Tradition / Region: Moldova Mythology
Alternative names: The Snake Prince
Category: Snake
The Myth
Prince Snake began life as a tiny serpent discovered inside an old man’s bag beside a well. The childless old couple adopted him as their son and raised him inside their small house. Fed with milk and nut kernels, the little snake grew with unnatural speed until his enormous body cracked the beams of the house and sank it into the ground beneath his weight.
When he became grown, the serpent demanded the hand of the king’s daughter. The king refused and tried to destroy him through impossible tasks. He ordered valleys dug overnight, mills built, seas brought beneath palace windows, vineyards raised in a single night, and golden roads covered with singing golden birds. Yet every task was completed by vast hosts of snakes and invisible serpents summoned by the prince’s terrible whistle.
At last the king surrendered and agreed to the marriage. The prince demanded an iron carriage with twenty-four wheels pulled by twenty-four horses because an ordinary carriage could not support his monstrous body. When he arrived at the wedding feast, his tail alone required three extra carriages. During the feast he coiled himself around the banquet tables so guests could sit upon him like benches.
But the serpent form was only a curse.
At night, after the wedding, he removed his snake skin and revealed his true appearance: an extraordinarily handsome prince crowned in gold and dressed in robes covered with pearls and precious stones. By day he was forced to wear the serpent skin, but after three more days the curse would have broken forever.
The princess, persuaded by her mother, secretly burned the snake skin while the prince slept. The fire hissed so violently that the earth trembled and the sky rang with noise. Furious and heartbroken, the prince revealed that the curse had almost ended naturally. Because the skin had been destroyed too early, he vanished beneath another enchantment, leaving his wife only a prophecy and three iron rings fixed upon her body.
To find him again, the princess wandered through distant lands and encountered Holy Wednesday, Holy Friday, and Holy Sunday, each guarding magical objects and accompanied by steel-toothed dogs. Eventually she reached the land of the fairies where the prince had been enchanted with food and drink of forgetfulness, causing him to forget his former life.
For three nights she wept beside him while he slept under magical enchantments. On the third night a rooster revealed the truth to the prince. His memory returned, he embraced his wife, shattered the iron rings with his hands, and their child was born instantly as a seven-year-old boy.
The prince then summoned countless serpents with another supernatural whistle. They brought forth a magnificent carriage and white horses from beneath the earth. Refusing to remain among the fairies, the prince returned home with his wife and child, where they lived together in peace beside the old couple who had once raised a tiny snake as their son.
Sources
Botezatu, G. (1986). Moldavian folk-tales (2nd rev. & enl. ed.). Kishinev: Literatura Artistikă.