Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 7 · page 21 2101Say you will!"102So she said, "Very well, I will."103Then the snake glided off from the shift, and went straight into the water.104The girl dressed and went home.105And as soon as she got there, she said to her mother,106"Mammie, mammie, thus and thus, a snake got upon my shift, and says he, 'Marry me or I won't let you have your shift;' and I said, 'I will.'"107"What nonsense are you talking, you little fool! as if one could marry a snake!"108And so they remained just as they were, and forgot all about the matter.109A week passed by, and one day they saw ever so many snakes, a huge troop of them, wriggling up to their cottage. "110Ah, mammie, save me, save me!" cried the girl, and her mother slammed the door and barred the entrance as quickly as possible.111The snakes would have rushed in at the door, but the door was shut; they would have rushed into the passage, but the passage was closed.112Then in a moment they rolled themselves into a ball, flung themselves at the window, smashed it to pieces, and glided in a body into the room.113The girl got upon the stove, but they followed her, pulled her down, and bore her out of the room and out of doors.114Her mother accompanied her, crying like anything.115They took the girl down to the pond, and dived right into the water with her.116And there they all turned into men and women.117The mother remained for some time on the dike, wailed a little, and then went home.118Three years went by.119The girl lived down there, and had two children, a son and a daughter.120Now she often entreated her husband to let her go to see her mother.121So at last one day he took her up to the surface of the water, and brought her ashore.122But she asked him before leaving him,1 2← previousChapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 6next →Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 8↑ back to Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-loreThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg22373/25/page/2/