“The Snake." The falcon under the hat: Russian merry tales and fairy tales, Selected and translated by Guy Daniels, New York: Funk & Wagnalls; 1969, pp. 29-31.

Tale Summary

There was once a girl named Masha, who one day went with her friends for a swim and left her smock on the shore. After her friends had left, Masha found that there was a huge snake on her smock and was horrified. He lifted up its head and asked for her hand in marriage, and so terrified of the creature, she agreed as long as he got off her smock. Masha ran home and told her mother everything, but the woman laughed it off as a strange dream. A week later a whole army of snakes arrived at their home, slithered under the locked gate, and threw themselves against the window until they were inside. When they found Masha hiding in a corner, they dragged her away with them and took her into the water. Years later, she saw Masha again, carrying a little girl and boy, and was overjoyed. Masha told her she was living in the watery kingdom with her snake husband and was very happy there, and to get back home she would stand on the shore and say:

“Osip! Osip! Come out and get me!”

Masha agreed to spend the night with her mother. When she fell asleep, the woman took an ax and went to the water’s edge, calling out what her daughter had told her. When the snake appeared, she cut off its head. When she got back home, her daughter woke up and said she was going to leave because she didn’t feel right. She arrived at the water’s edge with her children but saw that it was red with blood, and found her husband’s severed head. Masha turned to her children and said that they no longer had a father and soon would not have a mother. She told her daughter to be a little swallow and to fly over the water, her son to be a nightingale and to sing at twilight, while she would be a cuckoo and cry for her murdered husband. They all flew away in different directions.