Although it can be considered a tale type developed in the Baltic area, since most of the variants have been recorded there, variants are reported by scholar Leonardas Sauka to have been collected in nearby countries: 23 variants in
Estonia (near
Lake Peipus); 150
Lithuanian versions; 89
Latvian versions; 28 from Russia; 22 from
Belarus; 6 in
Ukraine; 3 from Poland; 2 from
Bulgaria. Variants have also been found from
Tatar (4 tales) and
Kazakh (1 version) sources. According to researcher Galina Kabakova, the fate of the children at the end of the tale is important to determine the origin of that particular variant (based on a geographical method): in the main Lithuanian versions, mother and children are transformed into trees, a motif that occurs in versions collected from the Belarus's border between Poland and Lithuania, and in Russian versions collected in Lithuania. On the other hand, if the tale ends with the transformation of the family into birds or reptiles, it is a tale from East Slavic origin.
Lithuania 120 variants are counted according to Kerbelytė's data. According to scholar
Norbertas Vėlius, the tale is "more common" in the eastern area of Lithuania, where "more than two thirds" of the variants have been collected. Variants collected at East Lithuania show the transformation of the children into birds. In a Lithuanian variant, ("The Girl and the Snake"), a widow lives with her daughter in a house at the beach. One day, the girl is sent to wash some clothes at the beach when a wave crashes and carries them away. The girl begins to cry, but a voice tells her it will return the clothes if she becomes the voice's wife. She accepts it and goes back home. That evening, a giant snake comes out of the sea and knocks at the girl's door. She opens the door and answers to the snake's wishes: to be given food and to sleep next to her in her bed. The next day, the snake asks her to prepare the oven and to throw it in the fire. The girl obeys and a human prince appears. He explains she disenchanted him and he will make her his wife as the "Queen of the Seas" (""), in his palace in the middle of the sea. In a Lithuanian tale translated to German with the title ("The Snake Whiteskin"), an old couple have three daughters and a son, and one day leave their children home while they go on a trip. After they leave, the girls go to pluck some flowers by the river and decide to enter the warm water for a bath. The girls leave their clothes on the shore and return to fetch, but the youngest girl finds a snake on hers. The snake promises to return the garments in case she promises to marry him, which she does. They return home and the girls tell their parents of the event. Years later, the snake himself prepares to fetch his bride and slithers from the lake. He sees a crow atop a tree and promises to reward the bird. The snake knocks on the human family's door and explains he is after his bride. The old parents try to trick the snake with a chicken, a sheep, a pig, a barrel and a pestle, but the crow alerts the snake about the deceit. Finally, the snake takes his bride and rewards the crow with a juostas and a kerchief. In the snake's house, the snake gives his bride iron shoes and a spinning wheel mixed with twigs, iron filings and wood splinters for her to wear down and untangle, respectively, before she can even visit her family again. She tries to do her tasks for years, as her husband told her, but cannot do so, and cries, when an woman neighbour offers her help and advises her how to perform the task: toss the shoes in an oven and let them heat up, and shake the wheel to remove the twigs and everything else and toss them in the oven to burn, then strike the hot iron shoes until they are thin enough. She does as instructed and shows her husband she has succeeded, then takes her back home six years after their marriage, and teaches her a magic command to open up the path back home. The girl returns home with two sons and a daughter and visits her old parents. The following days, the girl's only brother tries to bribe and threatens his nephews to reveal the secret command, but the boys refuse, save for their younger sister, who tells everything. The brother goes to the lake shore, summons the snake brother-in-law, called Whiteskin, and beheads him. Back home, the snake's bride is ready to leave, but her brother, father, mother and sister try to delay her by insisting she stays with them. She answers she would transform her elder son into an oak, the middle son into an ash tree, the younger daughter into an elm, and herself into a cuckoo. After leaving, she goes to the lake margin and tries to summon her husband Whiteskin, but the water foams blood, instead of milk, thus proving her husband is dead. Thus, the girl transforms her elder son into an oak, the middle son into an ash tree, the younger daughter into an elm, and herself into a cuckoo.
