The serpentine
The snake mother is a fairy tale . It is in Ludwig Bechstein's New German Book of Fairy Tales at position 47 and first appeared as The Snake Nurse in Zeitspiegel (1831), also in Bechstein's Poems (1836) and German Book of Legends (No. 942).
content
A woman breastfeeds her child after mowing. A snake comes and sucks on its chest. It stays for ten months and grows, the woman needs a carrying bag and people mock the "snake wedge". A magician lets snakes dance around her in a forest clearing, and she gets rid of them. Once the snake saves the child from a wolf and a bear - now it has rewarded good with good.
origin
The Snake from No. 46 Snake House Friend tells the fairy tale of the cat to show that the snakes are "neither wrong nor ungrateful," as people imagine. Bechstein found the subject “orally and also in books”. His German book of legends keeps it shorter. Compare with Grimm KHM 105 fairy tales from the toad , with Straparola Biancabella .
literature
- Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. New German fairy tale book. After the edition of 1856, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 261-265, 296.