Note on grateful and ungrateful snakes

Note: this text is extracted from Book II, chapter 9:

“The Śavara took the bracelet and departed, and then the snake, being pleased with Udayana, bowed before him and said as follows:—‘I am the eldest brother of Vāsuki, called Vasunemi: receive from me, whom thou hast preserved, this lute, sweet in the sounding of its strings, divided according to the division of the quarter-tones, and betel leaf, together with the art of weaving unfading garlands and adorning the forehead with marks that never become indistinct’...”

Eastern fiction abounds in stories of grateful and ungrateful snakes. We shall come across more such stories in later volumes of this work. They are usually of Buddhist origin, and we find numerous snake stories in the Jātakas (e.g. “The Saccamkira,” No. 73, which is found in vol. i, p. 177 et seq., of the Cambridge edition). In this story the snake is one of a trio of grateful animals, and presents the hermit with forty crores of gold. See the story of Ārāma 9 obhā and the grateful snake in the Kathākoqa (Tawney’s translation, p. 85 et seq.). In Kaden’s Unter den Olivenbäumen there is a similar snake in the story of “Lichtmess.” Compare the tale of the goldsmith’s adventure with the tiger, the ape and the snake in Katila wa Dimna, and the Pali variant from the “Rasavāhini Jambudīpa” story in The Orientalist for November 1884. In some cases after the man has helped the snake, the latter attempts to bite him, or forces from him some promise of self-sacrifice at a later date.

For examples of such stories see Clouston’s Eastern Romances, p. 231, where in the Tamil Alakēsa Kathā is the story of the “Brāhman and the Rescued Snake.” In this case the snake gives the jewel from its head, which he is bidden to give his wife and then return to be devoured. On the honest man’s returning the snake repents of its ingratitude and gives a second jewel. Compare the famous story of the snake in “Nala and Damayantī.” See also J. Jacob’s Æsop, Ro. ii, 10, p. 40, and his Indian Fairy Tales, pp. 246 and 247.

In the second story of Old Deccan Days (p. 21) a grateful cobra creates a palace twenty-four miles square.

In Arabian fiction we find the grateful snake in the Nights (Burton, vol. i, p. 173; vol. ix, p. 330). In both these stories the snake is rescued from a pursuing dragon. See also Chauvin (op. cit., v, p. 5).

In Europe we find many stories of the grateful snake. In the Bohemian version of M. Leger’s Slav Tales, No. 15, the youngest son befriends a dog, cat and serpent. The latter gives him a magic watch resembling Aladdin’s lamp. In the ninth of M. Dozon’s Contes Albanais the reward is a stone which, when rubbed, summons a black man who grants all desires. In a popular Greek tale in Holin’s collection the reward is a seal ring which, when licked, summons a black man, as in the Albanian story. (See Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. i, pp. 226 , 227, 228, 231, 321-325.)

Finally compare the tale of Guido and the Seneschal, entitled “Of Ingratitude,” in the Gesta Romanorum (Swan’s edition, vol. ii, p. 141, No. 39).— n.m.p.