Latvia In Latvia the tale is known as or ("The Grass-Snake's Wife"). According to the Latvian Folktale Catalogue, the heroine curses her sons to become trees and herself to become a cuckoo. In a Latvian tale, translated into Russian as "Невеста ужа" ("The Bride of the Snake") and into English as ''The Sea Snake's Bride'', three girls run to the beach to play in the water. The third girl leaves the water and searches for her clothes, only to find a snake lying on top of them. The snake makes the girl give her ring in exchange for the garments, and slithers back into the water. Three weeks later, the snake comes to get his bride in a grand golden carriage. Her family tries to trick him twice, first with a goose, then with a she-goat. The third time, he gets his bride and takes her to his underwater kingdom. The next two years, her mother goes to the sea shore and asks about her daughter. A toad and a crab jump out of the water to tell the woman the girl is doing fine. On the third year, the girl herself visits her family with her children, then returns to the water. In another tale,
Das Schloß des Meereskönigs or "Дворец морского царя" ("The Palace of the Sea King"), the son of the Sea King gets curious about the land above the sea and decides to visit it. One day, he meets a despondent fisherman on the shore, who laments to the sea prince that he has not caught any fishes. The sea prince tells he will help him, on the condition that the fisherman gives him the first thing that is on the shore (which happens to be the fisherman's only daughter). The girl is wreathing a flower garland that is swept off by the wind and falls on the sea. The sea prince takes her to his kingdom, marries her and she gives birth to two boys. Years pass, and the girl is missing life on the land. Her husband agrees to let her up on the shore, but she has to eat a loaf of bread (that does not diminish) and wear out a pair of shoes (that do not wear out). A little bird gives her a clue on how to fulfill both tasks and she tricks her husband. The girl visits her family, but her brothers consult with a nearby witch, who reveals the sons know how to summon their father. The girl's brothers torture their nephews in the bath house and they tell their uncles the secret command. The uncles go to the beach, summon the sea prince and kill him with spears. When the girl goes to the shore to return to her husband, she summons him and sees his head floating in the water. Her sons change into water and she returns to her human family. In a Latvian tale from Ansis Lerhis-Puškaitis's (
lv) collection, from
Jelgava, translated to German as
Wie der Kuckuck entstand ("How the Cuckoo Originated") and to
Hungarian with the title
Hogyan lett a kakukk? ("How did the cuckoo appear?"), a mother finds a louse in her house, fattens it and make a pair of shoes for her daughter. Her suitors are to discover what material the shoes are made of (tale type AaTh 621, "The Louseskin"). A water snake (a
crested newt, in the original) announces it is a louseskin and marries the girl, taking her to its underwater palace. After some years, the girl wants to visit her human family, but the water snake sets a task: to wear down some pairs of iron shoes. She does and takes her three children with her. At the end of the tale, when she discovers the dead husband, she commands the elder son to become an oak, the middle child, a girl, to be a linden tree; the youngest into another tree; and herself into a cuckoo, to ever sigh over her lost love.
Finnic languages Estonia Tale type ATU 425M is also reported in
Estonia, with the title
Ussi naine ("The Snake's Wife"). A primary analysis by Estonian folklorist indicated 19 Estonian variants. where 9 texts have been recorded. In an Estonian tale translated to German as
Die Schuhe der Prinzessin ("The Shoes of the Princess") and to Hungarian as
A királylány bocskora ("The Princess's Footwear"), a king prepares two shoes, one made from
louseskin, the other from
flea skin. He sets a riddle for any suitors: whoever guesses the right material of the footwear, shall marry the princess. Human suitors test their skills. A snake slithers from beneath the well, goes to the king's court, and guesses the right answer. The princess is given to the snake as wife and goes with the animal to its home. The princess bears the snake man three daughters and goes to visit her family. Back to her castle, the princess's brothers express their distaste about their snake brother-in-law, and question their nieces about their home life. The youngest child reveals how they reach their house: their mother goes to the edge of a lake, sings a song and the snake father appears in a boat. The brothers go to the lake, summon the snake with the song and kill him as soon as he appears. Some time later, the princess takes her daughters and prepares to return home by summoning her snake husband, the boat appears dirtied with her husband's blood. The princess asks which of her daughters spilled the secret song (the youngest), and curses herself to become a birch tree, and her daughters to turn into parts of the tree (foliage, tree bark and membrane). In an Estonian tale published by folklorist
Oskar Loorits with the title
