There lived one woman. Already in her old age, she had a son. It would have been better if that son had not existed: the woman had a serpent son. The mother still loved her son-snake, followed him, breastfed him and raised him large and healthy. One day the snake spoke in a human voice:
- Go, mother, to our king, tell him: “My son the snake asks you to marry your only beautiful daughter.”
The mother was scared. It’s scary that her son, and even a snake, dared to ask the Tsar’s daughter for a wife, and even more terrible that the snake speaks in a human voice. So what should I do? My son doesn’t give me peace - go and go! “The king will kill me, son,” she says, but he doesn’t want to listen. The old lady became bolder and went.
I came to the palace. The king called her and asked: “What do you want, old woman?” “The son-snake haunts her and asks for your daughter as a wife.” - And she told everything. The king was not surprised, listened to her and said:
- Everyone knows that my power is small. A strong neighbor is crowding me and ruining me. So now he has sent ambassadors and asks three tasks; if I don’t answer, he will destroy the entire kingdom. Tell your son: if he guesses them and thereby saves me and my kingdom, I will give him my daughter, but if he doesn’t, he won’t. First task: the king has a herd of horses; he demands to distinguish who is the mother in the herd and who are her children. Second task: the king has a pestle from a mortar, and the king orders to cut out a thousand cubits of leather from that pestle and send it to him. And the third task: in his kingdom one region suffers from lack of water - it is necessary to open water there.
“Eh,” thought the old woman, “I’ve gotten myself into trouble like that!” - And she ran home. - Well, did you do what? - asked the son-snake. - What did you do? - says the mother, but she can barely breathe, and her mouth is dry. “My death has come, nothing more,” and she began to cry. “Don’t cry,” says the snake, “don’t be afraid, that king will not defeat me.” The mother heard it, laughing as if mad. “The king won’t defeat you, little snake?” “No,” says the snake, “he won’t!” “But he won’t defeat you, so listen!” — and told all three problems. The snake didn’t even think about it: “Go now and report to the king: “Send, king, your adviser to that king and say: let him cut out samples from that pestle and tell him what width of skin he wants to get.” If he doesn’t cut it out, the king himself will be embarrassed, not us. Second: tell the herd not to drink for three days. And when they are allowed to the water, whichever horse neighs, that is the mother mare. Where people suffer from lack of water, there stands an oak tree in such and such a place, let them dig up that oak tree and water will open.
The mother hurried to the king. I arrived, and everyone in the palace was already sad, everyone had lost hope. No matter how hard it was for everyone, they saw the old woman and began to laugh at her. And when they learned the serpent’s answer, they all bowed to the old woman and received her with great honor. They told the ambassadors everything, sent an adviser with them, and left the evil king in the cold with his tasks.
The king was saved and, according to his word, called the savior snake to the palace. A huge snake crawled into the palace. He was greeted with great honor. Everyone fawns over the snake and smiles, more out of fear than out of joy. They planted the snake next to the beautiful princess. The wedding has begun. The beauty is sitting, there is no measure of her grief and melancholy. She’s sitting there and you can’t open her lips with a knife, but what can you do? This, apparently, is her fate.
The wedding is over. They took the young people - the snake and the beauty - to the bedchamber. The king closed the door and began beating himself on the head with his fists, tearing out his hair, scratching his chest, moaning. “The damned snake will eat, eat my beauty!”
And in the bedchamber this is what happens: the snake has wrapped itself around the beauty, hugged her, caresses her, kisses her. The princess is neither alive nor dead. And she doesn’t look, and doesn’t even breathe out of fear, she’s completely petrified.
And the snake caresses and asks: “Love me, don’t drive me away!” Look, it wouldn’t turn out that you were begging me for love, and I, like you now, would run from you.
He asks, prays, and suddenly - a miracle: he shed the snake skin, and a stately young man appeared, beautiful as the sun. The princess looked and couldn’t take her eyes off. Her heart began to beat, her eyes sparkled and lit up. As they stand, it’s a joy just to look at them... They hugged and caressed each other. Like the rays of the golden sun, the young man’s hair glows, and the bride’s pearly fingers finger them, caressing them. The princess’s nanny looked through the crack - why was it glowing like that, had the damned snake released a flame from its mouth, had it burned the princess? I looked in and what did I see? There is nothing more beautiful than a boy and a girl, and their bliss cannot be described.
The old woman cried with joy and ran to please her father. Everyone screamed and made noise. They ran to the bedchamber and broke down the doors in joy. The king ran in and grabbed the snake skin.
The young man was frightened, shuddered... he wanted to run somewhere, hide, - he jumped and flew up like a dove. The dove is beating in the bedchamber, beating, looking for where to fly. The beautiful bride runs after him, afraid that he would fly away from her forever, and she cries and laughs.
The pigeon found the door and flew out. The beauty begged her father for a horse. She jumped on it and rushed after her dove-groom. A dove flies and coos. The beautiful bride rushes behind him from shadow to shadow. A dove will sit on a tree and the bride will arrive. A dove takes off and the beauty’s horse rushes after her. So the dove flew, and with it the beauty on her horse, all the way to the sea. In the sea, off the coast, an island. On the island there is a tall poplar, straight as an arrow. A dove flew up to the very top of the poplar and cooed. A breeze will blow, tilt the top of the poplar towards the shore - the dove will approach the bride. The poplar will straighten up - the top will leave and take the dove with it.
The beauty hit the horse, the horse jumped, could not resist on the small island, only slightly caught on the shore with its feet. The poplar bent down, the beauty extended her hands to the dove, the dove flew up, sat on the beauty’s shoulder and cooed right next to her cheeks. The horse jumped back to the shore, and the dove either caresses the beauty’s face with its wings, or sits on its knees. The bride catches him, wants to catch him, but the dove does not give in. And to this day the dove still hovers around his bride - either he sits on her shoulder and coos something to her, or he caresses her knees. And there is no end to the edge of their love, tenderness and caresses.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru