F30. Snake lover. .10.11.17.19.-.29.31.32.37.38.

.40.41.43.-.49.51.-.53.55.-.57.59.-.68.70.72.

A girl or woman takes a snake, eel, moray eel, lizard or worm as a lover or spouse. People kill or maim the lover, woman and/or offspring, or she herself turns into a snake. Cf. motif K76B (the snake husband becomes and remains a handsome man). See motif F29.

Hottentots, Kaguru, Suto, Shone (Karanga), (Baka), Edomites, Kiwai, Watut, Bukawak, Porapora (Lower Sepik), Mono, Banks Islands (Gaua), Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Bellona, ​​Mangaia, Tuamotu, Mangareva, Tahiti, Maori, Mizo (Lushei), Bugun, Bori, Minyong, Liangmai, Burmese, Khmer, Sora, Baiga, Gond, Sinhalese, Timor, Flores, Loda, Paiwan, Chinese, Koreans, Bulgarians, Moldovans, Croats, Russians (Tersky Bereg, Zaonezhie, Novgorod, Moscow, Tula, Ryazan, Kursk, Vyatka, Voronezh, Saratov), ​​Ukrainians (Transcarpathia, Galicia, Poltava, Kharkov), Belarusians, Karachays/Balkars, Lithuanians, Lutsi, Setos, Estonians, Veps, Finns, Chuvash, Mari, Kazan Tatars, Kazakhs, Nivkhs, Ainu, Japanese, Ryukyu (Miyako and north), Ancient Japan, Mackenzie Mouth, Copper, West Greenland, Chipewyan, N'Perce, Western and Eastern Ojibwa, Western Woodland Cree, Western Swamp Cree, Prairie Cree, Northern Ojibwa (Sandy Lake), Sauk, Montagnais, Naskapi, Huron, Seneca, Tuscarora, Passamaquoddy, Delaware, Sarcee, Blackfoot, Assiniboine, Mandan, Arapaho, Arikara, Pawnee, Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, Caddo, Cherokee, Creek, Hichiti (Tunica), Kato (Maidu), Northern Paiute (Owens Valley), Southern Paiute (Shivwitz), Huichol,Otomi, Rama, Boruca, Kabekar, Bribri, Embera,Nonama, Kogi, Yupa, Paes, Guambia, Sanema, Yanomami, Caribs of Dominica, Caliña, Oyampi, Colorado, Imbabura, Shuar, Aguaruna, Napo, Mayhuna, Siona, Huitoto, Bora, Andoke, Carijona, Cubeo, Tucano, Tatuyo, Barasana, Desana, Maku, Mundurucu, Cusco Dep., Pasco Dep., Aymara (Puno Dep.), Shipibo, Marubo, Cashinahua, Yaminahua, Kapanahua, Ashaninka, Piro, Tacana, Chacobo (Aicana), Kalapalo, Mehinaku, Bororo, Iranshe, Kayapo, Kraho, Tshukarramae, Chamacoco, Maka, Toba.

Southwest Africa. Hottentots [girl gathers fuel in the veldt, meets a snake, takes him as a lover; her belly swells; the snake kills cows, their meat cannot be eaten because of the poison; the snake sometimes crawls into the woman's womb, sometimes comes out; the men leave, leaving her with a supply of water and a bag; the men wait at a pass in the rocks; the woman appears carrying a snake in a bag; the snake thinks the men do not know about it; the men kill it with arrows; the woman gives birth to many snakes, they are killed, the woman is treated]: Schmidt 2007, no. 51: 118-120.

Bantu-speaking Africa. Shone (Kaguru) [the husband went to his plot, and the wife into the forest for firewood; there the serpent told her to bring him food, otherwise it would crawl to her house and bite her; she cooked corn husks for her husband, and brought flour to the serpent; then she began to slaughter roosters for the serpent; one woman told her husband the truth; he waylaid the woman with the serpent; when she left, he called the serpent, it crawled out of a cave, the husband chopped off its seven heads; the woman went to the serpent, found it dead, cried; her husband drove her away]: Beidelman 1971, no. 4: 21-22; Shone (Karanga) [a girl took the serpent Mundawerere as a lover; each time she tells her father that she feels unwell, so she will not go to work in the field; brings the serpent food, has sex with it, returns; One day the father saw a snake, beat it with a stick; when the girl calls him, the snake does not want to crawl out of the hole; but she advises him to kill her father, it will be easier for them to meet; after this the snake kills an antelope every day and brings it to the girl; she tells her relatives that a hunter brought the antelope; her brother followed; putting on his sister's clothes, came to the hole and began to call the snake as his sister called him; chopped the snake with an axe; showed it to his father and other men; they killed the girl, both corpses, threw the snake into the hole]: Sicard 1952, No. 23: 37-39.

( Cf. Sudan – East Africa. Baka [a girl was chasing birds away from millet, fell asleep on a platform; a gitsi snake (as thick as an arm, invisible, lord of snakes) came into contact with her without her noticing; she was surprised to see that her thighs were wet; she told her father; he lay in wait for the snake, chopped it into pieces; a boy was born, but did not speak; when he grew up, he saw the gitsi snake, and began to speak; the gitsi clan is descended from him]: Jensen 1959: 54-55).

Asia Minor. Edomites [In the land of the so-called Jews or Idumeans, the inhabitants glorify a story from the time of King Herodes about a serpent of enormous size, in love with a blooming girl, who, visiting her often, slept with the said girl, like a passionate lover. But the girl was very afraid of her lover, although he crawled to her as best he could, quietly and tenderly. So she secretly went away and spent a month away from him, since she thought that the serpent, due to absence, would forget his beloved. But his loneliness only increased his passion, and the serpent came to her every day and every night, but did not meet with the one he desired, and suffered like a lover who has failed in love. When the girl returned again, the serpent came to

her and, surrounding her with the rest of his body, he lightly hit his beloved’s ankles with his tail, considering himself neglected and, obviously, therefore angry]: Elian, 5, 17 .

Melanesia. Kiwai [in many stories a snake enters a woman through the vulva, the woman's belly grows, but the same snake comes out; sometimes people drive the snake out, but the woman always dies; one woman killed a fish, it was the snake's wife; it made the woman pregnant without her knowledge; she gave birth to two snakes, suckled them; the snake-father warned that if the snakes were killed she would die; the woman's husband killed them, she died]: Landtman 1927: 315; bukawak [two unmarried women caught an eel, put it in a calabash with water, made a husband of it; their small sons looked for water to drink, found an eel, roasted it, ate it; the mothers decided to leave them, but one left a fire and baked taro; the boys went to look for their mothers; ordered the mango tree to pick them up, threw the fruit to the pig, putting an obsidian knife inside, the pig died; the younger one went to get fire; the fire is with the cannibal Okémo; she orders the boy to carry her child, she herself carries the fire; the child is sore, with sharp bones; O. devours the pig's flesh; while she goes to wash the entrails, the boys boil the remaining meat, carry it to the tree, put O.'s child in the pot; she eats it; calls people from the village to cut down the tree where the boys are hiding; the cut becomes overgrown; one child throws chips into the fire, they no longer grow back; the tree falls, crushing O., the other people go home; the boys turn into parrots, fly away into the forest; in bad weather they are in the mountains, and in good weather by the sea]: Lehner 1931a, no. 16: 65-68; porapora: Schwab 1970, no. 3b [an Arero woman hid in a stone axe hanging on the wall; she came out of it, pierced children with sharp leaves, cooked, ate; she was waylaid, she jumped back into the axe, it was thrown into the fire, it jumped out into the river; from there A. in the form of a woman moved to the top of a palm tree; the trunk could not be cut down, they called her brother Ambang, he shot her down with an arrow, she was finished off with clubs, the meat was divided, A. asked for a vagina for himself; at night the vagina glowed, he kept it in a bag to light the forest when hunting wild boars; A.'s mother did not care about his property, he killed her; he met people fused in pairs, divided them; they had no anuses, and the men also had holes in their penises, A. made them; other people lived in a pit, croaked; A. taught them to speak and walk; A.'s grandmother was W.; an eel jumped into her vagina; she gave birth to a son, hid him in a shell, from there he came out to her as a grown man; her great-niece Arero spied on her, pulled the eel out of the shell, killed it, cooked it, gave it to W. to eat; she created a crocodile, lured Arero to a tree above the river, Arero fell, the crocodile killed her; the mother of the murdered woman threw the bag with W. into the river, but she managed to take fire, a dog and a heron with her; she swam to a place where people did not know fire, they cooked in the sun; W. secretly cooked in the house of two brothers, the dog and the heron were her guards; the younger one followed, W. married the older one; Unkinye came to ask W. for fire, stole her; the brothers found him, freed W., chopped W. into pieces; the head sank into the older one's testicles, it cannot be torn off; the younger climbed the breadfruit tree, but threw down only unripe fruits; the elder climbed, the head agreed to come down temporarily; he threw ripe fruits, one threw further; while the head grabbed him, the brothers ran away; the head grabbed the muzzle of a boar, who carried it off; tore it off on the trunk of a betel palm], 4 [an eel climbed into the vagina of the widow Waro; it was a dead man turned into an eel; she began to copulate with it regularly, hid it in a coconut; her daughter found the eel, killed it, cooked it with sago; V. lured her up the tree, released wasps, the girl fell, V. killed her; the people decided to throw V. into the river, she managed to take with her fire, a female and a male dog, an osprey, a pot, sago, one of the dogs then turned into a heron; swam out, began to live in the house; hid when two brothers came; the elder went into the forest, the younger lay in wait for V., grabbed her; she told them her story]: 774-778, 779-780; melpa[a brother sees his sister approach a lake and allow a snake to suck her breast; the brother went to the lake, clapped his hands (as his sister did, calling the snake) and chopped it up with an axe; the next day the sister saw pieces of the snake's body, ran into the house and hanged herself; the brother was left alone - he worked in the garden and cooked food; when his apron and headdress got dirty, he began to walk naked, because there was no one around; one day he saw a sweet potato growing near the latrine; he baked it, after which the head of a snake appeared from the ashes; the lake overflowed its banks, the man drowned; the water receded, vegetables continued to grow on the site of the former garden, people came for them; one man set a trap and caught an eel; he offered to slaughter a pig too, to arrange a feast in the men's house; but the eel disappeared; a girl came into his house to get some hot coals, and there was a snake with fish scales on its belly; on one side there was a snake, on the other a pig; people came running - no one; they decided that it might be the spirit of the drowned man; they said prayers, which they still say]: Vicedom 1977, no. 78: 110-111; vatut [(no. 31 best matches the definition of motive)]: Fischer 1963, no. 28a [a wife refused to sleep with her husband, built a separate hut nearby; he ordered a huge snake to crawl into the woman's belly; at night the snake crawled in, only its head outside; relatives tried in vain to pull the snake out, killed it, but it remained in the woman, she died], 28b [a husband bewitched his wife, a snake crawled into her; relatives ordered her to come out, chopped her up, but the head remained inside, the woman died; the woman's brothers killed her husband], 28c [the husband found out that his wife had a lover; he sent a large serpent to her, which took the form of that man; the woman slept with the serpent; people dragged it into the house, set it on fire, but its left hand (i.e. the serpent in anthropomorphic form?) remained outside; the children saw how the serpent blocked the river with its leg, but the people did not believe it; the children went to the mountain; the people sacrificed a pig to the serpent, but he was not satisfied, he shot into the ground, water gushed out, everyone drowned, only two young men were saved on a coconut palm; they ate coconuts, the shells fell into the water, they were carried to the mountain, where the girls were saved; the young men jumped into the water, swam after the shells; married girls, had many descendants], 31 [a huge serpent turned into a man, his wife was a kangaroo; two sisters came to him, became his wives; at night he went to a separate hut; they asked him to sleep with them; at night he turned into a serpent; the sisters lowered a long rope down the river, their parents found them by it; the husband paid the bridewealth; one day the wives' brother killed the serpent, they said that he had killed their son-in-law; returned to their parents]: 172-173, 173-174, 174-175, 176-177; Kai (German New Guinea) [an eel husband searches for his wife; her new husband cuts him into pieces, from which yams grow]: Neuhauss 1911: 180-185 in Beckwith 1970: 104; mono(Shortland Islands): Wheeler 1926, no. 37 [woman made a snake her child, cared for it more than for her husband and real child; husband killed wife and snake], 38 [woman climbed a betel palm, there was a snake at the foot; it crawled into the woman's vagina, the woman died, her body was burned]: 36; Banks Islands (Gaua, Koro language) [while cultivating yam gardens, people sent two girls to fetch water; they saw the shadow of a man on the water; he refused to come with them - they would kill him; but they persuaded him and left him in the bushes at the edge of the gardens; the people noticed that the girls giggled as they worked; one of the men noticed the stranger being brought in and warned the others; they beat him with sticks and pierced him with arrows; he fell and turned into a moray eel; the girls poured water on it from a calabash until the moray eel slid into the water; they jumped in after it; since then all three of them have lived in this river: the girls and Wusemelmel]: http://alex.francois.free.fr/AFtxt_select_e.htm (In love with an Eel Man).