Die Schlangenbraut ("The Snake's Bride"), a mother consults with a wise man the fate of her daughters: her two elders shall marry later, but the youngest shall soon meet her intended mate, a snake. Meanwhile, the girls are bathing in the lake. When they leave to get her clothes, the youngest finds a snake on her garments, which promises to return them if she becomes his wife. She agrees to his proposal and the snake comes later to take her to his underground palace. Years into their marriage, the snake takes off the snakeskin to become a man, and they have three daughters. One day, their daughters wish to visit their grandparents. The snake father allows them to go back to land and teaches his wife a song to open a passage back to mainland. Before they enter her parents' house, the girl warns her daughters to keep quiet about their life. The grandfather asks his grandchildren about where they live; the youngest girl tells him about the snake husband and the magical song. The grandfather goes to the lake with a rifle, summons the snake and shoots him. The next day, the girl and her daughters go back to the lake. She summons her husband three times, but he does not respond. Sensing something wrong, she inquires her daughters about it: the youngest confesses. The girl begins to cry and becomes a birch tree, her two elder daughters birch bark and the youngest a trembling leaf. In a tale from the
Lutsi Estonians collected by linguist
Oskar Kallas with the name
Ussiks nõiutud mees (German:
Der in eine Schlange verwandelte Mann; English: "The Man Enchanted to be a Snake"), a couple prays for a son, and God gives them a snake. When the snake is older, he goes to a neighbour to court his daughters. He marries the elder in church. During the wedding festivities, the snake climbs onto her lap, but the girl shoos him away. On the wedding night, the snake kills her. This happens again with the middle sister. As for the youngest, she treats him with kindness and, on the wedding night, he takes off his snakeskin to become a handsome man. The man moves out of his parents' home with his wife to an island in the middle of the sea. They live together and have three sons. One day, the man's wife wants to visit her brothers, and the man teaches her a magic command to move from the island to the continent, while also warning her not to tell anything of their life to her brothers. She takes her sons to visit her brothers, and the brothers pry the children for anything. The youngest son reveals the secret command to his uncles. The uncles go to the beach, sing the song to summon the snake man and kill him. The man's wife goes to the beach and repeats the song to summon her husband, but he does not appear. She then questions her sons if any of them told anything about the secret song, and the youngest answers that he did. Crying, the girl becomes a birch near the shore, while her children become trees. German scholar collected an untitled Estonian tale: a king has a daughter and three sons. One day, the princess finds a louse in her father's hair, who decides to fatten the bug and use its hide as part of a suitor riddle: whoever guesses the nature of the hide shall marry the princess. A large snake comes to the castle and guesses it right, then takes the princess with him as his bride to his abode in the sea. To the princess's surprise, the snake becomes a man at night, and after a year she gives birth to a son. The girl wishes to go back home to show her father the child, and, despite some reservations, the snake husband allows her to pay him a visit, by teaching a spell to access her watery home. Back to the castle, she spends some time with her brothers, who insist to know how their sister can return to the snake's home. After much insistence, the brothers learn of the secret command and go to the seashore. The two elder brothers try to summon the snake brother-in-law, but he recognizes their voices do not belong to his wife. However, the princess's younger brother mimics her voice and tricks the snake into coming out of the water, only to be beheaded by the princess's brothers. Some time later, the princess and her child come to the seashore and try to call out to the snake husband, to no avail, so the princess turns into a Maserbirke (a type of
birch tree) and her son into a duck. In a
Seto tale collected by Estonian folklorist Ello Kirss Säärits from teller Maarja Kink, a king's daughter wears shoes made of fleaskin, and her father sets a challenge: whoever guesses the right material her shoes are made of shall have her for wife. One day, the princess is getting something in the castle's basement, when a snake appears and coils around her, trying to force the answers out of her. Fearing for her life, she tells the snake her shoes are made of fleaskin. The snake releases her. Later, many suitors come to the castle to make merry and try their hand at guessing, but the snake appears with the right answer and takes the princess with him as his bride. The snake takes the princess to a lake, they sail in a boat to an island and enter a castle filled with food and drinks. When they go to bed, the snake becomes a handsome youth at night, then goes back to being a snake in the morning. In time, the snake teaches the princess a secret command to call upon him from the island. Years later, the couple has two children, a boy and a girl, and the princess wishes to visit her human family, which the snake allows. The princess takes her children to meet her human family, and the princess's brother asks his nephew about their journey. The boy reveals the secret command to his uncle, who goes to the beach and summons the snake brother-in-law. The snake appears with the boat and the princess's brother shoots him with a gun, then returns home. Later, the princess takes her two children to the beach and calls upon her husband, to no avail. The princess's brothers invite her to come back to their father's castle, but the girl denounces them as her husband's murderers. She then turns her daughter into a birch, her son into a pine tree, and throws herself into the sea. Thus, the birch is a female tree and the pine a male tree.
Finland Tale type 425M is known in
Finland as
Uuza Vedenkuningas ("Uuza the King of Waters"), according to the Finnish Folktale Catalogue, established by scholar Pirkko-Liisa Rausmaa. Rausmaa also stated that the tale type was rare ("Harvinaisesta", in the original) in Finland, with its four variants collected from
Ingria (
Finnish: Inkeri). Author August von Löwis of Menar collected a variant from the village of Voloitsa (Valyanitsy), on the Soikino peninsula. In this tale, titled
Wie die Trauerbirke entstanden ist ("How the weeping birch came to be"), a rich man finds a louse on his daughter's hair, fattens it, kills it and makes a pair of shoes out of its hide. He then announces a contest to all prospective suitors: to guess the material of his daughter's shoes. A woman appears from the lake, becomes an old man and enters the court. She guesses correctly and takes the girl as daughter-in-law and wife for her son. Three years pass, and the girl has been living in a splendid underwater castle, but begins to long for home. Her husband agrees to let her visit her family with her son, teaches her a spell and give her gold to gift her family. She reaches home and spends some time there. Her brothers want to kill the underwater husband, so they leave early and wait by the lake with wooden bats. Their sister goes to the lake shore and summons her husband. As soon as he emerges from the lake, the brothers jump out of the hiding spot and beat the husband to death. The girl becomes a weeping birch and her son a tree branch.
Eastern Europe Professor Jack V. Haney stated that variants of type 425M appear "frequently recorded among the Russians", but "less frequently by Belarusians and Ukrainians". Galina Kabakova notes that, among the
East Slavic populations, the tale type ATU 425M assumes the features of an
etiological tale: as remarked by professor
Natalie Kononenko, it shows the origins of the cuckoo, the lark and the nightingale. In this regard, the heroine "nearly always" becomes a cuckoo, while her son "almost always" becomes a
nightingale, although the children may turn into different birds in other versions. In addition, another line of Russian scholarship states that the "etiological" tale of the snake husband is "common" ('распространенной', in the original) in
Polesian tradition: a girl goes to bathe in the river, a snake sits on her clothes and asks her to marry him; they marry, she lives with him in his underwater palace and bears him a son and a daughter; later, she goes to visit her mother, who learns the secret command to summon the snake husband and kills him; upon discovering her dead husband, the girl turns into a cuckoo, her son into a nightingale, and her daughter into a swallow.
Moldova Lithuanian scholar Bronislava Kerbelytė, in a 2004 article, reported two variants in
Moldova. In one sourced to
Budjak, the heroine marries the serpent husband, called Osip, who becomes a man underwater, and bears him a son and a daughter; her mother kills the serpent, and she curses her daughter to become a swallow, her son into the Morning Star and herself into a cuckoo. In a tale sourced to Codrin, the heroine marries the snake and gives birth to two sons; the heroine's elder brothers summon and kill her husband, and she curses her elder son to become a well, the younger a spring, and herself into a willow.
Mari people In a tale from the
Mari people titled "Слепая любовь" ("Blind Love"), some sisters go to bathe in the water. The youngest leaves and tries to find her garments, but a snake is lying on top of them and will only return her the clothes with the promise of marriage. She marries the snake. Three years later, the girl visits her family carrying her two children in tow, a son and a daughter. Her mother learns the secret command to summon the snake husband (called Isai Isanych) and kills the husband with a scythe. The girl sees the dead husband and commands the son to become a lark and the daughter a cuckoo, while she is washed away by the waves, never to be seen again.
