THE WHITE SNAKE

An educated and highly capable witch fell in love all of a sudden with a prince, but, try though she did, the prince did not want her at all. The infatuated witch wasn’t the sort to up and grovel before someone just because, due to her idealism (and she did grovel out of idealism), so just to be sure, she turned the prince into a white snake so that he would have time to think the whole situation over more thoroughly. And just to be sure, she left him alone in the forest, because it was known that he did not like mice.
And what do you know? A short while later, the white snake was found by a farmer’s wife picking blueberries. She shoved him into her basket at once, because white snakes bring good luck, and brought him home, where her husband, the farmer, could lay eyes on him, for he was in debt.
This unfortunate accident could have driven the infatuated witch crazy, and thus, she retired to the best sanatorium for sorcerers. The head doctor himself, who was enchanted by her, compounded and prescribed her a calmative. He was a very handsome wizard, a bit over a thousand years of age, so in this respect they were excellently matched for one another, but she didn’t think so, and was still constantly desperate for the white snake.
Her position did not put the head doctor on the defensive. He summoned some nurse witches with the best qualifications, gave them careful instructions, and sent them to the white snake.
One of the nurses transformed into a butterfly that swooped down to the nose of the gloomily napping white snake in front of the farmhouse and, with fluttering wings, informed him of a nearby castle where lived a prince’s beautiful daughter. At that moment, the white snake became thirsty and drank milk from a bowl that the farmer and his wife, both selfless and calculating, filled to the brim for him day in and day out, but by then the second nurse was in the milk, and once the white snake drank from the bowl, due to the spell he was under, he suddenly addressed the farmer and his wife in a human voice and requested that they ask for the hand of the prince’s daughter, because he planned to marry her.
When, upon hearing his words, the farmer and his wife scalded themselves out of shock on the fresh cabbage soup which they were just then bringing in a pot to the doorstep for lunch, the nurse intervened invisibly and not a trace remained of the burns, so the farmer and his wife became even more frightened and the farmer felt a sharp pain in his chest.
And so, while the delighted white snake rolled around happily on his back by the doorstep, the farmer, by now trembling, stood before the prince and asked for his daughter’s hand for the white snake. The prince, altogether paralyzed by the offer, at that moment lost his game of chess with a merchant from Bulgaria, but the prince’s daughter, who had, throughout the game, been flirting with the merchant because of his dark beauty, broke into laughter and said, why not? But, she said, the white snake had to come for her in a golden carriage drawn by a team of four white horses adorned with diamonds and then she would see, perhaps she would even marry him.
And at that moment, standing beneath the windows were a golden carriage – that was the head nurse – four white horses, adorned with diamonds – another four capable nurses – and a handsome young coachman – that was the nurse who had been a butterfly.
By now, the prince’s daughter sensed that she was about to realize an uncommon career and was very curious about the snake, but she no longer saw him, for the nurse who had been in the milk had magically placed him into a container for sterilizing injection needles – she always had everything with her on the road – and the prince shed his snakeskin. It was, let me tell you, a sight to behold, such a glowing and beautiful couple, and engaged, at that!
As soon as the operation was complete, the nurses brought the white snakeskin to the head doctor as a souvenir and the head doctor gave each of them a new monogrammed flying broomstick.
Once the infatuated witch learned of all this, she fully understood the head doctor’s feelings and involvement, forgot about the unpleasant episode from the past, and flew on a lace broomstick straight to the head doctor at his office – and what did she see? The doctor, unhappy with love for her, was kissing the nurse who had been in the milk! The witch fired her at once and had a bag made out of white snakeskin at her wedding with the head doctor and it suited both of them wonderfully.