Research source

M. Henri Gelin tells a good story of a witch who transformed herself into a dog.[68]

Date of account: Published 1915
Source: Human Animals
Reference: Human Animals · selected passage 181
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Then the serpent asked his mother to go back to the palace and fetch the king's daughter, and this time the king told the princess she must marry the serpent

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Then the serpent asked his mother to go back to the palace and fetch the king's daughter, and this time the king told the princess she must marry the serpent. There was a splendid wedding, and in due course the young wife found she was to become a mother. Then her friends grew inquisitive, saying, "If you are living with a serpent how can you hope to have a child?" At first she would not answer, but when her mother-in-law insisted on putting the same question, she replied, "Mother, your son is not really a serpent, but a young man, so handsome that there is none other like him. Every evening he strips off his snake-skin and in the morning he enters it again."

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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