Chuvash people In a tale attributed to the
Chuvash people, "Про девушку и про ужа" ("About the girl and the snake"), three sisters run to the shore to play and bathe in the water. The elder two leave the lake and, take their garments and go home. When the youngest sister leaves and looks for her garments, the maiden sees a huge snake sitting on her garments. The snake promises to give it back if she marries it. She agrees; the snake returns the garments and teaches her a command to summon him, Yaku. The snake takes her to his splendid underwater palace and reveals he must suffer some time under a curse: he is human under the snakeskin. She returns home to her family with dresses and money to give her sisters, and to wait for her husband to fetch her. The snake appears in a carriage to get his bride and take her to his underwater realm. Three years pass, and the snake's human wife has given birth to a boy and a girl. She insists on visiting her parents and showing them their grandchildren, but her husband warns that disaster may loom upon their family. The girl visits her family and one of her sisters asks her what she does to return to her palace in the bottom of the lake. The girl naïvely reveals the command to her sister, who goes to the shore of the lake, summons Yaku and kills him. When the snake's human wife returns to the shore, she sees a cut off snake head floating in the lake. She then enchants her son to become a beetle, her daughter a dragonfly, and herself a cuckoo.
Tatar people In a tale from the Tatar people titled "" ("Zuhra"), an old couple try to have a child, but none of their children survive, until they have a girl they name Zuhra. The couple keep her safe from the world, until she is fourteen years old, when some girls from the village enter the couple's house and beg for Zuhra to join them for playtime in the water. The old woman allows her daughters to join the others. Zuhra goes with the girls to bathe in a nearby lake and leaves her clothes on the shore. When she returns, a black snake ("Чёрный Змей", in the Russian translation) is lying on them and asks the girl to marry it. Afraid to utter any word, the Black Snake then assures her it will come back when she is eighteen, and slithers back into the lake. Zuhra runs back home and tells her mother everything, and they fence the house, hoping it will keep the snake out. However, when the time comes, the sky darkens and a retinue of snakes, jinns and peris come to Zuhra's house in their master's name. The Black Snake then appears and demands Zuhra as his bride. The girl agrees to come with him to the lake. The snake wraps itself around Zuhra, they both dive into the lake and swim until they reach a large gate. Past the gate, the snake uncoils itself, hits a golden staircase and becomes a human man. The man explains he was taken by the genie race when he was little, but eventually became their leader, and the girl has nothing to fear. Zuhra accepts him and they marry. Three years pass, and Zuhra begins to miss home. She convinces her husband to let her go to the surface to visit her parents, and he gives her gold and silver to gift his mother-in-law. He also teaches her a command to summon him when she returns, and makes her promise to keep it a secret. Zuhra and her children go back to the surface world and visit the grandparents. After pestering her daughter with questions, Zuhra eventually tells her the secret command. The old woman places her grandchildren to bed, and, taking a saber, goes to the lake in the dead of night to summon the Black Snake (the "padishah of the jinn"). The Black Snake slithers off to the surface, and is beheaded by the old woman. She returns home. The next morning, Zuhra says her goodbyes to her mother and goes back to the lake. She tries to summon her husband, but, realizing something is wrong, she finds the snake's body. She buries it and curses her children to become a nightingale, a swallow and a starling, while herself becomes a dove. In a tale from the
Kazan Tatars, collected by Turkologist
Ignác Kúnos with the title
Ajsélu, a woman has a daughter named Ajsélu who wants to bathe with her friends in the Ufer. After her friends leave the water, she goes to bathe alone and leaves her clothes on the shore. When she returns, a snake is lying on her garments and promises to return them if Ajsélu agrees to marry the animal. The girl agrees and returns home. After a week, Ajsélu and her mother are visited by a cadre of snakes that invade their house and take Ajsélu to the lake. Thinking her daughter drowned, the woman returns home. After three years, Ajsélu appears to her mother with two children in tow, a boy and a girl. Ajsélu says she is married to the Padishah of the Waters underwater, and life there is better, but her husband agreed to let her visit her family on land. The woman learns of the secret command to summon the Padishah, and insists Ajsélu spends the night there. When Ajsélu is asleep, the mother takes an axe, goes to the lake shore and summons the Padishah by calling on "Bikbau". The snake's head emerges and she beheads him. The following morning, Ajsélu takes her children and go to the edge of the lake, then tries to summon her snake husband. After a while, she notices the water is red as blood, and realizes Bikbau is dead, so she curses her son to become a swallow, her daughter to become a nightingale, and herself to become a cuckoo. Then they fly forevermore.