Micronesia – Polynesia. Marshall Islands [chief's wife takes an eel {probably a moray eel} as a lover; sends her husband on distant expeditions for fish; he watches his wife feeding the eel, grabs it, the wife pours coconut oil on the eel, it slips out; since then eels are slippery and hide in any hole, having no permanent one]: Davenport 1953: 225-226; Samoa (Savaii) [Sina's father gives her a caught eel; she takes care of it, it grows, is transferred to a large body of water; having climbed a tree, S. shakes the fruit into the water for him; when she tries to pick it up, the eel deflowers her; S. runs, it pursues her; knowing that the chiefs are going to poison him, he asks Sina to bury his head, from which a coconut palm grows]: Polinskaya 1986, no. 28: 113-114 (briefly in Beckwith, 1970: 103); Tonga [Hina cries when her eel is pulled out of the pond in which she was swimming, cut up, eaten; the head is buried, from which a coconut palm grows]: Beckwith, 1970: 103; Tahiti : Beckwith 1970: 102 [Hina has a husband with the body of an eel; she runs to Maui for help; he catches the eel on a hook, gives the severed head to H., ordering it to be buried; going to swim, H. leaves the head unburied, from which a coconut grows; her daughter takes a coconut to Tuamotu on Ana Atoll, where a coconut palm grows out of it], 102-103 [while bathing, Taitua amuses herself with an eel; it chases her, she flees, the eel is caught in a trap; in a dream he tells T. to bury his head; a coconut palm grows out of it]; Bellona ["text T31 tells of Sina's intercourse with a serpent"]: Monberg 1966: 88; Mangaia [Ina-moe-aitu has an eel (Tuna) admirer; he sends a flood, swims to her house, asks her to cut off and plant his head, a coconut grows out of it]: Beckwith 1970: 103; Tuamotu [Tuna lives in a lake, his wife is Hina; Maui leads H. away, T. follows her, M. kills him, a coconut palm grows out of his head]: Beckwith 1970: 103; Mangareva [husband and wife raise an eel in a hollow; it moves to the pond where Meto is swimming, has intercourse with her; returns, tells what happened, is killed]: Buck 1938: 415; Hawaii [1) Puhi-nalo eel is the lover of a girl from Oahu; her brothers watch him, fight with him, kill him by hitting him against a rock; 2) Eel and Sea Cucumber in the form of young men become lovers of two sisters; their father watches them turn into animals again, catches them in a net, cooks them, gives them to the daughters to eat; they vomit, one regurgitates a small eel, the other a sea cucumber, the father burns the regurgitated; these are the children that girls would have given birth to]: Beckwith 1970: 136; Maori[Maui's wife Hine goes to the lake for water; Tuna-roa jumps out of the water, wraps herself in rings around H., who did not manage to escape, and returns to the lake; this happens twice; H. tells M.; M. takes the water out of the lake, catches T. with a net, cuts her into pieces; the head becomes a fish, the tail a sea eel {moray eel?}, and the pieces of the body become freshwater eels]: Reed 1960: 41-42).

Tibet - Northeast India. Bori [a brother has four sisters; they go fishing, see a snake, only the eldest sister sees a man; the next day she carries rice not to her brother and sisters in the field, but to the river, returns with fish; so for many days; the brother waylaid her, killed her snake-lover, the sister became a bird, screaming, Taki -Rigo ; hearing her voice, snakes crawl out of the ground; the middle sister goes to the forest for brushwood, her dog brings her game; the third sister's tiger-lover brings deer, for the fourth a bear digs roots; brother watches each time, kills sisters, remains alone]: Elwin 1958a, no. 1: 356-359 (=1958b: 395-398; Mizo (Lushei): McCall 1949 [Chawngchilhi goes to the plot with her younger sister to guard the crops from birds; loses weight; the father asks the younger daughter to tell the truth; she says that Ch. is copulating with a snake; the father tells the younger to call her lover in the voice of the elder; she sings the lines that Ch. sang; the snake comes out, the father cuts it with a sabre, kills Ch.; before her death she gives birth to many snakes; the father kills all but one; he becomes a cannibal, his cave is visible to this day]: 77-79; Shakespear 1909 [=1912: 107-108; every day the elder sister Chhawng-chili tells the youngest to call a snake from the hollow, copulates with it, eats dinner with it; the youngest does not eat out of fear, loses weight; tells her father; he puts on his daughter's dress, sends the youngest to call the snake, cuts off the snake's head when it crawls up; at home, the father hacks the eldest daughter to death, 100 snakes crawl out of her, the father kills them, but one baby snake crawls under a pile of garbage; it grows huge; people feed it, they began to give it goats and pigs, then children; Poi wrapped a knife in goat entrails, put his hand in the snake's mouth, killed it]: 399-401; bugun (Khowa) [The King of Snakes sees a girl bathing in the water; comes to her in the form of a handsome man, tells her who he is; the girl spends all her days by the river with her Snake lover, does not help her mother; gives birth to two eggs, drops one into the river, hides the second in box; mother opens box, cooks, eats egg; Serpent sends drought; fish hatched from first egg bring water to girl's mother's field; mother catches fish, fries, eats; girl throws herself into river to Serpent]: Elwin 1958b, no. 2: 357-361; minyong: Elwin 1958b, no. 9 [a brother and sister live alone; the brother wonders where his sister takes her food and drink, watches, sees her tapping the water with a stick to summon a snake; it coils around her, inserts its tail into her; she feeds it; the brother calls the snake with the same signal, cuts it into pieces; the sister gives birth to snakes, takes them to the forest; continues to live in her brother's house], 2 [a brother has three sisters; he watches the eldest, who carries rice and meat, stamps along the shore to summon a snake; the brother calls it with the same signal, kills it; the next day the sister sees the cut snake, hangs herself; the brother cuts open her belly, snakes crawl out; since then snakes and people have been enemies; the second sister gets together with a dog, goes into the forest with him, gives birth to three puppies; a brother comes to his sister, eats her rice, does not eat the meat given to him by the dog; when the parents of the puppies go to the plot, he kills the puppies; a caterpillar from under the hearth says that she will tell everything to her husband's parents; a man carries off the caterpillar; leaves it in the forest, it makes Tibetan bronze vessels for him; carrying them home, he wakes up the monkeys with a ringing sound, they kill the caterpillar with arrows; a young man lures the monkeys into a hollow, burns it; one escaped, became pregnant from a leaf that fell from the sky, the monkeys bred again; the third sister got along with a tiger; the brother came to them, the tiger brought meat, regurgitating it; the brother left, dressed the dog in women's clothing, the tiger rushed at her, the brother killed him; returned the sister; she smeared herself with egg yolk, put a knife in her mouth, turned into a tigress, but he managed to kill her (=1958a: 359-365)]: 367, 398-404; liangmai [the beauty refuses everyone; falls in love with a stranger; he takes her to the river, tells her to close and wash her eyes; she finds herself in a beautiful underwater country of snakes; she is ready to marry their prince, but wants to introduce the snakes to her mother; when she was brought, the snakes turned into people; when leaving, the woman, on the advice of her daughter, took as a gift garbage, which turned into gold on the shore; during his next visit, the prince forgot to give human form to his children; seeing the little snakes, the woman doused them with boiling water; the mother and daughter ran to the ground, hid under a basket; the snakes did not find them; but since then snakes and people have been at odds]: Miri 2006, no. 8: 34-42.

