The Serpent Prince or The Snake Prince (Hungarian: Kégyókirályfi or Kígyókirályfi) is a Hungarian folk tale collected by Hungarian-American scholar Linda Dégh, featuring the marriage between a human maiden and a husband in serpent guise.
The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband: a human maiden marries an animal that is a prince in disguise, breaks a taboo and loses him, and she has to seek him out. The story shares motifs with other tales of the region, like Serbian Again, The Snake Bridegroom, and Romanian Trandafiru, The Enchanted Pig and Enchanted Balaur: the heroine must search for her husband under a curse not to bear their child until he touches her again. According to Hungarian scholars, the snake appears as the form of the enchanted husband in most of the Hungarian variants.
Sources Dégh collected the tale in the 1950s from Hungarian teller Zsuzsanna Pálkó (Józscfné Palkó), a member of the Székely Bukovina community who lived in Kakasd village, Tolna County.Dégh, Linda. Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. Routledge, 2014. p. 77. .Dégh, Linda (1996). Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. New York and London: Garland Publishing. p. xiii. .
Summary Pálkó's narration begins thus: a king complains to his wife that she has not born him any child. The queen questions why God has not given her children, and asks for a snake son, so that they may finally have offspring. Just as she says it, a snake son appears. The king declares they must hide the animal from prying eyes, so that no one may know they have a snake son.
They hide the animal son in a room and he grows up there. Years later, when he has grown very large, he begins to whistle so loud it shakes the castle. His mother pays him a visit to question what is the reason for the whistling. He explains he has come of age and desires a mate, and suggests the princess of a neighbouring kingdom shall be the perfect candidate.
So his mother summons the princess and she comes to the castle to find out more about her prospective husband. The queen leads the princess into the prince's quarters. When she sees the giant snake, she screams and faints. The queen sprinkles some water on her, who comes to, and explains the prince is the snake, albeit a harmless one. The princess refuses to marry the snake prince and tries to escape the room, whose windows are barred with iron. The queen and the king lock her up with the snake prince and leave them be.
This situation goes for a week: the princess tries to think of a way out, but everywhere she looks the windows and the doors are barred. She does not even touch her food, choosing to wither away slowly than marrying the snake. Despite his bride's grievances, the snake prince tries to convince the girl he means no harm to her. He then begins to crawl into their bridal bed, to the princess's horror. For two nights, she tries to sneak away from him, somewhat successfully.
The third night, after a quick rest, she wakes up to a handsome man beside her. She wakes the man up and question his presence there: he tells her he is the snake, but wears a snakeskin at night "because he has too", since it is his "cloak". The princess feels more at ease and they live as husband and wife, she becoming pregnant some time later.
Despite the revelation, the prince does not show his parents his human form, which annoys the princess. She visits a sorceress nearby and tells her her situation. The sorceress advises her to take the snakeskin and burn it in the stove.
That night, when the snake prince is asleep, the princess wakes up, takes the snakeskin off of him. She creeps into the kitchen, lights up the stove and tosses the skin in. She returns to her chambers to an awakened prince, who asks her about the smell of burning. She lies that it is only some tufts of her hair burning, but he knows she is lying. The prince then explains that he was to wear the cloak for one more month, and curses her not to bear their children until he embraces her again; and that a ring on her finger shall stay there until he puts his finger on her. He then gives her a dry hazel-rod she must water with her tears until it bears fruit, and a grain of wheat she must plant and with the harvest bake a bread; then she can go after him. Then he vanishes.
The princess tells her parents-in-law that the snake prince has disappeared, and goes to water the dry hazel-rod and the grain of wheat. After a long time, she takes the rod and the bread and starts a journey. In a forest, she sees a light in the distance - an old woman (the mother of the Moon)'s house, where she takes shelter for the night. Her son comes home and is inquired about the whereabouts of the Serpent Prince. The old woman directs the princess to her aunt, and gives her a gold bobbin.
The situation repeats twice in the next two houses (of the Sun and of the Winds), and she gains a golden reel and a golden spool and ball of thread; only on the third house she finally learns where her husband is: the Hurricane Wind tells her he went to his castle and he can take her there.
The princess arrives at the castle and wanders about with the gold bobbin. A maidservant appears and guides the girl to the queen, who is interested in the golden item and wishes to buy it. The princess offers it in exchange for a night in the king's chambers. She enters the chambers and begs her husband to awake and see her. She fails and weeps bitterly until dawn, when the queen expels her from the room. The second night goes much the same.
On the third day, the king's valet tells him that a woman has come to his chambers and wept at his bedside, but he could not respond. The king surmises he was drugged with a sleeping potion, and asks his valet to pour any drink he receives out in the bath. The princess sells her the golden thread, hoping she can wake him up. She enters the room and begs her husband to wake up and touch her breast. He does and she gives birth to their children: two golden-haired boys.
