The Stepdaughter and the Black Serpent is a Turkish fairy tale collected by researcher Barbara K. Walker. The tale is part of the more general cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom,Holbek, Bengt; Lindow, John. "König Lindwurm (AaTh 433, 433 A–C)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 8: Klerus – Maggio. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 160. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.8.037/html and is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", a type that deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands. In the Turkish variants, however, the story can continue with the adventures of the banished heroine, who meets a man at a graveyard, rescues and marries him, and eventually is found by her first husband, the snake prince whom she disenchanted before.
Source The tale was originally collected from a sixteen-year-old source named Ayșe Guldemir, who originated from Tokat province and lived in Ankara, and archived in the Uysal–Walker Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative with the title The Stepdaughter and the Black Serpent."1678. The Stepdaughter and the Black Serpent". In: Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative (Texas Tech University). Online: 2019-11-19. Access: 2025-12-19.
Summary In this tale, a padishah rules a great kingdom, but sighs over the lack of an heir. One day, he prays to Allah to be given a son, even it he is a serpent. Allah hears his prayers and grants him one son: nine months later, a black serpent is born to the queen. Many nurses and maids try to rear the serpentine scion, but he bites them all to death, causing the kingdom to despair in trying to find one able to fulfill the task. In the same kingdom, a beautiful girl lives with her stepmother, who wants to get rid of her, and, upon hearing the padishah is looking for a nurse for the prince, insists her stepdaughter is available to take up the job. The girl is escorted by the royal guards to the palace, but asks to visit her mother's grave under some cypress trees. The girl goes to her mother's grave in search of counsel, and her mother's spirit advises her to prepare a two-handle golden box, with seven holes made in its lid and pour the milk of seven cows inside it, which will draw the snake prince to it. The girl goes to the palace and follows her mother's instructions, then places the box in a diamond cradle. This eases the snake's fury for some time, until the day the prince goes to their parents and announces his wish to be taught to read and write. The padishah agrees to fulfill his wish and summons a Hoca the next morning, whom the black serpent bites to death. A line of scholars ends up dying by the snake's bite, and the padishah, in desperation, turns to the girl who previously nursed the prince. The girl's stepmother, lying again, says her stepdaughter can also teach the prince. The girl goes to her mother's grave a second time and her spirit advises her to fetch a branch of a rosebush and a branch of holly, both sprouting from her grave, which she is to use to scold the prince if he tries to attack her: four times with the rosebush branch and one time with the holly. The girl does as instructed and, after forty days, the prince is taught to read and write. Later, the snake prince wishes to be married, and girls are brought to him as prospective brides, but he kill forty girls for the next forty nights, one per night. At last, the stepmother sends her stepdaughter as a bride to the snake prince, wishing to have her killed once and for all. The girl pays a visit to her mother's grave one more time, and is advised to wear forty hedgehog skins, which she is to remove one by one and ask the prince to remove each of the layers of snakeskin, and toss them all in the fire soon after. The girl is then brought to the snake and both remove each of the layers from both their vestments. The black serpent is disenchanted into a human prince and marries the girl. Back to stepmother, defeated, she enters an underbrush in the forest and becomes a yellow snake.
Analysis Tale type In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars classified the Turkish tales as Turkish type TTV 106, "Die schwarze Schlange" ("The Black Snake"), which corresponds in the international classification to tale type AaTh 433.Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 126-128 (tale type), 421 (table of correspondences). They also commented that the stories followed a two-part narrative: a first part, with the disenchantment of the snake prince, and a second one, wherein the expelled heroine meets a man in the graveyard and marries him.Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 126-127, 128 (Bermerkungen).
The first part of the Turkish tale type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm": a serpent (snake, or dragon) son is born to a king and queen (either from a birthing implement or due to a wish); years later, the serpent prince wishes to marry, but he kills every bride they bring him; a girl is brought to him as a prospective bride, and wears several layers of cloth to parallel the serpent's skins; she disenchants him.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. Tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", is part of the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, stories that involve a human maiden marrying a prince in animal form and disenchanting him.Holbek, Bengt; Lindow, John. "König Lindwurm (AaTh 433, 433 A–C)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 8: Klerus – Maggio. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 160. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.8.037/html In addition, the second part of the Turkish tales follows what Georges Dumézil termed "The woman who married a Snake and a Dead Man".
Greek folklorist considered that Greek variants showed a contamination between tale type 433B and subtype ATU 425E, "Enchanted Husband Sings Lullaby", where the pregnant heroine is sent by her lover, kidnapped by the fairies, to his mother's castle, where she can give birth in safety. He also noted that the combined narrative corresponded to Turkish type (TTV) 106, "Die schwarze Schlange" ("The Black Snake").
