mast goes outside and meets his wife, but warns her about his aunt, so he will bring her in and pass her off as another slave-girl. He also gives Mer-Niga some strands of his hair to burn if she needs his help.
Mir Mast convinces his aunt to hire Mer Niga as her maid and his aunt soon sends her on difficult tasks: first, she receives a pearl-encrusted sweeping broom that she must use and not drop a single pearl. When Mer-Niga tries to sweep the floor, the pearls fall off, and she burns her husband's hair to summon his help. He performs the task for her, and she goes to inform his aunt, who suspects she had Mir Mast or Khumar's help. Next, Mer-Niga is ordered to sprinkle the floor with a colander, which she cannot do again and summons her husband to help her.
Thirdly, his aunt hides some insects inside a casket and gives it to Mer Niga, claiming it contains pearls, for her to deliver to "Such and Such a place", and gives her instructions: to place bones for a horse and straw for a dog, keep locked doors shut and open doors as such, avoid passing by a hollow of dirt and blood. Still on the way, Mer Niga opens the casket and hordes of insects crawl on her. She throws her husband's hair into the fire, he appears, collects the insects and locks them up in the box again, then advises his wife on how to proceed: she shall give a bone to a dog and straw to a horse; open a closed door and shut an open one; compliment a hollow full of dirt and blood by saying it contains honey and drop the casket there. Mer-Niga follows his instructions to the letter, drops the casket and rushes back, when a voice behind her commands the doors, the hollow and the animals to stop her, but her kind actions swayed them over to her side.
At last, the prince's aunt forces Mer Niga to hold candles on her fingers to illuminate her husband's bridal procession. Mer-Niga complains her fingers are burning, while Miz Mast or Khumar says that it is his heart that is. After the wedding, the Snake Prince advises his human wife to say goodbye to every object in the house before they escape, while he cuts off his cousin's head. Mer Niga and Miz Mast or Khumar escape from his aunt's house and take some objects with them: reeds, needle, salt and some seafoam. When they are on the road, a single object in the house, a one-pound weight, alerts his aunt of the couple's escape, and the creature and her husband, who are Divs, chase after them.
The divs go after the couple, who throw the objects behind them, with Miz Mast o Khumār invoking God's and the Prophet Sulémān's help, to hinder their pursuers: the reed becomes a reed-brake, the needle a grove of needles, the salt a salt-marsh and finally the seafoam a vast sea between them and the divs. On the other margin, the div couple ask their nephew how he crossed the sea, and Miz Mast o Khumar lies to them to simply step on a stone in the middle of the sea. The divs fall for his trick, sink to the bottom and drown. Mer-Niga and Miz Mast o Khumar return home and celebrate a new wedding.
Analysis Tale type In his Catalogue of Persian Folktales, German scholar classified the tale as his type AaTh 425B, Der Tierbräutigam: Die böse Zauberin ("The Animal Bridegroom: The Evil Sorceress").Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 84-85 (entry nr. 2). Marzolph's typing corresponds to type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. Type 425B is considered by scholarship to correspond to the ancient Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, that is, the supernatural husband's mother forces the heroine, her daughter-in-law, to perform difficult and impossible tasks for her.
Motifs According to Swedish scholar 's study on Animal as Bridegroom tales, a characteristic motif that occurs in the "Indo-Persian" area is the heroine using a ring to signal her arrival to her husband, when she finds his location.
The heroine's tasks Another motif that appears in the tale type is that the heroine must travel to another witch's house and fetch from there a box or casket she must not open. German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther remarked that these motives ("the quest for the casket" and the visit to the second witch) are "the essential feature" of the subtype.
The heroes' magic flight The heroine and her supernatural husband escape in a Magic Flight sequence, that is, the characters either throw magic objects to delay their pursuers, or change into other forms to deceive them. Although this episode is more characteristic of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight", some variants of type ATU 425B also show it as a closing episode. German literary critic Walter Puchner argues that the motif attached itself to type 425B, as a Wandermotiv ("Wandering motif").Puchner, Walter. "Magische Flucht (AaTh 313 sqq.)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 9: Magica-Literatur – Neẓāmi. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 . pp. 13-14. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.9.003/html
According to Marzolph's index, Iranian type 425B concludes with the episode the "Magic Flight": by throwing objects behind them, the heroes create magic obstacles, e.g., a pack of needles becomes a field of needles, salt creates a plain of salt, and the water creates a sea or a river.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. p. 85 (section VI).
Variants Iran Folklorist Margaret Mills disagrees with Jan-Öjvind's assessment in regards to the distribution of variants of the tale type in Persian language. She stated that "in [her] experience" the tale was one of the "most performed" in that language.Mills, Margaret A. Cupid and Psyche in Afghanistan: An international Tale in Cultural Context Occasional Paper (Asia Society. Afghanistan Council), No. 14, Spring/1978. p. 23. A similar observation was given by professor : he listed 7 versions of the tale "Змеиный Царь" ("The Serpent Tsar"), some found, for instance, in Dezful and Kashmar.Персидские народные сказки. Сост. М.-Н. О. Османов, предисл. Д. С. Комиссарова. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1987. p. 478. In addition, according to Inge Höpfner, Iran registers many ("vielen") variants of the cycle.Höpfner, Inge. Märchen aus Persien. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2014 . p. 124. .
Mirza Mastu-Khumar and Bibi-Mehrnegar In another tale translated by Osmanov as "Мирза Масту-Хумар и Биби-Мехрнегар" ("Mirza Mastu-Khumar and Bibi-Mehrnegar"), a padishah looks himself in the mirror and, upon noticing his first gray hairs, sighs that he does not have any heirs, and complains about it to his vizier. Later at night, a dervish fortunately knocks on the vizier's door with a pomegranate to the padishah's wife and an apple to the vizir's, as a birthing implement to cure their barrenness, for a son will be born to the padishah's wife, and a daughter to the vizier's. The vizier takes both fruits and, deciding to have a male heir, gives the pomegranate to his wife and the apple to the padishah. In time, the vizir's wife gives birth to a daughter they call Bibi-Mehrnegar, and the shah's to a black snake they name Mirza Mastu-Khumar. They arrange for a marriage between their children when they come of age. Mirza Mastu-Khumar takes off his snake skin at night and shows his human form to his wife. At her father-in-law's insistence, she asks her husband how to destroy the snakeskin: burn it with garlic and onion peels with a dash of salt. Bibi-MehrNegar follows his instructions, but loses her husband in the process: he tells her she must wear down seven pairs of iron shoes, seven iron dresses, seven iron staves and carry seven kanderun boxes with her, then vanishes.