THE SERPENT-TSAREVICH AND HIS TWO WIVES
THE SERPENT-TSAREVICH AND
HIS TWO WIVES
There was once a Tsaritsa who had no child, and greatly desired one, so the soothsayers said to her, “Bid them catch thee a pike, bid them boil its head and nothing but its head, eat it, and thou shalt see what will happen.” So she did so. She ate the pike’s head and went about as usual for a whole year, and when the year was out she gave birth to a son who was a serpent.
And no sooner was he born than he looked about him, and said, “Mammy and daddy! Bid them make me a stone hut, and let there be a little bed there, and a little stove and a fire to warm me, and let me be married in a fortnight!”––So they did as he desired. They shut him up in a stone hut, with a little bed and a little stove and fire to warm him, and in a fortnight he grew quite big, indeed he grew too big for his little bed. “And now,” said he, “I want to be married!” So they brought to him all the fair young damsels of the land that he might choose one to be his own true bride. Exceeding fair were all the damsels they brought him, and yet he would choose none of them. Now there was an old woman there, who had twelve daughters, and eleven of these daughters they brought to the Serpent-Tsarevich, but not the twelfth. “She is too young!” said they.––Then the youngest daughter said, “Ye fools, not to take me too! Why, if I were brought to the Serpent-Tsarevich, he would make me his bride at once.”
Now this came to the Tsar’s ears, and he commanded 198 them to bring her to him straightway. And the Tsar said to her, “Wilt thou be my son’s bride or not?”––And she said, “I will; but before I go to thy son, give me at once a score of chemises, and a score of linen kirtles, and a score of woollen kirtles, and twenty pairs of shoes––twenty of each, I say.”––So the Tsar gave them to her, and she put on the twenty chemises, the twenty linen kirtles, the twenty woollen kirtles, and the twenty pairs of shoes, one after the other, and went to see the Serpent-Tsarevich. When she came to the threshold of his hut, she stopped and said, “Hail, O Serpent-Tsarevich!”––“Hail, maiden!” cried he. “Wilt thou be my bride?”––“I will!”––“Then take off one of thy skins!” cried he.––“Yes,” she said, “but thou must do the same.”––So he cast off one of his skins, and she cast off one of her twenty suits of clothes. Then he cried out again, “Cast off another of thy skins, maiden.”––“Yes,” she replied, “but thou must cast off one too!”––So he did so. Nineteen times did he cast off one of his serpent’s skins, and nineteen times did she cast off one of her suits of clothes, till at last she had only her every-day suit left, and he had only his human skin left. Then he threw off his last skin also, and it flew about in the air like a gossamer, whereupon she seized hold of it and threw it into the fire that was burning on the hearth till it was all consumed, and he stood before her no longer a serpent, but a simple Tsarevich. Then they married and lived happily together, but the husband never would go to visit his old father the Tsar, nor would he allow his bride to go near the palace.