The Girl Who Married a Snake

In Palace City lived a Brahman named Godly and his wife, who had no children. Whenever she saw the neighbours’ little ones, she wept. One day the Brahman said, “Don’t be sad, my dear. When I was making an offering for a child, an invisible voice told me clearly: ‘Brahman, you will have a son more handsome, good and charming than anyone in the world.’” His wife’s heart leapt with joy. “I hope it comes true,” she said.

Soon afterwards she was expecting a child, and when the time came she gave birth to a snake. Her friends all told her to get rid of it, but she would not listen. She bathed the little snake, laid him lovingly in a big clean box, and fed him milk, fresh butter and other good things, until before long he was fully grown.

One day she watched the wedding of a neighbour’s son, and tears ran down her face. “I know you look down on me,” she said to her husband, “because you do nothing to find a bride for my son.” “My good wife,” he answered, “am I supposed to go down to the underworld and beg the serpent king? Who else would give his daughter to a snake?”

But when he saw how unhappy she was, he felt sorry. Out of love for her, he packed food for a long journey and set out for foreign lands. After some months he reached a faraway place called Kutkuta City, where he stayed with a relative he respected. He was welcomed with a bath and a good meal and spent the night there.

At dawn, as he was getting ready to leave, his host asked him, “Why have you come here, and where are you going?” “I am looking for a good wife for my son,” said the Brahman. “In that case,” said his host, “I have a very beautiful daughter. Please take her for your son.” So the Brahman took the girl and her servants and travelled home.

When the people of his town saw how lovely she was, they could hardly believe their eyes. “How can anyone give such a jewel of a girl to a snake?” they asked her servants. Her older relatives were upset and said, “Take her away from this creature.”

But the girl said, “Stop this. A king’s word, once given, stands; a holy man’s words come true; and a girl is given in marriage only once. What fate has decided cannot be changed. Even the gods could not change the fate of poor Blossom.” “Who was Blossom?” they all asked, and she told them.

The god Indra once had a beautiful, clever parrot called Blossom. One day, while Blossom was sitting on Indra’s hand, Yama, the lord of death, came to visit, and the parrot shuffled away from him. The gods asked why. “He brings harm to every living thing,” said Blossom. “Why shouldn’t I keep away?” To calm his fears, the gods asked Yama to spare him. Yama said, “That is not up to me. Time decides such things.” So they took Blossom to Time, who said, “Death is in charge of these matters. Ask him.” But the moment Blossom saw Death, he died. “It was simply his fate,” said Yama, “to die at the sight of Death.”

“So you see,” said the girl, “and I do not want my father to be called a man who broke his word.” With her family’s permission she married the snake, and she looked after him faithfully, bringing him milk and caring for him every day.

One night the snake slipped out of the big box that stood in her room, and before her eyes he took the shape of a man. “Who is this?” she cried, thinking a stranger had come in, and she jumped up trembling and ran to the door. Then she heard him say, “Stay, my dear wife. I am your husband.” To prove it, he went back into the snake’s body lying in the box and came out again. Now she saw him shining with a crown, earrings, bracelets and rings, and she fell at his feet, full of happiness.

Early the next morning his father, the Brahman, got up and found out what had happened. He took the empty snakeskin from the box and burned it, so that his son could never go back into it. And that morning he and his wife, overjoyed, showed everyone their son: an extraordinarily handsome young man, deeply in love with his bride.

About this story

This tale appears in Arthur W. Ryder’s 1925 Panchatantra, where a counsellor tells it to a king. It contains a smaller tale, “Poor Blossom,” about a parrot who cannot escape his fate.

This telling combines an animal bridegroom with a story about inescapable fate. The marriage promise is made by the girl’s father; her acceptance and the magical transformation should be considered separately from any claim that a parent can bind a child’s future.

Read the original: Arthur W. Ryder, The Panchatantra (1925), Internet Archive

Best for ages 9–12 — a fairy-tale marriage story with a magical change and a short story inside it about fate.

A closer reading

The bride tells ‘Poor Blossom’ to support her belief that the marriage is fated. In the smaller story, attempts to protect the parrot lead him to the very encounter that kills him. But the bridegroom’s transformation does not logically prove that every arranged outcome must be accepted. A character’s example can be persuasive within a scene without establishing a rule for readers’ lives.

The husband’s demonstration matters: when she fears an intruder, he enters and leaves the snake body so she can see the connection herself. Recognition follows evidence, rather than a demand that she ignore fear or trust a stranger’s assertion. The father’s later burning of the skin changes the son’s future without the narrative recording his consent, another point the happy ending leaves open.

The mother’s care resists her neighbours’ rejection of the unusual child. That care is distinct from finding him a bride as a response to her own distress. The magical snake’s human upbringing and diet belong to the fantasy; they are not instructions for caring for a real snake.

Try this with the story

Draw a frame around ‘Poor Blossom’ and identify the question that makes the bride tell it. Write the conclusion she draws, then decide whether the inner tale supplies evidence for that conclusion or expresses her belief. Compare this with the husband’s visible demonstration of his identity.

Talk about it

• Who originally makes the marriage promise?
• What does the bride believe ‘Poor Blossom’ proves?
• How does the husband establish his identity when she is frightened?
• Whose consent is not described when the snakeskin is burned?

More stories like this

• The Snake Prince — another Indian tale of a snake husband
• A Frog for a Husband — an enchanted husband in another tradition
• The Frog Prince — Grimm’s enchanted bridegroom