The Snake Bridegroom

Once upon a time there was a very rich man who had no children. He went to a Hasidic rebbe and said, “Rebbe, pray to the Lord and ask him to bless me with children.”

The rebbe said, “I will, but you must promise to hire twenty servants to care for the child that may be born to you.”

“Certainly,” said the rich man.

Not long afterward the man’s wife conceived, and nine months later she bore a son. Promptly she sent to town for twenty servants. But when the boy was two years old she thought, “Why do I still need so many servants? I’ll dismiss a few.” And so she did. She let first one, then another go, until finally only one was left.

One day the rich woman stood at the stove warming milk when it occurred to her that she had sent the servant on an errand and no one was watching her boy. She hurried to his room just in time to see him falling out of bed. When he touched the ground, he turned into a snake and disappeared.

One year followed another, until eleven years had passed and the time came when the lost boy would have begun to use tfiln, phylacteries. Then one night he appeared outside his parents’ window and cried, “Father, Mother. Get me tfiln, because it will soon be time for my barmitsve.”

“Certainly,” said his father. “I’ll get you the best tfiln in the world. Just come into the house and let me see you.”

The boy said, “No, Father. That cannot be.” And he went away.

In the morning the father went to the holy rebbe and told him all that had happened. The rebbe said, “When the boy comes again, set out a pair of tfiln on a chair.”

Two nights later the boy came again and knocked on the wall. At once his father put out a chair on which he set a pair of tfiln. Just then a strong wind blew up and the tfiln disappeared; but when the father searched, no one was there.

On the boy’s eighteenth birthday he came back again and said, “Father, I am grown now. It’s time for me to marry. Get me a bride.”

His father said, “Of course, my son. I’ll get you a rich young bride. But won’t you come into the house? I want to see you.”

“That cannot be,” replied the son, and he went away.

The next morning the rich man told the rebbe all that had happened. The rebbe said, “Today is Thursday. Harness your wagon and drive off in any direction you please. Travel until midnight and then stop wherever you happen to be, even if you are driving through water, even if you find yourself in the heart of a forest. Wherever it is, stop there.”

The rich man did as he had been told, and at midnight when he stopped, it was in the middle of a forest. Two old people who lived in a hut not far away allowed him to spend the Sabbath with them. At his insistence they accepted the money he offered, and the old woman bought all sorts of food for the dinner table on Friday night. Yet the rich man saw that she put aside portions of everything and that she later carried them out of the house.

He watched her do the same thing on Saturday morning and again on Saturday night. Finally he said, “Mumenyu, auntie, why is it that you take away portions of every meal?”

“It’s because I have twelve daughters,” she said, “and we are so poor that not one of them has a dress. So I hide them in the cellar, and when God sends us anything to eat, I carry a part of it to them.”

“In that case,” he said, “let me have your oldest daughter to be my son’s wife.”

When they saw that he was not making fun of them but meant what he said, the old couple agreed. So the rich man took their oldest daughter away with him to be a bride for his son. As the girl was being led through the streets at her wedding, she heard people shouting, “She’s going to marry a snake.”

“That’s strange,” she thought. “They must mean that his name is Snake.”

When the ceremony was over and she was brought home to her father-in-law’s house, she was put into a fine room, and that night a handsome young man came to it. “Now, my bride,” he said, “what will you call me?”

“Why, I’ll call you ‘Snake.’ Isn’t Snake your name?”

For that, the handsome young man promptly strangled her.

When her body was found in the morning, the rich man went back to the hut for a second daughter and married her to his son. But she too called him Snake and was killed. And the same thing happened to each of the other daughters.

Finally it was the turn of the twelfth daughter. However, when the handsome young man came into her room and said, “Now, my bride, what will you call me?” she replied, “Why, what else shall I call you but ‘my dear husband’?”

He smiled and said, “You, my dear, are my destined bride, and we shall live in happiness. One small thing I must ask you: never let firelight into our room.” The girl agreed gladly.

Some time later the bride’s parents paid her a visit. They found her living in fine, clean rooms. The mother said, “I am really curious to see what your husband looks like.” And without her daughter’s knowledge, she hid in the young couple’s room when night fell.

All at once, there he was. When he took off his serpent shirt, the mother could see how handsome he was. She snatched the shirt up and burned it with a lighted match. Then still holding the match, she tried to see his face.

Furious, the young man turned to his wife. He broke his wedding ring in two, handed her half of it, and said, “Because of what she’s done, I must leave you. When the two halves of the ring are united again, I’ll return.” Then he was gone.

Nine months later the young woman gave birth to a beautiful boy. When he was six she sent him to kheyder, where he turned out to be exceptionally bright. But the other children teased him, saying, “Your father is a snake, your father is a snake!”

The boy asked his mother, “Why do the children say that my father is a snake?”

“Never mind what they say,” she told him. “Your father is a tall, handsome man.”

The next day when he came home from school, he found his mother weeping over her half of the broken ring. He asked why she was crying. She said, “Your father promised to come back to us when the two parts of the ring are united.”

Hearing that, the boy said, “Then I’m going to look for my father.” He took his prayer book, put his mother’s half of the ring inside it, and started off.

On his travels one evening, as he was reciting his prayers at an inn, he heard someone else saying prayers beneath the floorboards of the room.

The next morning he left his room, and while he was gone, his father came out from under the floorboards. Seeing the boy’s prayer book, he looked into it and found the other half of his wedding ring. He closed the book and hid in a corner, and when the boy came back his father watched him wash his hands and heard him recite his prayers. Then the tall, handsome man stepped forward and said, “Tell me, my boy, where are you traveling?”

“I’m searching for my father,” replied the boy. “See,” he said, showing his half of the ring, “my father promised to return to my mother when the two halves of this wedding ring are united.”

The boy’s father said, “Watch.” And with that he took out his half of the ring and matched it with the boy’s, and the ring at once became whole.

“You must be my father,” said the boy.

“I am,” replied the man. “Now let’s go home.”

And so they went home together, and when they arrived there was great rejoicing. And the father and the mother and their son lived happily from that day to this.

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Glossary

rebbe: (lit., “my master”) A Hasidic spiritual leader; a rebbe may or may not also be a “rov” (ordained rabbi, q.v.). A “melamed” is usually addressed by his young pupils as “Rebbe.”
tfiln: (tefillin) Small boxes (phylacteries) containing Biblical texts (Exodus 13:1–10, 13:11–16; and Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21) written on parchment, which are strapped to the arm and forehead during weekday morning prayers by observant male adults.

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Annotations

TELLER: Rivke Dizhur, (no place recorded), (no date recorded)
COLLECTOR: Sorke Kuperman.
SOURCE: V.A. 154:14.
TALE TYPE: cf.311 (Ia, II, IIIa, IV, V).
COMMENTS: See comments to no. 28, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” regarding unusual heroes. For an English translation of a Yiddish variant in which the hero is a bear, see “The Bear Bridegroom,” in B. Weinreich (1957) pp. 288–94.