Burma - Indochina. Burmese : Aung 1957 [after leaving university, lazy Mong Paung Chain learns that princess's husbands die on the first night; he marries the princess, puts a banana trunk in his place; Naga crawls out from under the roof, sinks his teeth into the trunk, they get stuck, MCH kills Naga with a sword; Naga was the princess's lover; she pays a hunter a thousand coins to skin Naga, a hundred to a seamstress to sew a pillow, makes a hairpin from a bone; orders him to solve the riddle in 40 days: for a thousand they tore him apart, for a hundred they sewed him up, his beloved made a hairpin from the bone; MCH's parents hear Raven telling Crow that they will soon feast on MCH's eyes, because he will not be able to solve it (describes the riddle); [parents give answer on last day; MPCh receives throne, does not execute but exiles princess]: 65-69; Brown 1921 [Kin Saw U – wife of King Thado Saw; a dragon jumped out of a thickening on the main pillar of the palace, mated with the queen, bit the king to death; TS's brother married KSU, died in the same way; all six brothers of the king died in this way; KSU gave birth to a son Pauk Tyaing, he was abandoned in the forest, raised by adoptive parents; palace ministers seek a spouse for KSU; PT offers himself; does not sleep at night, kills the dragon; the dragon becomes nat (spirit), he is revered under the name of the Great Father; KSU asks PT a riddle, he guesses, having heard the answer from a crow; bears him two sons; because of the mother's previous relationship with the dragon, they were born blind; they were sent down the river; they regained their sight, founded the city of Prome]: 93-94; Khmers [the husband leaves to sell beads; his wife Ni drops an axe into the hole of the snake Kengkang, agrees to fight with him for the returned axe; every evening he sends his daughter for K., she brings him to her mother; the father returns, the daughter tells what happened; he orders the snake to be called in the usual way, at home he cuts off its head and tail, gives the meat to his wife under the guise of pork; a raven cries that she is eating her lover; N. cries, seeing K.'s head hanging on a branch, replies to her husband that she burned herself with soup; the husband calls N. to give birth on the river bank, cuts her in two, the little snakes that crawl out of her womb give birth to today's snakes]: Gorgoneyev 1973: 127-132 (= Marunova 1972: 142-145; a short retelling in Thierry 1977 [the husband leaves, the wife and daughter go into the forest for firewood, the wife drops an axe into the hole of the snake Ken Kan, asks for it to be returned; he agrees in exchange for the woman's promise to get together with him; every evening the woman sends her daughter for the Snake and she brings him into the house; the woman becomes pregnant; the husband returns, the daughter tells him what is happening; he kills the Snake, the daughter cooks the meat, the mother, unaware of this, eats her lover; the husband kills his wife by the river, all kinds of snakes crawl out of her womb (the origin of snakes)]: 167-168).

South Asia. Sora [in the name Jora-sim (“river spirit”) the word “ɳoa” refers to a boa constrictor with horns like a cow’s head; these boas are the cattle of the spirits of the earth (Labo-sim); such a boa constrictor took a Sora girl as a wife, but her brothers, out of jealousy, chopped him into pieces; after this he ascended to heaven; while there he causes illnesses in first-born infants, who will become members of different patrilinjas than their mothers; flour mixed with water is offered to him, symbolizing mother’s milk]: Pier Vitebsky, personal comm. with Anaztasia Krylova, February 2021; Sinhalese [prince: women are deceiving, I will not marry; the god Shakra created a woman from a part of the prince’s body and he agreed to take her as his wife; the wife got together with a cobra snake, who told her to find out what the prince’s life was like; the prince finally confessed that it was in his thumb; cobra wanted to bite prince on the finger, but servants managed to kill it; wife ordered gold belt from jeweler, put cut off hood of cobra inside, asked prince a riddle: snake belt in gold chain around the waist; he can't guess, prepares for execution; his elder sister found out the answer and said; prince executed his wife]: Parker 1910, No. 19: 157-159; Gonds [10 brothers forbid wives to allow their sister Dasmotin Kaniya to go for water; one day each of the wives says she is sick, DK goes to the water, cobra swallows all the water in the pond; brothers come, each asks for water, but cobra gives it only after DK enters the pond; she disappears under water, becomes cobra's wife; after a few years cobra-husband invites DK to visit her brothers; they go hunting with their son-in-law, ask to see how long it is, cut it into 10 pieces; DK gives the younger brother ornaments, in exchange for this he shows her the place of the murder; the remains of the cobra are burned on a fire, DK throws herself into the fire]: Elwin 1944, No. 22.1: 443-446; baiga [a pregnant woman wanted mushrooms; her husband went to look for them; a nag gave mushrooms in exchange for a promise to give him his daughter if a girl was born; the parents tried to say that a boy was born, but it was useless to lie; when the girl grew up, her father took her to a pond; she wanted to pick a lotus (this is the form taken by the nag), enters the water; when she was completely submerged, the father smashed his head on a stone; a flower grew on the spot where the girl's placenta was buried, and in it was a boy; the mother soon died; the boy went begging, found his sister; hunts with her husband; he immediately eats everything he got, is going to eat his wife's brother; the youth cut it into pieces; the sister was glad, they returned home]: Elwin 1944, no. 22.2: 446-448.