Southern Europe Bulgaria Tale type ATU 425M is reported in the
Bulgarian Folktale Catalogue with the name "Невястата на змея проклина децата си" or "Die Frau des Drachen verflucht ihre Kinder" ("The Wife of the Dragon curses her children"): a dragon sits on the girl's garments in exchange for marrying her; they wed and move to his palace at the bottom of the sea, where she gives birth to two children; the girl visits her family with her children and her daughter betrays the dragon's secret, which leads to him being killed by his brothers-in-law; the girl then curses her children to become trees. According to researcher Svetlana Ryzhakova, professor stated that in the Polish region of
Suwałki, a legend is told of a girl named Egle or Egla who married a snake being that lived in an underwater crystal palace.
Central Asia In a
Kazakh tale titled, "Красавица Миржан и владыка подводного ханства" ("Beautiful Mirzhan and the Ruler of the Underwater Khanate"), translated as
Mirzhan and the Lord of the Kingdom Under the Sea, Mirzhan, the beautiful only daughter of an old woman, is bathing in the water with some friends. Suddenly, a booming voice echoes from below the water asking the girl to marry it. The other girls flee in fear, while Mirzhan runs to the shore to get her clothes, but a snake sits on them. The snake asks the girl to be his wife and to live with him in his crystal palace. The girl accepts, if only to get her garments back. For the next week, her mother forbids her to set foot outside their yurt. However, a cadre of black snakes begins to slither out of the river to their house. The snakes take Mirzhan and disappear with her beneath the waters, as her mother grieves for her lost daughter. Some time later, as the old woman waits near the shore, she sees her daughter coming to her with two children, her sons. She explains she lives underwater and to return she only has to call on her husband's name: Ahmet. The old woman convinces her daughter to spend a night on her old home, while she goes in the dead of night to the shore to summon the snake spouse and kill him. The next morning, Mirzhan goes back to the shore to summon her husband, but she only sees a red tint in the river and her husband's head near the reeds. She then curses her daughter to become a swallow, her son a nightingale and herself into a cuckoo. In an
Uyghur tale titled
Ayı Sultan ("Bear Husband"), a village is located near a forest, and villagers earn their living by fetching wood and selling it. One day, some girls go to fetch wood in the forest, among which a girl named Nazigül. When Nazigül cannot find a rope to tie her bundle, a bear suddenly appears and takes her to its den, while her companions cannot find her. In the bear's den, Nazigül wakes up and sees the bear has turned into a handsome youth, who explains he is Ahmet, son of the forest padishah and has fallen in love with the girl, bringing her to his lair to marry her. The forest padishah marries the couple, and Nazigül and Ahmet live together. Years later, Nazigül goes to visit her parents' house with her children in tow, a boy and a girl. The girl meets her parents and explains her husband, the bear, gave her three days to visit her family, then return, then tells everything about her bear husband. Later that night, after Nazigül and her children are asleep, the girl's parents go to the bear's den and kill him, then return home. After the three day period is over, Nazigül and her children return to the forest and she tries to call for her husband, but he cannot answer. She ventures further into the forest and finds her dead bear husband. Nazigül then becomes a cuckoo, her son an iron-beaked bird that protects the forest and the daughter a
peregrine falcon that helps the people.
Africa Africanist Sigrid Schmidt stated that in African tales, the secret song known only by heroine and husband and learned by others who use it to betray the couple "connects ... also with the East European tale of
The Snake as Bridegroom". Scholar
Hasan El-Shamy lists 2 variants of the tale type found in
Algeria, under the previous name of the type.
