XXX.—TRANSFORMATION INTO A NIGHTINGALE
AND A CUCKOO.
A damsel fell in love with a snake, and was also beloved by
him. He took her to wife. His dwelling was of pure glass,
all crystal. This dwelling was situated underground, in a
kind of mound, or something of the sort. Well, it is said
that her old mother at first grieved over her. How could
she help doing so? Well, when the time came, the snake's
wife became the mother of twins, a boy and a girl; they
looked, as they lay by their mother, as if they were made of
wax. And she was herself as beautiful as a flower. Well,
God having given her children, she said: `Now, then, since
they have been born as human beings, let us christen them
among human beings.' She took her seat in a golden
carriage, laid the children on her knees, and drove off to the
village to the pope.
[3]
The carriage had not got into the
open country, when sadness was brought to the mother.
The old woman had made an outcry in the whole village,
seized a sickle, and rushed into the country. She saw she had
manifest death before her, when she called to her children,
and went on to say: `Fly, my children, as birds about the
world: you, my little son, as a nightingale, and you, my
daughter, as a cuckoo.' Out flew a nightingale from the
carriage by the right-hand, and a cuckoo by the left-hand
window. What became of the carriage and horses and all
nobody knows. Nor did their mistress remain, only a dead
nettle sprang up by the roadside.
