The Snake Prince

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The Snake Prince is an Indian fairy tale, a Punjabi story collected by Major Campbell in Feroshepore. Andrew Lang included it in The Olive Fairy Book (1907). [1] [2] The tale is a local form of the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a woman marries a man of supernatural origin, loses him and must regain him.

Contents

Synopsis

The Snake Prince meets his wife. Illustration by Henry Justice Ford for The Olive Fairy Book. The olive fairy book - inset illustration at page 251.png
The Snake Prince meets his wife. Illustration by Henry Justice Ford for The Olive Fairy Book.

A poor old woman, with nothing to eat, heads for the river to fish and to bathe. When she comes out of the river, she finds a venomous snake in her pot. She takes it home, so that it bites her and end her misery. But once she opens the pot, she finds a rich necklace, which she sells to the king, who puts it in a chest. Soon after, when he opens it to show the queen, he instead finds a baby boy, whom the king and his wife raise as their son, and the old woman becomes his nurse. She speaks of how that boy came about.

The king agrees with a neighboring king that their children should marry. But when the other king's daughter goes to marry, her mother warns her to ask about the magic birth. The princess refuses to speak until the son tells her that he was a prince from far off, who had been turned into a snake, and then he became a snake again. The princess mourns for the prince where he had vanished, and the snake comes to her, telling if she puts bowls of milk and sugar in the four corners of the room, many snakes will come, led by their Queen. If she stands in the Queen's way, she can ask for her husband; but if she's frightened and does not do her bidding, she cannot have him back.

The princess does as he said, and wins back her husband. [3]

Analysis

Tale type

American folklorist D. L. Ashliman classified the tale in the Aarne-Thompson Index as type 425A, "The Monster (Animal) as Bridegroom". [4] [5] These tales refer to a human maiden married to an animal husband that, in actuality, is a human prince under a magical disguise. He disappears and she has to gain him back. [2] [6]

Scholarship also points that a story of a maiden marrying a snake being is attested in the Panchatantra , an Indian collection of folkloric accounts and related tales. [7]

Motifs

According to Stith Thompson and Jonas Balys  [ lt ] study of motifs of Indian literature and oral folklore, the tale contains the motif D432 "Transformation: mineral form to person" (in this case, a jewel necklace). [8]

The husband's vanishing

In his work about Cupid and Psyche and other Animal as Bridegroom tales, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn  [ sv ] identified that, in certain tales, the heroine causes her supernatural husband's disappearance by inquiring his name. Swahn named this motif The Name Taboo and surmised that it occurred "primarily in India". [9] In Thompson and Roberts's Types of Indic Oral Tales, this motif appears in Indic type 425D Ind, "Search for Serpent Husband": the heroine insists to know her husband's caste or name, and he, in return, gives her an answer, but vanishes in the water like a snake. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Tale of Aftab is an Azerbaijani fairy tale, about a maiden that marries a man under a snakeskin disguise, breaks the secret about his identity and has to search for him, eventually finding him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her.

Sea-Horse is a folktale from Syria, published by author Uwe Kuhr in his book Syrische Märchen. It deals with the marriage between a human maiden and a bridegroom of supernatural origin who hides under an equine disguise; she betrays his trust, and has to search for him.

Prince Lal Maluk is a Pakistani folktale from Sindh and published by Sindhologist Nabi Bakhsh Baloch. The tale is a local form of the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a woman marries a man of supernatural origin, loses him and must regain him.

References

  1. ↑ Lang, Andrew. The Olive Fairy Book . London; New York: Longmans, Green, 1907. pp. 247-254.
  2. 1 2 Lang, Andrew; Philip, Neil. A World of fairy tales. New York: Dial Books, 1994. p. 254.
  3. ↑ Lang, Andrew. The Olive Fairy Book . London; New York: Longmans, Green. 1907. pp. 247-255.
  4. ↑ Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987. pp. 87-88. ISBN   0-313-25961-5.
  5. ↑ Silver, Carole G. "Animal Brides and Grooms: Motif B600 and Animal Paramour, Motif B610". In: Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy (eds.). Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature. A Handbook. Armonk / London: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. p. 96.
  6. ↑ Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett (1960). Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, And Ceylon. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. p. 62.
  7. ↑ Žmuida, Eugenijus. "Eglė žalčių karalienė: slibino ir mergelės motyvo kilmė" [Eglė, the queen of serpents: origins of the motif of dragon and maiden]. In: Liaudies kultūra Nr. 5 (2016). p. 32. ISSN   0236-0551.
  8. ↑ Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 104.
  9. ↑ Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche . Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. pp. 238, 251.
  10. ↑ Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett. Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, and Ceylon . Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1960. p. 63.
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