The Serpent-Wife

His heart grew heavy within him as he thought of all this, and he wept bitterly at the harm he had done to himself. Then the Serpent said to him, “Weep no more. What is to be, must be. Is it thy standing corn thou art grieved about? Go up to thy barn, and there thou wilt find all thy corn lying, to the very last little grain. Have I not brought it all home and threshed it for thee, and set everything in order? And now I must depart to the place where thou didst first find me.” Then she crept off, and the man followed her, weeping and mourning all the time as for one already dead. When they reached the forest she stopped and coiled herself round and round beneath a hazel-nut bush. Then she said to the man, “Now kiss me once, but see to it that I do not bite thee!”––Then he kissed her once, and she wound herself round a branch of a tree and asked him, “What dost thou feel within thee?”––He answered, “At the moment when I kissed thee it seemed to me as if I knew everything that was going on in the world!”––Then she said to him again, “Kiss me a second time!”––“And what dost thou feel now?” she asked when he had kissed her again.––“Now,” said he, “I understand all languages which are spoken among men.”––Then she said to him, “And now kiss me a third time, but this will be for the last time.” Then he kissed the Serpent for the last time, and she said to him, “What dost thou feel now?”––“Now,” said he, “I know all that is going on under the earth.”––“Go now,” said she, “to the Tsar, and he will give thee his daughter for the knowledge thou hast. But pray to God for poor me, for now I must be and remain a serpent for ever.” And with that the Serpent uncoiled herself and disappeared among the bushes, but the man went away and wedded the Tsar’s daughter.