Malaysia – Indonesia. Timor [Buik Ikun catches eel, brings home, releases it into stream, says she would like to be his wife; calls him every morning; Eel comes out of water to her in form of man, they chew betel; her six sisters follow, call Eel with same words, cut off his head; BI goes underwater, weaves, sitting on coconut palm; witch drags her down, makes her a slave, becomes Eel's wife in her place (apparently recovered), swallows utensils; Eel meets BI, she identifies herself, he tells her to fight witch with sword in hand, gives witch weaving sword; BI kills witch, plates, spoons and cups fall out of her belly; BI becomes queen]: Morris 1984: 23–29; Flores [a pregnant woman should not leave the house if there is a rainbow, for a miscarriage may occur - the rainbow serpent will eat the child; but if a woman has a child from her relationship with the serpent, the rainbow will not harm it]: Bader 1971: 953; loda [three brothers have a sister, Kàsomòmo; they hear her talking to the serpent; they see her anointing it with oil; (in the absence of her sister?) they killed the serpent by thrusting a red-hot awl into it; K. went to the mouth of the river and began to enter the water; the children (she is a widow?) began to call to her, but she continued to dive and only asked the children to pay attention to her lice; she disappeared into the water, and her lice turned into small fish that live in the mouth of this river]: Baarda, Dijken 1895, no. 43: 275-276.

Taiwan – Philippines. Paiwan : Whitehorn, Earle 2003, no. 18 [when going to the river, Savałi does not tell her mother to open her box; she opens it, there are baby snakes in it, they crawl away; when S. returned, she saw one snake and understood everything; asked her mother what she had done with her children; putting on a bamboo hat, she went to the east and disappeared into the sea; she was pregnant by a sea monster and returned to it], 41 [the Kului woman's husband is a large snake, which she kept in a basket; Ulung {apparently her real human husband} sent her to get water, and he opened the basket; Why are you looking at me? asked the snake and crawled into a hole in the south; when K. returned and found out what had happened, she said that she would go to the snake and disappeared]: 126, 194.

China – Korea. Koreans : Kontsevich, Riftin 1980 [a rich man has a daughter who is visited at night by a man in a dark purple dress; the father orders a needle and thread to be pinned to the unknown man’s clothes; the next day the thread is found under the northern fence stuck into the body of a large earthworm; this worm became the father of Kyonghwon]: 61; Trotsevich 1996 [same text; this worm became the father of the rebel Chinhwon]: 107; Ikeda 1971, no. 411C [the type is known in Korea (Chosen Mintan Shu, p. 132) and China (FF Communications 120 , no. 109; Eberhard, 1965, no. 29)]: 103–104.

The Balkans. Bulgarians : Daskalova-Perkovska et al. 1994, #425M [The dragon hides the clothes of the youngest of three sisters who were bathing in the sea; takes her as his wife; in his palace the wife gives birth to two children; the dragon agrees to let her go see her parents if she wears out a pair of iron shoes and spins a certain amount of wool; lets her go for three days with the children, ordering her not to talk about him; the children talk about their father and how their mother calls him out of the sea; the wife’s brothers call him, kill him; the wife and children try in vain to call her husband, sees a bloody sea; curses the children, turning them into trees (the daughter turns into an aspen)]: 150-151; Strandzha. Material and Spiritual Culture. Sofia: Academic Publishing House “Prof. Marin Drinov”, 1996 [one dragon married a girl; They had a daughter and two sons; the mother went with the children to visit her brothers; they wanted to save their sister from the dragon, asked the children how to find the dragon's house; the boys did not tell, but the girl told the truth; then the mother cursed her children so that they would turn into trees: the boys - into an oak and an ash, the girl - into an aspen with eternally trembling leaves]. Pp. 216-236, 223; Moldavians (2 variants: Budzhak and Kodrin) [{there are no retellings of the texts, individual episodes are mentioned}; in the Budzhak variant, the mother calls out to the sea "Osip, Osip, come and take us"; the dragon swims out, the mother chops off his head with an axe; the wife turns her daughter into a swallow, her son into the Morning Star, and herself becomes a cuckoo; in the Kodrin variant the brothers come to the sea, one says, "My dear Serpent, rise from the bottom of the sea, I have come to you, my dear"; the Serpent comes out, the brothers chop him with scythes, beat him with sticks; the dying Serpent utters a curse; the wife turns into a willow, the eldest son into a well, the youngest into a spring]: Kerbelite 2004: 171-177; Croats : Uther 2004(1), no. 425M: 255.