Motifs The black snake-prince Scholar , in his work about Cupid and Psyche and other Animal as Bridegroom tales, described that the King Lindworm tales are "usually characterized" by the motifs of "release by bathing" and "7 shifts and 7 skins".Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 19 (footnote nr. 11). Similarly, according to Birgit Olsen, "in most versions" the heroine is advised by her mother's spirit to wear many shifts for her wedding night with the lindworm prince.
Variants Distribution Folklorist Stith Thompson noted that tale type 433B's continuation, with the heroine's adventures, occurs in the Near East.Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 101. . According to researchers Birgit Olsen and Warren S. Walker, and Greek scholars Anna Angelopoulou, Aigle Broskou and Michael Meraklis, the two-part narrative forms an East Mediterranean oikotype, popular in both Greece and Asia Minor.Angelopoulou, Anna; Broskou, Aigle. "ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΑΚΩΝ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499". Tome B: AT 400-499. Athens, Greece: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε. 1999. pp. 787, 798-799.Merakles, Michales G. Studien zum griechischen Märchen. Eingeleitet, übers, und bearb. von Walter Puchner. Raabser Märchen-Reihe, Bd. 9. Wien: Österr. Museum für Volkskunde, 1992. pp. 148-149. . According to Gyula Németh, the first part of the tale is "very widespread" in Anatolia ("dieses in Anatolien stark verbreiteten Märchens", in the original).. Accessed 17 Mar. 2024.
Tales about snakes The Snake Boy In a Turkish tale collected from Ordu with the title Yılan oğlan ("The Snake Boy"), a padishah's son is born: a snake. The snake son grows up and is ready to be tutored, but he bites every candidate to death. In the same city, a man sends an orphan girl to be the prince's tutor. The girl says she will accept the job, but goes to her mother's grave for counsel. Her mother's spirit advises her to take two rose branches and use them on the prince to force him to complete his lessons. It happens thus. Later, the snake prince reaches marriageable age and they try to find him a suitable bride, but he kills every girl. He then demands as his bride the same girl that tutored him. The girl goes to her mother's grave again and her spirit advises her daughter to request a bridal dress made of forty hedgehog skins. Her request is fulfilled and she is brought to the snake prince. The girl tells the prince she will undo a layer of the dress if the prince removes one of his skins. It happens thus, and the girl, still following her mother's advice, prepares an oven and tosses the snakeskin along with the hedgehog skins to burn them. The snake prince is changed into a human youth, and father celebrates the fact. The now human prince marries the girl and they have many children.
Snake Prince (Sütçüler) In a Turkish tale collected from a source in Sütçüler with the title Yılan Şehzade ("Snake Prince"), a padishah cries for not having children. One day, he goes for a walk and meets a white-bearded man, to whom he tells his woes. The other man comforts the king that his wife will bear him a son. In time, the queen becomes pregnant and is ready to give birth, but their son is black snake. When the king learns his son is a snake, he remembers his words. The midwife cannot deliver the child, for he bites everyone to death. The king suddenly recalls the daughter of a farmer that can help in the prince's delivery, and sends for her. The story then explains the girl lives with her father and his second wife. The padishah's soldiers come for the girl and escort her back to the palace. The girl asks to pay a visit to her mother's grave before she reaches the palace. At the graveyard, the girl cries on her mother's grave for what she can do to help the padishah, and a voice echoes from the grave, telling the girl to have a cage made with a glass window, place some milk inside and attract the snake with it. The girl goes to the padishah and asks for the glass cage to be made, which she uses to capture the serpentine prince. She also takes care of the prince and feeds him with milk. After seven years, the padishah decides it is time to teach the snake son, but the prince bites every teacher they bring him. Thus, the girl is brought to the palace to deal with the situation. She cries again on her mother's grave, and the woman's spirit advises her to gather forty rose sticks, thirty-nine she will hold in one hand to beat the prince when he leaves the cage and tries to bite her. Some time later, the snake prince wishes to get married, but every bride they bring to him he bites to death. The padishah sends for the girl again, who goes to cry on her mother's grave. Her mother's voice tells her that, on the wedding night, she is to order the prince to take off his skin first, then she will remove her own clothes, and burn all of the snakeskins. Thus, the girl marries the snake prince. On the wedding night, the prince orders the girl to remove her clothes, but the girl replies that her husband should remove his first. The prince takes off the snakeskin, which the girl burns at once. When she goes to see the prince, she finds a youth handsome as the full moon.
Snake (Karakuyu)