West Africa Professor Loreto Todd collected a
West African (
Cameroon) tale titled
Bibaiyibaiyi an di papa-wata (
Bibaiyibaiyi and the Papa-Water). In this tale, the heroine goes fishing and a creature named Papa-Water appears to her, intent on marrying her. Papa-Water gives her plenty of fish and teaches her a magic song to summon him and the fishes. A group of boys overhears the incantation and summons Papa-Water to kill him. The story was considered by folklorist
Dan Ben-Amos as belonging to the type 425M. He also claimed that this narrative was "a common African variation on the Cupid and Psyche theme". In another West African folktale from the Mandinga people,
A noiva da serpente ("The Serpent's Bride"), there lived two sisters, Cumba and Sira. Sira bakes flour breads with "hydromel" (mead) to take to a mysterious person. Cumba follows her sister to a location near the water, and sees Sira chanting a song to summon an enchanted serpent from the waters. After Sira leaves, Cumba returns home to tell her mother everything. The girl returns to the beach with an armed man and sings the song of invocation. The serpent emerges from the water and is killed by the man. Later, Sira eats some food her mother prepared and a hen reveals it is made from the flesh of the serpent. Saddened with grief, she decides to enter the sea and a wave washes over her.
Yoruba people In a tale from
Yoruba people titled
The Beautiful Girl and the Fish, in a village a girl refuses all suitors, since she will only choose the most handsome man in the land. One day, she sees a man at the marketplace and falls in love with him at once, desiring to become his wife. The man says he wishes he could be her husband, but he is in fact a fish that lives in a river in Idunmaibo, to whom the gods have bestowed the ability to shapeshift into a man. The girl insists to be with him, and says she could visit him by the river. The man agrees and teaches her a magic song to call upon him by the river margin. They spend the days like so: the girl summons him, and he comes out of the water as man and gifts her gems and coral. Some time later, the girl's parents wish to marry their daughter, but she says she is already married, though she cannot disclose his identity. The next time the girl visits her fish lover, her little brother metamorphoses himself into a fly and follows her to spy on his sister's clandestine meeting, then reports back to their father. The girl's father sends his daughter away to some distant parents, then asks his son to lead him to the river at Idunmaibo. After they reach the river margin, they summon the fish lover with the magic song and the girl's father kills him with a hatchet. To further teach his daughter a lesson, he brings home the dead fish and his wife cooks a dish for his daughter's return. The girl refuses to eat the meal, but her father forces her to do it. While she is eating, her little brother sings some verses mocking the girl, mentioning how she is eating her own husband's flesh. Horrified at this revelation, the girl rushes to the river at Idunmaibo and prays to Oluweri, the goddess of the river, for her husband to appear alive; if not, "the face of the river" should appear red as blood. As answer to her plea, the river becomes red; she discovers her lover is dead and jumps into the river, becoming a
onijegi (a mermaid). The tale was translated by africanist into German as
Das schöne Mädchen und der Fisch and sourced from
Nigeria. American author
Julius Lester published a tale titled
The Girl With the Large Eyes. In this tale, in a village in Africa, a girl with large eyes is considered very beautiful, and the subject of marriage prospects among the men in the village. In a certain summer, a drought strikes the land, affecting crops and water bodies. Due to this, the girl with large eyes has no time to think about marriage, for she is busy finding water for her family. One day, the girl is walking by the river margin, when a fish comes to the surface of the river and asks the girl to give her pitcher, for it will give her water. The girl is at first afraid of the talking fish, but fulfills its request and the animal fills her pitcher with cold, clear water. She brings it home to her family, and they ask her where she found it, but she remains silent. For the next days, the girl goes back to the fish to fetch water, and begins to fall in love with it, eventually becoming its wife. One day, however, the girl's father, a witch doctor, suspects his daughter has mixed up with spirits, and turns his son into a fly to trail behind the girl and spy on her. The girl's brother, as a fly, discovers the girl's liaison with the fish, and reports to his father, who fears their affair will bring shame to his family. Thus, he orders the girl at home and takes his son with him to the river, calls upon the fish and kills it. Then, he brings home the dead animal and throws at his daughter's feet, mocking her "husband". The girl, who is pregnant, takes the dead fish with her and walks to a place with flowing waters. Calling on her husband's name, she enters the waters. Drowning in the water, she gives birth to many children, which are
water lilies. The tale was originally published as
Large Eyes Produce Many Tears by
Bakare Gbadamosi and
Ulli Beier, and sourced from the Yoruba people. ==Parallels==