Central Europe. Russians (Murmansk, {Arkhangelsk}, Novgorod, Tula, Ryazan, Kursk, Vyatka, Voronezh, Saratov), ​​Ukrainians (Galicia), Belarusians [ The wife of a snake (snake, reptile) : the youngest of three sisters marries a snake, whom she has fallen in love with; she visits her relatives with her little son (or son and daughter); meanwhile, the husbands (husband) of the older sisters (brothers, mother) manage, by imitating the voice of the snake's wife, to lure her husband out of the river and kill her; the woman conjures her son (children) to turn into an oak tree (nightingale, etc.), and she herself turns into a cuckoo or sails away in a boat, drowns herself in the river]: SUS 1979, No. 425M (=K458): 146; Belarusians: Grynblat, Gursky 1983, #57 [the girls were swimming, a snake crawled onto one of their clothes and promised to get off if she would become his wife; she promised, and he took her to the sea; five years later he let her go with her three children to see their mother; he told her to come back in five days and call out, "Yakub!" If blood appeared, he was dead, if foam, he was alive; the older boys were beaten at home, but they said nothing; but the youngest daughter told; a snake was summoned and killed; the wife saw the blood and became a cuckoo; the sons became a birch and a fir tree, and the daughter became an aspen], 63 [the girls were swimming, a snake crawled onto one of their clothes and promised to get off if she would become his wife; she promised, and told her mother; the snake and many snakes broke the window of the hut and took the girl away; one day she returns to her mother, with her her son and daughter from the snake; explains to her mother that when she returns to her husband, she will shout on the river bank for Osip to come out and take her; the mother persuaded her daughter to stay the night, went to the river, called a grass snake, cut off its head; the daughter came with the children, saw the dead body; sprinkled herself and the children with the grass snake's blood, became a cuckoo, the daughter a swallow, the son a nightingale]: 62-63, 65-67; ​​Dobrovolsky 1891, No. 40 (Smolenskaya) [the daughter married a forester against her mother's will; the forester's wife settled with her husband behind a swampy river, the crossing was a bridge hidden from the mother-sorceress; she ordered her son and daughter not to tell their grandmother about the bridge; one day the grandmother came and began asking the children where their father crossed the river; the grandson was silent, but the granddaughter showed the bridge; a woman runs to the bridge, sees there the corpse of her husband Yakub, stabbed to death by his mother; the forester's wife tells her son to become a nightingale, turns into a cuckoo herself, tells her daughter to become a frog so that everyone will spit on her; the cuckoo calls plaintively, "Yakub. Yakub!"]: 277-278; Karatkevich 2000 [Yas has two sons, he wants a daughter; his wife fell asleep by the lake; in a dream, a snake with a golden crown on his head promises her a daughter if she later gives her to him as a wife; daughter Yalina grew up, went swimming with her friends; the snake crawled onto her clothes: I will return the clothes if you become his wife; she promised to marry the snake; the snakes took the daughter away; she ended up in the palace; her sons are Oak and Ash, daughters are Birch and Aspen; she asks her husband to let her go see her parents; Ya's brothers interrogate her children; they tell the youngest Osinka that they will kill the others if she does not tell where her father is; she had to tell, they killed the snake; Ya. runs to him and sees him dead; hears a voice: you did not love; Ya.: loved; the snake is an enchanted prince, only the most beautiful girl could disenchant him; Yalina became a spruce, her children - trees, according to their names]: 38; Ukrainians (Transcarpathia, author's note) [the woman's husband was Uzh; the children did not love him and killed him; when the mother learned of this, she cursed them, told her son to become a nightingale, her daughter - a nettle]: Sokil 1995: 45; Ukrainians(Poltavskaya, Kremenchug) [the girls went swimming, took off their shirts, a viper crawled onto Masha's shirt; demands that she marry her; she had to agree; three years later the vipers knocked out the window in the hut and carried Masha away; three years later Masha came to her mother's window with her little daughter and son; she told her that life under water is peaceful and rich; you can go ashore to sit in the sun, and then call three times, "Osip, Osip, take me"; at night the mother decided to kill the wizard, came with an axe, called, as Masha taught, cut off her husband's head; in the morning Masha saw the head on the water; she told her son to become a nightingale, her daughter a sparrow, and she herself became a cuckoo]: Zanfirova 1929: 59-60; Ukrainians : Bulashev 1909 (Kharkiv, Kupyansk district) [a handsome man proposes to a forester's daughter; he takes her away in a carriage to a palace at the bottom of a lake; he is a snake; they have a boy, Vasya, and a daughter, Gorpusha; the husband agrees to let his wife and children go visit her parents; he turns into a bridge across a river; the woman's father asks the children who their father is; G. lets slip that he has just turned into a bridge; the old man chops it down with an axe; returning, the wife sees blood on the shore; the woman turns her daughter into a nettle, her son into a cornflower, and herself becomes a cuckoo]: 360-363; (cf. Dragomanov 1876, no. 27 [the girls were bathing, a grass snake crawled up one of their dresses; it didn’t come off until she agreed to marry it; she called it “kuku, kuku”, it came out; it said that if it didn’t want to come to it, it wouldn’t remain a woman anyway, it would become a bird; it decided to become a bird – a cuckoo]: 8-9); Ioanidi 1985 (Velyka Obukhivka village, Mirgorod district, Poltava region) [a mother and daughter were reaping rye; when the mother went home, the daughter stopped to wash her hands; on the way to the house, she knocked on an oak tree with a sickle, the sickle fell into the ground, it went down after it, made friends with the Grass Snake, and it gave birth to a boy and a girl; missing its mother, it asked its husband to take them up to visit it; the woman started asking about its grandchildren, the girl let it slip; the woman ran to the oak tree and started knocking on it, the Grass Snake stuck his head out, thinking it was his wife, the woman chopped it off; having learned what had happened, the Grass Snake's wife told her son to become a nightingale, and her daughter to become a cuckoo, who had no home of her own]: 81; Kulish 1857 [the girl fell in love with the Grass Snake, he took her away to his underground crystal palace; she gave birth to twins - a son and a daughter; she got into a golden carriage and went to the village to baptize the children; the woman's mother rushed to