The Tsar of the Snakes was a huge creature clothed in a gorgeous skin of red and yellow and black. They found him reclining on a golden table with a crown of precious jewels on his head.
"My son!" he cried, when he saw the snake that was still wound about the shepherd's neck, "where have you been? We have been grieving for you thinking you had met some misfortune."
"But for this shepherd, my father," the snake said, "I should have been burned to death. He rescued me."
Then he told the Tsar of the Snakes the whole story. The Tsar of the Snakes listened carefully and when the Snake Prince was finished he turned to the shepherd and said:
"Sir, I am deeply indebted to you for saving my son's life. Ask of me anything I can grant and it is yours."
"Give me then," the shepherd said, "the gift of understanding the language of the animals."
"Not that!" the Tsar of the Snakes cried. "It is too dangerous a gift! If ever you confessed to some other human being that you had this gift and repeated what some animal said you would die that instant. Ask something else—anything else!"
"No," the shepherd insisted. "Give me that or nothing!"
When the Tsar of the Snakes saw that the shepherd was not to be dissuaded, he said:
"Very well, then. What must be, must be. Come now very close to me and put your mouth against my mouth. Do you breathe three times into my mouth and I shall breathe three times into your mouth. Then you will understand the language of the animals."