Having brought the Python, the father of the woman, having asked her and said he brought it as her husband, put it in the house (room) of the woman, and said, “There. Take charge of it.”
Thereupon the woman having gone into the house, [after] shutting the door unfastened the sack in which was the Python. Then the Python seized the woman, and twisting around her, making fold after fold, began to eat her.
At that time, the father of the woman [hearing sounds] like throwing down coconuts in the corn store, like pouring water into the water jar, said two or three times, “Don’t kill my daughter, Aḍē!” Then the Python, having completely swallowed the woman, remained [as though] unconscious.
On the following day, in the morning, the woman’s parents having come and said, “Daughter, open the door,” called her two or three times. Having called her, when they looked [for a reply] she did not speak.
Because of that, having broken [through] the wall near the door bolt, and opened the door, when they looked, the Python, having swallowed the woman,[5] remained [as though] unconscious. Thereupon, they drove away and sent off the Python.
North-central Province.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 595, a dependant of King Vikramāditya became a python on eating a gourd which he found in a garden. He was restored to his former shape by means of a sternutatory which was made from the extract obtained from a plant.
In Chinese Nights’ Entertainment (A. M. Fielde), p. 45, a man promised to give one of his three daughters in marriage to a serpent that seized him. The two elder ones refused; the youngest agreed to marry it. She lived with the snake in a palace. On her return one day with water from a distant spring after the well dried up she found the serpent dying of thirst, and plunged it in the water. The spell which bound it being thus neutralised it became a handsome man, with whom she continued to dwell happily.
In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 255, a herd-boy who saw a girl throw off a dog skin that she wore, and bathe, afterwards insisted on marrying this dog. Each night she removed the skin and went out, until on one occasion he threw the skin into the fire, after which she retained her human form. A friend of his determined to imitate him, and married a bitch with the usual ceremonies; but on the way home she was so savage that he let her go, and he was laughed at so much that he hanged himself.