kill her with a scythe (for having intercourse with the Grass Snake); the woman told her son to turn into a nightingale, and her daughter into a cuckoo; they flew away, the carriage, the horses, and the woman disappeared]: 33-34; Belarusians: Nenadavets 1996 [{brief retellings of fragments of the plot, known throughout Belarus; everywhere a snake crawls onto the clothes of a bathing girl, demands that she marry him; takes her to a palace under the river, where he turns into a handsome man; brothers or mother summon the snake, chop it into pieces; the ending with the transformation of the children is not considered}]: 202-207; Smirnov 1984, No. 50 (Polesie) [girls were bathing, a snake crawled onto the clothes of one; crawls away when she promises to become his wife; three years later he comes to visit his mother with his son and daughter; Yakub replies that he is calling her husband by calling on the river ; the mother comes, calls, cuts off the snake's head; the wife calls, sees the floating head; tells her daughter to become a swallow, her son - a nightingale, she herself becomes a cuckoo ("zovulka")]: 208; Russian: Russians (Tersky Coast) [an old woman's daughter went swimming with her friends; a beetle crawled onto her dress: if you marry me, I'll give you back your dress; the girls advise her to agree; at night there was a knocking sound and setting; after the third night the mother put a death dress on her daughter, sang a funeral service and sent her off to the lake; Osip Tsarevich was there; three years later the wife asked permission to visit her mother, took her son and daughter with her; the mother asked what she should call upon her return, Osip, Osip, take me; at night the mother came with an axe, called, a human head stuck out, the mother cut it off; in the morning the wife went to call, the head appeared and disappeared; the mother told her son to become a dove, her daughter a swallow, she herself became a cuckoo; [the widow cuckoo flies to other people's nests]: Balashov 1970, No. 42: 137-139 (=1991: 102-106); Russians (Zaonezhie) [the girls were swimming; 11 folded their shirts, and the 12th threw them to the side; a snake crawled on her; he demanded that she marry him, she had to agree; the girl and her mother kept all the cracks in the house closed for three nights, but the snake whistled so much that they had to go out; during the day he was a snake in the river, and in the evening she called to him: Come out, my dear, snake, become a guy; they already have two children, if they had a third, the husband would have remained a man forever; the mother found out how her daughter was calling, called the snake, chopped him up with a scythe; the daughter let the children go as white swans, and she herself became a cuckoo]: Karnaukhova 2009, No. 59: 170-171; Russian : Azbelev 1992, No. 320 (Vyatka province) [the girls went to the pond to swim; one did not find her clothes; the Serpent comes out of the water, gives the clothes in exchange for a promise to marry him; when the girl was offered for marriage, the Serpent stole her; she bore him a son and a daughter; asked to visit her mother; she asks how she summons her husband; Serpent, serpent, open the door for me! The mother goes instead of her, says the same words, cuts off the Snake's head with a saber; the daughter tells her son to be on all fours, the daughter to be a plishka (?), to flutter; she herself turns into a cuckoo]: 460; Vlasova, Zhekulina 2001, No. 43 (Novgorod region) [two girls were bathing, a snake sat on one's dress, she replied that she would marry him (not thinking that it was serious); the snakes dragged her away from the house; five years later she came to visit with her mother with two children; she answers her mother that she will call "Osip, Osip, come here" to return; the mother summons the snake with these words, cuts off its head with an axe; seeing blood on the water, the daughter becomes a cuckoo, her children - birds]: 80; Popov 1869 [The cuckoo was a girl born to a girl who lived with a snake; for proving to her grandmother that her mother was living with a snake, her mother cursed her and said: "May you cuckoo for the rest of your life and never build your own nest!"]: 3; Russian (Moscow) [the girls were swimming, a grass snake ("yuzhik") lay down on one of her linens; she had to agree to get married, she couldn't go to the village naked; a multitude of grass snakes crawled up and took the girl to the underwater kingdom; there was a palace there; a boy and a girl were born; the husband let her go see her mother; the mother calls the grass snake, hacks it to death; the daughter cries; tells her son to be a nightingale, her daughter a swallow, and she herself became a cuckoo]: Vedernikova, Samodelova 1998, no. 40: 95; Russian (Ryazan) [Masha went to the river with her friends; a beetle took her shirt and demands that she marry him; her friends took the shirt away; The next time Masha agreed, the beetle carried her off to the river; there is a palace there; she asked permission to go to her mother; the mother summoned the beetle, hacked it to death; the daughter grieves]: Samodelova 2013, No. 84: 93-94; Russian (Voronezhskaya, 1970, Stadnitsa village, Semiluksky district) [Masha asks her mother for permission to go swimming in the river. When the girls go ashore, Masha sees a snake on her shirt and cannot get it off. The snake asks if she will marry him, she feels sorry for the shirt and agrees. Masha is scolded by her mother. She grows up, and snakes crawl up to her house and take her away. She lives in a pond with a snake, gives birth to children. She comes to visit her mother, tells how she ends up in the pond – summons a snake, it crawls out and takes her away. The mother takes an axe, comes to the pond, summons a snake and chops it up, the water in the pond turns red. Masha calls the snake, sees the water and understands what has happened, turns into a cuckoo, “to cuckoo forever in grief,” turns her daughter into a small bird, her son into a nightingale]: Kretov 1977, No. 29: 50-51; Russian (Kurskaya) [the girls were swimming, one of them had a snake on her underwear; her friends left; she said, Oh, oh, you will be my husband, just give me your underwear; the snake crawled away; after 3 days a line of snakes crawled towards the girl's house; the mother locked herself in, but the snakes broke in, had a feast, and took the girl to the river; in the third year the wife already asks to let her go to her mother; the husband tells him to return tomorrow evening; the wife has already arrived with two children; she said that she was living well; the mother asked him to stay another night; she asked what he called her husband; at night she came to the river, called with the same words, and chopped off the snake's head with an axe; the wife already arrives, sees the head, tells her daughter to become a swallow, her son a nightingale, and she herself becomes a cuckoo]: Aristov, Pavlov 1939: 68.

