The Story of the Hamadryad (Arakanese: ငန်းတော်ရှည်ဝတ္ထု; Ngan-daw-shay Watthu) or The Snake Prince (Burmese: မြွေမင်းသား) is a folktale from the Arakanese people, collected by researcher San Shwe Bu and published in the Journal of the Burma Research Society.
The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, wherein a heroine marries a husband in animal form who reveals he is man underneath. In this case, the heroine marries a husband in animal shape that becomes human, while another girl marries a real animal and dies. Variants of the narrative are located in India and Southeast Asia.
Summary An old widow has three beautiful daughters who she hopes to marry to grandees and princes, and always does the heavy chores at home herself, like fetching firewood and catching fish. One day, she takes a wicker basket to the river to catch some fish, but none appears, save for a snake that slithers into the basket. The widow takes the basket home with her to kill the snake later, and leaves it in a corner. Meanwhile, the snake slithers off to a jar of condiment.
Some days later, the widow goes to fetch condiment for her food and the snake coils around her arm. The widow offers her three daughters to the animal, but it only reacts to the youngest one, releasing the woman's arm. The youngest daughter lives goes with the snake to a room, which takes off the snakeskin to become a human youth, since he is in fact a nat, then returns to his snake form in the morning. This goes on for many nights, until, one day, the elder sisters question her how she can live with a reptile as a husband, and the girl answers he is not snake at all, but a handsome youth underneath it. The elder sisters convince her to burn the snakeskin one night, which she does; despite some physical pain, the nat husband is content with assuming a definite human form.
Some time later, he creates a palace for his wife with his powers, and decides to sail on a journey to learn a trade. After he prepares his provisions for the voyage, he warns his wife, pregnant at this time, not to leave his palace, then departs. While he is away, her elder sisters, jealous of her fortune, plot to get rid of her: they try to convince her to catch fish with them, then to break firewood - which she refuses - and to play with them on a swing over a river - which she agrees to do. The girl goes to the swing and her elder sisters shove her into the river. Fortunately for her, a couple of big storks sight her and rescue her to their nest atop a tree.
Meanwhile, thinking their cadette is dead, the sisters take over the palace. Back to the girl, she gives birth to a son, who the storks consider as their child, and she rocks the baby with a song. Months pass, the human nat docks the ship in the harbour, when he hears his wife's voice. Tracking it to the nearby tree, he reaches the storks' nest and finds her. The giant storks are reluctant to part with the mother and child they protected in their nest, but the nat husband offers to give them a pile of fish as reward for saving his family. He hides his wife and son in a box and takes to his palace, then pretends to fall for his sisters-in-law's lies that his wife died. During some days, the nat gives meals in secret to his wife in his room, and a raven appears at the window to sing some mocking verses to him and the two elder sisters. After the raven's mocking, the nat decides to shame the women: he gathers people for a rich feast, and bids his sisters-in-law relate to the guests the sorry story about their sister's death, all the while, the nat opens the chest and takes his wife and son to the dining room, to the guests' astonishment and the sisters-in-law's shame. The nat and his family live happily together.
Meanwhile, in the same village where the widow lived with her three daughters, another old woman learns of the girl's fortunate marriage with a snake, and decides to find her daughter a similar animal, hoping she will experience fortune and riches. The woman finds a boa constrictor and places it in the same room as her daughter. That same night, the animal wakes up and begins to devour her little by little. The girl cries for her mother's help, but the woman dismisses them as just her "husband" decorating her with jewels. The next morning, the woman enters her daughter's room and finds the snake swallowed her during the night.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as AaTh 433C, "The Serpent Husband and The Jealous Girl", a subtype of type AaTh 433, "The Prince as Serpent".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 148. In this tale type, a girl marries a snake who gives her jewels and ornaments and becomes human after the burning of his snakeskin; another girl tries to imitate with a real snake, with disastrous and fatal results.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 148.
However, in his own revision of the folk type index, published in 2004, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther subsumed types AaTh 433 ("The Prince as Serpent"), AaTh 433A ("A Serpent Carries a Princess to Its Castle") and AaTh 433C under a new type: ATU 433B, "King Lindworm".
Motifs Professor Stuart Blackburn stated that some Southeast Asian variants contain the motif of the fruit tree owned by the snake, whose fruits either the sisters or their mother want.Blackburn, Stuart. Himalayan Tribal Tales: Oral Tradition and Culture in the Apatani Valley. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library Volume 16/2. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008. p. 223. . More specifically, it is found in central Arunachal Pradesh, and among the Kucong and Nusu people of Yunnan.
Type 433C also contains the motif J2415.7, "A snake for the real daughter. Stepdaughter, married to a snake, appears decorated with jewels. Stepmother desires a snake be procured for her daughter. She is swallowed instead".Thompson, Stith; Balys, Jonas. The Oral Tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958. p. 287.Goswami, Praphulladatta. Ballads and Tales of Assam: A Study of the Folklore of Assam. Assam: University of Gauhati, 1960. p. 213.
