The Enchanted Snake

Did You Know?

• The tale has been translated as The Enchanted Snake by Andrew Lang for The Green Fairy Book, and as The Serpent Prince by Edmund Dulac.
• A version republished as part of the Brothers Grimm collection is titled Der verzauberte Königssohn, with the heroine called Grauhilda.
• The story has also been translated as Grannonia and the Fox and by Nancy Canepa as The Serpent.

Synopsis

A woman named Sapatella, who was very poor, wanted a child. While walking in the forest, she saw a small snake and commented that even snakes had children. The snake offered to become her child, and she and her husband, Cola Mattheo, raised it. When the snake grew up, it wanted to marry, not another snake, but the king's daughter.

The father went to ask the king, who said the snake could have her if he turned all the fruit in the orchard into gold. The snake told his father to collect every pit he could find and plant them in the orchard. When the pits sprouted, all the fruits became gold. The king then demanded that the palace walls and paths be turned into precious stones.

The snake had his father gather broken crockery and throw it at the walls and paths, which transformed them, making them glitter with many colored gems. Next, the king demanded the castle be turned to gold. The snake had his father rub the walls with a herb, and they transformed. The king told his daughter, Grannonia, that he had tried to discourage this suitor but failed.

Grannonia said she would obey him. The snake arrived in a golden car pulled by elephants. Everyone else ran away in fear, but Grannonia stood her ground. The snake took her into a room, shed his skin, and became a handsome young man.

The king, worried his daughter was being eaten, looked through the keyhole. Seeing this, he grabbed the skin and burned it. The youth shouted that the king was a fool, turned into a dove, and flew away. Grannonia set out to find him.

She met a fox and traveled with him. In the morning, as she remarked on the beautiful birdsongs, the fox told her the songs 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 that time he fell in love with and married a princess, but his snake skin was burned, he struck his head while fleeing, and was now in the care of doctors. The fox said the birds' blood would cure him, caught them for her, then told her his own 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, saying he was already pledged to another woman. The princess, pleased, revealed that she was that woman, and they married.

Analysis

Folklorists have sorted this story into several categories in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, including types ATU 425A, ATU 432, and ATU 433. Stith Thompson’s 1961 revision placed it under AaTh 433, “The Prince as Serpent.” French researchers Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Thèneze see it as a blend of AT 433A and ATU 432, while Renato Aprile, who edited the Italian Catalogue of Tales of Magic, groups it under type 432. The father’s insistence that his daughter marry the beast because he made a promise echoes the dynamics of arranged marriages, and scholars often read the tale as a symbolic take on that practice—the bride’s horror at wedding a stranger is shown through the husband’s animal form.

The part where the heroine eavesdrops on animals discussing how to heal the sick prince belongs to tale type ATU 432. According to Letterio di Francia, many Italian versions turn the prince into either a serpent or an enchanted pig. Georgios A. Megas’s count of Italian variants found the enchanted husband as a serpent in 11 stories and as a pig in 10.