The Girl Who Married a Snake

A childless Brahman couple, longing desperately for a son, received a divine promise during a birth ceremony that they would have a child of extraordinary quality. When their child was born a snake, the mother, undeterred by everyone's advice to abandon him, raised him with full tenderness, bathing him and feeding him until he grew to maturity.

Wanting a proper marriage for her grown son, despite her husband's doubts about who would ever give a daughter to a snake, the mother's grief moved the Brahman to travel far from home in search of a bride. In a distant city, a kind host offered his own beautiful daughter in marriage without hesitation, and the Brahman brought her home.

When the townspeople saw the extraordinary beauty of the bride matched against her serpent groom, they were horrified and urged her relatives to withdraw her from the marriage. But the girl refused, citing the sacred principle that a promise, once given in marriage, cannot be taken back -- and told the story of Poor Blossom to illustrate how even the gods cannot undo a fate already set in motion.

She married the snake with full devotion, tending to him faithfully. One night, the snake left the chest that served as his shelter and entered her bed in human form. Startled and frightened at first, believing a stranger had intruded, she nearly fled -- until he proved his identity by returning to the chest and emerging again, showing her the same transformation.

Overjoyed to find her husband was, in fact, a radiant human prince beneath the snake's skin, she embraced him fully. Her father-in-law, discovering the truth the next morning, burned the discarded snakeskin so that his son could never be forced back into that form again, and the family introduced their new, magnificently transformed son-in-law to the world with pride.