The Serpent-wife

: Cossack Fairy Tales And Folk Tales

There was once a gentleman who had a labourer who never went about in

company. His fellow-servants did all they could to make him come with

them, and now and then enticed him into the tavern, but they could

never get him to stay there long, and he always wandered away by

himself through the woods. One day he went strolling about in the

forest as usual, far from any village and the haunts of men, when he

came upon a hug Serpent, which wriggled straight up to him and said,

"I am going to eat thee on the spot!" But the labourer, who was used

to the loneliness of the forest, replied, "Very well, eat me if thou

hast a mind to!"--Then the Serpent said, "Nay! I will not eat thee;

only do what I tell thee!" And the Serpent began to tell the man what

he had to do. "Turn back home," it said, "and thou wilt find thy

master angry because thou hast tarried so long, and there was none to

work for him, so that his corn has to remain standing in the field.

Then he will send thee to bring in his sheaves, and I'll help thee.

Load the wagon well, but don't take quite all the sheaves from the

field. Leave one little sheaf behind; more than that thou needst not

leave, but that thou must leave. Then beg thy master to let thee have

this little sheaf by way of wages. Take no money from him, but that

one little sheaf only. Then, when thy master has given thee this

sheaf, burn it, and a fair lady will leap out of it; take her to

wife!"



The labourer obeyed, and went and worked for his master as the

Serpent had told him. He went out into the field to bring home his

master's corn, and marvellously he managed it. He did all the carrying

himself, and loaded the wagon so heavily that it creaked beneath its

burden. Then when he had brought home all his master's corn, he begged

that he might have the remaining little sheaf for himself. He refused

to be rewarded for his smart labour, he would take no money; he wanted

nothing for himself, he said, but the little sheaf he had left in the

field. So his master let him have the sheaf. Then he went out by

himself into the field, burnt the sheaf, just as the Serpent had told

him, and immediately a lovely lady leapt out of it. The labourer

forthwith took and married her; and now he began to look out for a

place to build him a hut upon. His master gave him a place where he

might build his hut, and his wife helped him so much with the building

of it that it seemed to him as if he himself never laid a hand to it.

His hut grew up as quick as thought, and it contained everything that

they wanted. The man could not understand it; he could only walk about

and wonder at it. Wherever he looked there was everything quite spick

and span and ready for use: none in the whole village had a better

house than he.



And so he might have lived in all peace and prosperity to the end of

his days had not his desires outstripped his deserts. He had three

fields of standing corn, and when he came home one day his labourers

said to him, "Thy corn is not gathered in yet, though it is standing

all ripe on its stalks." Now the season was getting on, and for all

the care and labour of his wife, the corn was still standing in the

field. "Why, what's the meaning of this?" thought he. Then in his

anger he cried, "I see how it is. Once a serpent, always a serpent!"

He was quite beside himself all the way home, and was very wrath with

his wife because of the corn.



When he got home he went straight to his chamber to lie down on his

pillow. There was no sign of his wife, but a huge serpent was just

coiling itself round and round and settling down in the middle of the

pillow. Then he called to mind how, once, his wife had said to him,

"Beware, for Heaven's sake, of ever calling me a serpent. I will not

suffer thee to call me by that name, and if thou dost thou shalt lose

thy wife." He called this to mind now, but it was already too late;

what he had said could not be unsaid. Then he reflected what a good

wife he had had, and how she herself had sought him out, and how she

had waited upon him continually and done him boundless good, and yet

he had not been able to refrain his tongue, so that now, maybe, he

would be without a wife for the rest of his days. His heart grew heavy

within him as he thought of all this, and he wept bitterly at the harm

he had done to himself. Then the Serpent said to him, "Weep no more.

What is to be, must be. Is it thy standing corn thou art grieved

about? Go up to thy barn, and there thou wilt find all thy corn lying,

to the very last little grain. Have I not brought it all home and

threshed it for thee, and set everything in order? And now I must

depart to the place where thou didst first find me." Then she crept

off, and the man followed her, weeping and mourning all the time as

for one already dead. When they reached the forest she stopped and

coiled herself round and round beneath a hazel-nut bush. Then she said

to the man, "Now kiss me once, but see to it that I do not bite

thee!"--Then he kissed her once, and she wound herself round a branch

of a tree and asked him, "What dost thou feel within thee?"--He

answered, "At the moment when I kissed thee it seemed to me as if I

knew everything that was going on in the world!"--Then she said to him

again, "Kiss me a second time!"--"And what dost thou feel now?" she

asked when he had kissed her again.--"Now," said he, "I understand all

languages which are spoken among men."--Then she said to him, "And now

kiss me a third time, but this will be for the last time." Then he

kissed the Serpent for the last time, and she said to him, "What dost

thou feel now?"--"Now," said he, "I know all that is going on under

the earth."--"Go now," said she, "to the Tsar, and he will give thee

his daughter for the knowledge thou hast. But pray to God for poor me,

for now I must be and remain a serpent for ever." And with that the

Serpent uncoiled herself and disappeared among the bushes, but the man

went away and wedded the Tsar's daughter.