The Snake in the Wood

LIKE many others in the world, there was a widower who had three daughters. One day, the eldest told her father that she had to go and see the country. She walked for two hours and saw men cutting gorse and others mowing hay.

She returned home, surprised to have seen such beautiful things. She told her father the wonderful things she had seen, and her father answered:

"Men cutting gorse!" Men mowing hay! »

The second girl also asks to go like her sister, and she comes back after seeing the same things. And the third girl said she had to go too.

“Child, what will you see? »

“Me, like my sisters, something or other. »

She took the same path as the others; and she, like the others, saw men cutting gorse and men mowing hay. She went further, and she saw washerwomen; and she went a little further till she had walked for three hours, and she saw loggers chopping firewood. 

She asked them if she should see something more if she went a little further. They told her she would see other loggers chopping firewood.

She went much further into the wood, and she was caught and held prisoner by a snake. She stood there crying and unable to eat anything; and she remained thus eight days, very sad; then she began to resign herself, and she stayed there for three years. After three years, she started wanting to go home. 

The snake told him to come back after two days; that his time was almost over, and that he was the son of a king condemned for four years (for being a serpent). He gave her a distaff and a silver-gilt spindle and a silk handkerchief. He tells him :

"If you don't find me here when you return, you'll have to wear seven pairs of shoes, six leather and one pair of iron (before you can find me). »

When she returned home, her father would not let her return to the house where she had spent so long with a king's son, doomed to be a serpent. She said that her time was almost up, and that in thanks she should come back; that he said he would marry her. The father had her put in prison, locked up in a very high room. 

On the fourth day she escaped and went to the place, but she did not find the king's son. She already had shoes on her feet. She had almost exhausted them. After that, she bought another pair. She kept traveling and asking if it was far, and they told her it was very far. She bought yet another pair of shoes, and these, too, wore out on the road. She bought a fifth pair, and after them also the sixth.

She then asked if she was still close, and they told her she was still very far away. Then she bought the seventh pair of shoes, made of iron. And when she had come a little way in those shoes, she asked if it was far from there to the king's son. The seventh pair of shoes was nearly worn out when she arrived in a town and heard music sounds. She asked what was happening in the city.

“The son of such a king is getting married today. »

She went home and knocked on the door. A servant came.

" What do you want? »

She asked if there was work to spin, and she would spin it.

And the servant went and told the mistress. The lady ordered the maid to let her in. She let her in. And when she was in the kitchen, she showed the silk handkerchief which the king's son had given her; and she started blowing her nose with it. 

The lady was quite astonished to see the young girl blow her nose with such a beautiful handkerchief, as if it were nothing, when her son had such a one for his wedding day. So she told her son, when he came back from church, that she had an old daughter who came from very far away, and said to her:

"She has a silk handkerchief like yours!"

And the king's son said to his mother:

“I too need to see that spinster you have over there. And he started going.

And his mother said to him:

“But why do you have to see her?

"I want to see her. »

He went to the kitchen, and in his presence she used her silk handkerchief.

He tells him,

" Show me that. »

She tells him,

"It's too dirty to put in your hands, sir." »

The gentleman said to him:

“I want to see it and show it to me. »

(Then) he recognized the girl. She showed him (also) the distaff and the spindle.

At table, when everyone was telling stories, this king said:

“I also have a story to tell. »

Everyone fell silent and turned to look at him and he said:

“Before, I had the key to a chest of drawers, I lost it and had a new one made. (After that, I found the old one.)”

And he turned to his wife:

“Should I use the old or the new? »

And she replied:

“If the first one was good, why should you use the new one? »

Then he gave her this answer

“Before, I had a wife, and now I took you. I leave you, and I take the old one. So go home. »

It was the story of the snake in the wood.