The Enchanted Snake

Others of this type include The Black Bull of Norroway, The Brown Bear of Norway, The Daughter of the Skies, The Enchanted Pig, The Tale of the Hoodie, Master Semolina, The Sprig of Rosemary, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and White-Bear-King-Valemon.

The snake told his father to gather up all the pits he could find and sow them in the orchard; when they sprang up, all the fruits were gold.

The king then demanded that the castle be turned to gold; the snake had his father rub the walls with a herb, which transformed them.

The snake came in a car of gold, drawn by elephants; everyone else ran off in fright, but Grannonia stood her ground.

In the morning as the princess remarked on the wondrous sounds of the birdsongs, the fox told her the birdsong would be even better if she knew what the birds were saying: that a prince had been cursed to take a snake's form for seven years, that near the end of the time, he had fallen in love with and married a princess, but that his snake skin had been burned, and he had struck his head while he fled, and was now in the care of doctors.

[14] According to Letterio di Francia, in many Italian variants the prince is either transformed into a serpent or is an enchanted pig.

[15] In turn, according to Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas [el]'s quantitative analysis, among the many forms of the enchanted husband in Italian variants, he appears as a serpent in 11 tales and as a pig in 10 texts.