The Serpent Prince, or the Woman with Two Husbands (French: Le prince serpent ou la femme aux deux maris) is a Jewish tale collected from a Judeo-Spanish source in Skoplje. The story is part of the more general cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom,Holbek, Bengt; Lindow, John. "König Lindwurm (AaTh 433, 433 A–C)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 8: Klerus – Maggio. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 160. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.8.037/html and is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 433B, a type that deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands. In the story, however, the tale continues with the adventures of the banished heroine, who meets a dead youth, rescues and marries him, and she eventually is found by her first husband, the snake prince whom she disenchanted before.
Source The tale was collected from a seventy-year-old source named Djoya Kamhi.
Summary In this tale, a king has a queen who is childless. One day, they stroll in the fields and spot a snake under a tree with its young. The queen complains that even a snake has children, but not her. The snake overhears this, questions the queen's envy and curses her to bear a snake for a son. She becomes pregnant and, nine months later, the queen is ready to give birth. A midwife is brought to deliver the prince, but he devours the midwife. The king sends another midwife, who is devoured. Lastly, a stepmother mentions her stepdaughter can serve as the queen's midwife. The girl is brought to the monarchs and questions the reason for her summoning. The king orders her to help in the prince's delivery, and she asks for a period of three days, then goes to cry on her mother's grave. After three days, her mother appears to her and advises her to ask the king for a leather suit and two bottles, one with milk and the other with honey, and two shovels. The girl offers the milk, then the honey for the snake prince, then removes him with the shovels. Next, nursemaids come to suckle the prince, but he bites their breasts to death. The stepmother sends her stepdaughter again to nurse the snake prince, since she helped in his delivery. The girl receives an order to nurse the prince, she asks for some time to think, and goes to her mother's grave to ask for advice: her mother's spirit tells her to don the leather suit and feed him with the honey and the milk jars. It happens thus.
Thirdly, the prince, now grown up, asks his father to marry, but the king questions who would want to marry a snake. The snake prince threatens to devours his head. The king then finds him a bride, whom he devours during the night. He brings another bride, and the second bride dies the same way. Finally, the stepmother goes to talk to the king and, citing a proverb ("Who caused this evil, let them undo it"), offers her stepdaughter as bride to the snake prince, since she was the one who delivered and nursed him. The king sends for the girl, who says she is note ready yet for marriage. Still, the girl tries to buy time by asking for a period of ten days, and goes to her mother's grave for counsel. Her mother's spirit advises the girl to don the leather suit and ask the king for two torches and two fire pokers for the nuptial night.
The girl marries the snake prince, who lunges on her. She takes a firepoker and sticks it in his mouth, then the other firepoker, and strikes him again, turning him into human. She notices the prince is naked, and he states that she got rid of his snakeskin. The girl knocks on the king's door for some clothes for the prince. The king marries his son to the girl in a grand ceremony. Nine months later, the princess is pregnant, and goes into labour. The girl's stepmother pays a visit and feigns surprise that they fell out of touch. The princess asks the queen not to leave her alone with the stepmother, but the queen goes to the bathroom. The stepmother asks to see the girl's face, then sticks a pin in her head, breaks the wall with her hands to throw her stepdaughter out, and replaces her in bed.
As for the girl, she reaches a desert place and finds a dead youth with a cloth on his face. The girl removes the cloth from the body and wears it. At night, the dead youth comes to life and finds the girl next to him. The girl says that she wanted to hold a vigil for him to protect him from being devoured, and tells him they can be together and marry. The dead youth agrees to marry her, but says he falls dead during the day and revives at night. Despite the condition, the girl and the dead youth marry. Nine months later, the girl is pregnant, and the dead youth takes her to his mother's house for her to give birth in safety. He also advises her to refuse the room his mother may offer as lodging, and for her to agree to stay at the stables. The girl dons a Gypsy disguise and knocks on the dead youth's mother's house. A servant informs the woman of the beggar woman, they let her in and place her in the stables.
The girl gives birth to a boy in the stables, and the dead youth pays them a visit at night, singing a song about if the boy's grandmother knew about the baby, if the stars vanished and the roosters fell silent, he would stay with his child. At dawn, the youth disappears. The following night, the youth returns to rock his son, and the maidservant overhears the song, then goes to report to the woman. The dead youth's mother goes to the stables to listen and recognizes the voice of her missing son. She then convenes with her husband, who suggests they seek the local king's counsel. Following the information in the song, the king advises the woman and her husband to cover the entire stable with a thin canvas of white cotton and hammer shining nails to represent stars. The king also orders the roosters to be killed across the kingdom. By doing so, the dead youth is rescued.
The king pays the girl a visit, and she serves the family some jellies, laughing all the time. The king and the revived youth's parents wonder what is the reason for her behaviour, and the girl confesses: the king is her father-in-law, the snake prince's father. The girl retells how her stepmother threw her through the wall, how she found and married the dead youth, how she came to be there, and how the Snake Prince is sleeping with the stpemother. The king tells the revived youth's parents he will take his daughter-in-law back with them, and they can keep their son. The parents agree, and the girl returns in secret to the palace. The king places his daughter-in-law in a room, and goes to oversee his grandson's circumcision after seven days, with the presence of the stepmother. The king asks the stepmother what should be the punishment for a person that causes harm. The stepmother says they must be quartered and their pieces nailed to door. It happens thus.
Analysis Tale type Professor Reginetta Haboucha classified the tale as type 433B, "King Lindworm".Haboucha, Reginetta. Types and Motifs of the Judeo-Spanish Folktales (RLE Folklore). Routledge. 2021 . pp. 70, 72 (Jewish sources, entry nr. 3). . The first part of the tale corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm": a serpent (snake, or dragon) son is born to a king and queen (either from a birthing implement or due to a wish); years later, the serpent prince wishes to marry, but he kills every bride they bring him; a girl is brought to him as a prospective bride, and wears several layers of cloth to parallel the serpent's skins; she disenchants him.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 148. Tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", is part of the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, stories that involve a human maiden marrying a prince in animal form and disenchanting him.Holbek, Bengt; Lindow, John. "König Lindwurm (AaTh 433, 433 A–C)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 8: Klerus – Maggio. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 160. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.8.037/html
Motifs The snake husband Scholar , in his work about Cupid and Psyche and other Animal as Bridegroom tales, described that the King Lindworm tales are "usually characterized" by the motifs of "release by bathing" and "7 shifts and 7 skins".Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 19 (footnote nr. 11). Similarly, according to Birgit Olsen, "in most versions" the heroine is advised by her mother's spirit to wear many shifts for her wedding night with the lindworm prince.
The heroine's dilemma In some tales, in the second part of the story, the heroine is calumniated and expelled from home, then meets youths in the shape of birds whom she disenchants; later, the snake husband finds her at the bird youth's castle or a dead man's house and a test is set to decide which husband she is to be with. Greek folklorist Anna Angelopoulos noted that in "different versions", the heroine disenchants the serpent prince, but the story does not end at this point: the heroine is banished from the palace by her stepmother, but meets a "ghost" person that is prisoner of the fairies and whom she marries; she becomes pregnant by the second husband and is sent to the ghost husband's parents' house to give birth to their son; the first husband later appears to reclaim her.
According to Holbek and Lindow, this narrative was recorded from Southern Europe, Asia Minor, and Scandinavia.Holbek, Bengt; Lindow, John. "König Lindwurm (AaTh 433, 433 A–C)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 8: Klerus – Maggio. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich. De Gruyter, 2016 . pp. 161-162. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.8.037/html In the same vein, Swedish scholar noted that the heroine, in the second part of the tale, is torn between a first and second husbands, and chooses the first - a dilemma that occurs "both in the Nordic as well as in variants from Eastern and Southeastern Europe". As for the nature of the second husband, he is a man cursed to be dead in the latter, while in the former region he is a prince in bird form or a man who has a contract with the Devil.
Variants The Girl and the Snake Man In a Judeo-Spanish tale collected from an informant named Mérou Levi, in Salonica, with the title La niña y el culebro ("The Girl and the Snake Man"), translated into French with the title Le prince serpent, ou la fille aux deux maris ("The Serpent Prince, or the Girl with Two Husbands"), a king and a queen are childless, and she suffers for it. One day, she sees from the balcony a snake with its young and complains that even a snake has offspring. The she-snake notices the queen's words and warns that it may curse her to bear a snake. Nine months later, the queen is pregnant and ready to give birth. Midwives are called, but the prince bites them all to death. A woman learns of the situation and offers her stepdaughter as midwife, since she wants to get rid of her. The girl is brought before the king against her will, says she is only a child, and tries to buy time by asking for two hours respite. She then goes to cry on her mother's grave and falls asleep. Her mother's spirit advises her to request a large chair for the queen to sit on and a cauldron of boiling milk, for the snake to sense the smell and leave its mother's womb. It happens thus, and the queen gives birth to a snake.