The queen enters the room, intending to expel the woman, but the king orders the guards to seize her and lock her up in a cell. The king summons his advisers, who counsel him that a wedded woman is better that an unwed one. He stays with the princess and his two sons, and punishes the queen.Dégh, Linda. Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. Routledge, 2014. pp. 78-92. .
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425A, "The Animal (Monster) as Bridegroom".Dégh, Linda. Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. Routledge, 2014. p. 77. .Dégh, Linda. Folktales and Society: Story-telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community: Expanded Edition with a New Afterword. Indiana University Press, 1989. p. 325. . In this tale type, the princess burns the husband's animal skin and she must seek him out, even paying a visit to the Sun, the Moon and the Wind and gaining their help.Vernaleken, Theodor. In the Land of Marvels: Folk-tales From Austria And Bohemia. London: W. S. Sonnenschein & co., 1884. pp. 359-360.Kovacs, Agnes. "Az égig éro fa meséjének magyar redakcioi és samanisztikus motivumaik" [Die ungarischen Redaktionen des Märchens vom Himmelhohen Baum (AaTh 468) und ihre schamanistischen Motive]. In: Ethnographia vol. 95, n°1 (1984). p. 23. In tale type ATU 425A, the heroine journeys far and wide to encounter her husband, and finds him at the mercy of a second spouse. The supernatural husband, now human, is put to sleep by the magic potion of the second spouse, so that the heroine has no chance of rescuing him.Bálint Peter. Kedvenc Népmeséim (My Favourite Folk Tales): A hangok sokfélesége (The Multiplicity of Voices) - meseszöveg-gyűjtemény és tanulmányok (a collection of tales and studies). Hajdúböszörmény, 2010. p. 225. .
Others of this type include The Black Bull of Norroway, The Brown Bear of Norway, The Daughter of the Skies, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Tale of the Hoodie, The Sprig of Rosemary, and White-Bear-King-Valemon.
Similarly, the Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) indexes it as type AaTh 425A, Ámor és Psükhé ("Amor and Psyche"): the heroine marries an animal husband that is human underneath the animal skin, burns the animal skin, and loses him; to get him back, she travels to the houses of the Mother of the Sun, the Mother of the Moon and the Mother of the Wind, and gains objects she uses to bribe the false bride for a night with her husband.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). pp. 212-213.
Motifs
The serpent son According to Hungarian scholar Ágnes Kovács, in ("Hungarian Ethnographic Dictionary"), in Hungary, the son is born due to the rash desire of their mother in the shape of an animal, appearing like a snake, a pig, a hound or a foal (in type 425), or the poor old couple adopts the first animal that appears in their way: a hedgehog (in type 441). In that regard, Ilona Nagy states that the serpent prince's name "usually" appears as Kígyóraj vitéz, Kígyó Sebestyén, Kígyókirály Kis Jancsi, among others.
The heroine's helpers
In a study published posthumously, Romanian folklorist noted that, in Romanian and in some South Slavic variants, instead of meeting the Sun, the Moon and the Wind on the way to her husband, the heroine finds incarnations of the days of the week, like Holy Wednesday and Holy Friday. They function the same as the elements and gift the heroine with golden objects.Caraman, Petru. "Identificarea episodului despre Cupidon şi Psyche, din romanul „Metamorphoses” al lui Apuleius, cu un basm autentic popular" [Identification of the Episode on Cupidon and Psyche, in the Novel Metamorphoses by Appuleius, with An Authentic Folk Fairy Tale]. In: Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 9 (2009): 28–33. Also, according to Hungarian scholar , the heroine's helpers are three old ladies: the mother of the Sun, the mother of the Moon and the Mother of the Wind in Hungarian variants, and Holy Friday, Holy Saturday and Holy Sunday in Romania.Purdi Mihály; Karig Sára, Hocopán Sándor (eds.). Világ Szépe és Világ Gyönyörűje. Magyarországi román népmesék. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1982. p. 330.
The heroine's gifts According to Hans-Jörg Uther, the main feature of tale type ATU 425A is "bribing the false bride for three nights with the husband". In fact, when he developed his revision of Aarne-Thompson's system, Uther remarked that an "essential" trait of the tale type ATU 425A was the "wife's quest and gifts" and "nights bought". In the same vein, according to Hungarian scholar Ágnes Kovács, in ("Hungarian Ethnographic Dictionary"), the heroine is cursed by her husband not to bear their children until he touches her again. In her search for him, she passes by the houses of the Mothers of the Sun, of the Moon and of the Wind (or Holy Friday, Holy Saturday and Holy Sunday), where she gains (golden) apparatuses: a distaff, a spindle, and a bobbin, which she uses to trade for a night in the prince's chambers.
The heroine's pregnancy In Balkanic variants of the tale type, the supernatural husband curses his wife not to give birth to their child for a long period of time until she finds him again. In addition, according to Lithuanian professor , similar tales from Hungary, Romania and Moldova contain the motif of the supernatural husband wrapping iron hoops around the heroine's belly so she cannot give birth to their child until he lays a hand on her again.