According to Reginald Dennis Burton, in Upper Burma, the word Ngan or Ngan-bok refers to the king cobra, and Ngan-daw-gya (among other names) refers to the banded krait species.Dennis, Reginald Burton (R.B.D.). "Twenty Burmese songs: translation and notes". In: Journal of the Burma Research Society 33 (1950): 190 (note nr. 1).
Variants Distribution In his 1961 revision of the tale type index, American folklorist Stith Thompson indicated 5 variants of the type, found only in India.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 148. Hence, Thompson and Warren Roberts's work Types of Indic Oral Tales links this tale type "exclusively" to South Asia.Islam, Mazharul. Folklore, the Pulse of the People: In the Context of Indic Folklore. Concept Publishing Company, 1985. p. 165-166. In addition, according to professor Stuart Blackburn, this is the "Asian" version of the snake-husband story, and variants of the narrative (girl marries snake and is fortunate; jealous girl marries another snake and dies) are reported in India (in Nagaland and Assam), Southeast Asia, China, and among Tibeto-Burman speakers in central Arunachal Pradesh and the extended eastern Himalayas (e.g., the Apatani, Nyishi people, Tagin people, Garo people and Lisu people). Taiwanese scholarship also locates variants of subtype 433C in Cambodia and Indonesia.
Burma In another article, San Shwe Bu stated that the "story of the Hamadryad", beside the Arakan people, was also "familiar" to the Burmese.
The Snake Prince (Arakan) Bernard Houghton published in the journal Indian Antiquary a tale from the Arakanese people that he translated from a Burmese manuscript furnished by a Maung Tha Bwin, Myôôk of Sandoway. In this tale, titled The Snake Prince, a man named Sakkaru, from fairy-land (Tâwatinsa), is reborn in the human realm in the form of a hamadryad (a spirit that lives in a tree), by orders of King Sakrâ (Indra). In the human realm, a washerwoman is washing her clothes in the river and sees a serpent (the hamadryad) atop a fig tree. She wants some of the figs, and offers one of her daughters, named Dwê Pyû, to the snake, in exchange for some figs. The serpent wags its tail and knocks down many figs. The washerwoman gets the figs and in jest exhorts the snake to follow her home to get his bride Dwê Pyû. The snake decides to follow the woman home. The next morning, the washerwoman is hungry and sticks her hand in a pot to grab some rice to cook, when the snake coils around her arm. It dawns on the woman that the snake is there to get his bride, so she convinces the snake to let her go, while she summons her daughter Dwê Pyû to meet the snake husband. The girl reluctantly agrees to live with the snake as husband and wife. One day, King Sakrâ summons Sakkaru (the snake) to a council in his realm, so Sakkaru leaves behind the snakeskin on his bed and goes to Tâwatinsa. His human wife, Dwê Pyû, sees the snakeskin and, believing her snake husband is dead, cries to her mother. The mother tells her daughter to burn the snakeskin as a sort of funeral rite, so they throw the snakeskin in the fireplace. Sakkaru returns to the human realm and complains that he felt some burning sensation. The washerwoman and Dwê Pyû realize who he is and rejoice, while the washerwoman's other daughter, named Shwê Kyên, begins to curse her sister's good luck. That night, fairy Samâ-Dêva visits Sakkaru and gives him a magic wand, and warns him that no drop of snake's blood can touch his skin, lest he becomes a snake again, and that, after receiving the wand, Sakkaru is to wander through other countries. The next day, Sakkaru departs on a ship, leaving behind a pregnant wife. Seizing this opportunity, Shwê Kyên tries to get rid of her sister (who is pregnant at the time) by shoving her into the river, but she is saved by a great eagle and taken to a silk-cotton tree. On returning from his trip, Sakkaru sees this wife with a son atop the tree and barters with the eagle, who is his brother: he will deliver a heap of fish to the bird and it will send mother and son down the tree. Seeing that her plans failed, Shwê Kyên asks her father, the washerwoman's husband, to bring her a snake from the jungle, hoping to experience the same luck as her sister. Her father captures a large boa constrictor and gives to Shwê Kyên. That night, the girl begins to scream that the boa is devouring her; her father dismisses any danger, but Dwê Pyû begs her husband, the Snake Prince Sakkaru, to save her sister. Sakkaru warns his wife that any drop of snake's blood will turn him back to a snake. He goes to Shwê Kyên's room and kills the boa-constrictor, but a drop of its blood touches his skin and he becomes a snake again, with a snake's mind. Sakkaru, back to serpentine form, tells his wife to take care of their son. Despite Dwê Pyû's pleas for him to stay with them, he slithers back to the forest.Houghton, Bernard. "Folkltales of Arakan: I - The Snake Prince". In: Indian Antiquary Vol. 22. 1893. pp. 98-102.
The Tree-Snake Prince