Caucasus – Asia Minor. Karachays / Balkars [Ariuka and her friends were swimming in the river, a snake crawled onto her shirt; he gave the shirt in exchange for her promise to marry him; two weeks later the snakes carried A. off; one day she returned with her son and daughter, said that she lived well underwater; the mother found out that she was calling her husband "Dommay, dommay" (the word means "bison", why here is unclear); the mother summoned a snake, chopped off the head with an axe; A. saw her husband's blood and head, turned her daughter into a swallow, her son into a nightingale, and became a cuckoo herself]: Dzhurtubaev 2007: 11-12.

Baltoscandia. Lithuanians : Bulatova 1985 [a married couple has 12 sons and 3 daughters, the youngest is Egle ("fir"); the sisters were swimming, a grass snake climbed onto E.'s clothes, she has to promise to marry him; grass snakes crawl into the house; on the advice of a neighbor, a goose, a sheep, a heifer are dressed up as a bride; each time a cuckoo cries out about deception; E. is taken to the seashore, she is met by a handsome man, who is the grass snake; from the island they go down to the palace at the bottom; E. gives birth to sons named Oak, Ash, Birch, and a daughter, Osinka; the Grass snake agrees to let his wife and children go visit their parents if E. 1) spins silk tow (the healer orders the tow to be thrown into the fire, in the fire the toad releases yarn from its mouth); 2) wears out iron shoes (the healer orders the blacksmith to heat them in a furnace); 3) baked a pie (Uzh hides the dishes, the healer advises to smear the sieve with leaven, and knead the dough in it); Uzh orders to return on the tenth day, teaches how to call him; if the sea boils with bloody foam, it means he is dead; the brothers threaten Osinka with rods, she gives out a call; the brothers hacked Uzh with scythes; when E. approaches the sea, bloody foam boils; E. orders the children to turn into trees, she herself turns into a spruce; the aspen is now trembling, because she betrayed her own father]: 375-379; Balys 1936, No. *425DL [the woman turns into an aspen, the sons into an oak and an elm, the daughter into an aspen, her leaves are trembling]: 39; Kerbelyte 2004 [{texts not retold}; 17 Lithuanian versions in total, 1 of which has been retold many times; in the Lithuanian versions, the mother turns her daughter into an aspen, commands her to shake day and night, for the wind to comb her hair, for the rain to wash her face; in some versions, she turns one son into an oak tree, another into an ash tree, and her daughter into an aspen]: 171-177; Lutsi (west 1893; the informant knew the tale from her grandmother, who spoke only the Lutsi dialect) [childless parents ask for a child even if it is the size of a snake; a baby land is born; he comes to a family with three daughters; he proposes to the eldest, but she does not want it; a snake: if you do not go, then no one will take you at all; at a feast, a snake crawled onto the bride's lap, she threw it off and crushed it with her foot; on their wedding night, he cut her throat; the same with the middle sister; the youngest snake covered herself with an apron; at night he became a youth, and during the day a snake again; he created an island with a city in the sea, came with his wife to live there; they have three sons; the wife wants to visit her relatives; the husband put her and the children in a boat, she will sail there herself; the wife must not tell her brothers about her husband and let him not give it to the children; they returned safely; but when they went to visit relatives again, the youngest boy told everything to his mother's brother; he summoned the snake with the same words with which his wife summoned it, it swam up, he cut off its head; when the woman arrived, no one was there; the youngest boy confessed; the mother turned into a birch tree, the eldest son into cambium, the middle one into birch bark, and the youngest into butterflies that flutter on the bark]: Annom et al. 2018: 202-205; Estonians[a daughter found a louse in the king's hair, he fattened it up for three years, ordered it to be slaughtered and made into shoes for his daughter from the leather; whoever guessed what they were made of would get the princess; a snake crawled in, gave the correct answer, the princess had to go with it; ahead there was a bridge over the sea, behind there was water, they came to the palace; at night the husband was a man, during the day a snake; a year later the wife gave birth to a son, wanted to show it to his father; the husband took her to the shore, explained how to call him (Kiilu, kaalu, come out, your wife, etc.); the woman's brothers began to demand that she tell them how to call her husband, she eventually let it slip; the eldest brother began to call, the husband thought it was not his wife's voice; the same with the middle one; when the youngest called, the husband believed that it was his wife calling; the brothers cut off the snake's head; the wife began to call in vain; became a birch (Maserbirke), and her son a drake]: Dähnhardt 1910: 473-474; Setu: Mälk et al. 1967, No. 63 [a healer tells a woman that her two older daughters will marry people, and the youngest will marry a snake; when the sisters went swimming, the snake crawled onto the clothes of the youngest, climbed off after promising to marry him; in his underground palace the snake is a man; they have three daughters, they ask their mother to visit her parents; the snake allows it, teaches them a song to call him out of the sea in order to return back, orders them not to tell much about their lives; the older ones do not tell, the youngest explains to her grandfather how to call the snake out of the sea; the grandfather called the snake, hit him on the head with a knife, a blue liquid spread across the water; the mother did not wait for the snake, began to question her daughters, the youngest confessed; the mother became a birch tree, the eldest daughter - the black bark on its trunk, the middle one - birch bark, made the youngest daughter a butterfly]: 168-171; Normann, Tammpere 1989: 58-62 [while the parents are away, a brother and sister decide to cook porridge from coals; the sister tries it, it turns black, the brother puts her in the sea to soak; in the morning he asks from the shore if his sister has turned white, she replies that she has not yet; the Devil (vanapagan) heard, called himself, the girl replies that it was not her brother's voice; the fourth time he sharpened his tongue so much that the girl did not understand the deception, she replied that she had turned white; the brother did not wait for an answer, the medicine man said that the Devil had carried off his sister; the brother sings under the window of the Devil's house, the sister hears something, the Devil replies that it was the creaking of a wheel (he was making a cart); the next time the brother sings, calling his sister to bury him, his teeth are askew; the sister comes out, the Devil believes that her brother has died; he decides to brew beer for the occasion; there are no utensils, he offers to brew it in his mouth; the sister tied him up, poured boiling water into his mouth, the brother jumped up from the grave, threw hot stones into the Devil's mouth, and he died; the brother brought his sister home], 71-72 [the king made his daughter shoes for one foot from the skin of a louse, for the other - from a flea; he promised to give his daughter to the one who guessed what the shoes were made of; a snake crawled out from under the edge of a well guessed; the girl sailed with him across the sea; she came with three daughters to visit her parents; her brothers began to question the daughters, only the youngest said that their mother calls the snake with a song on the shore, and he sails for her with a ship; the brothers called themselves, killed the snake with swords; the wife began to call - a bloody ship sailed; she turned into a birch tree; her green bark is the eldest daughter, white is the middle one, stripes on the bark are the youngest]; Seto []: Säärits 2022: 315; Vepsians(northern) [the plot of "The Wife of the Serpent, the Reptile" (425M) is known; a retelling of individual episodes: the serpent marries the middle daughter of an old man and an old woman; snakes come to the girl as matchmakers; during the journey to the altar, the bride sits between the snakes; at the wedding, "the priest is a reptile, the clerk is a reptile, one bride is a human"; during the first wedding night, the serpent turns into a young man; three years later, a beautiful son is born from such a marriage - "a golden hair, another silver"; the serpent forces the girl to become his wife under the threat of killing all her relatives; for the slightest disobedience turns his wife into a cuckoo for three years, and his son into a nightingale]: Vinokurova 2015: 240 (with reference to Setälä EN, Kala JH Näytteitä Äänis - ja Keskivepsän murteista. Helsinki, 1951. № 22, 27, 32); Finns , Vepsians [{this is a general description of the plot and it is not known whether the corresponding texts contain any specific episodes}; a snake (a water creature, a dragon) hides the clothes of a bathing girl, returns them for a promise to marry him; in his castle at the bottom she gives birth to two children; having completed difficult assignments with the help of an old woman (wear out iron shoes, spin an endless thread), she receives permission to visit her parents with her children; she must not tell them about her husband; the children reveal the secret; the woman's brothers summon the serpent with a prearranged signal, kill it; returning, the woman calls in vain, sees blood on the sea; tells the children to become trees]: Uther 2004(1), No. 425A: 255.

Volga - Perm. Chuvash [an snake sits on the dress of a bathing girl, gives it in exchange for a promise to marry him; the next day the girl calls him, he takes her to the underwater palace, becomes a man; allows his wife and children to visit relatives; sends him in a golden carriage; returning, they with the children visit relatives; takes her to the underwater palace, no calves; too protruding belly; inconspicuous female ones cry out, Kuku, come out ; having learned how to call her son-in-law, the envious sister brings her husband to the shore, calls the snake in his wife's voice, the husband chops off the snake's head; the wife finds her, tells her son to be a stag beetle, her daughter a dragonfly, she herself becomes a cuckoo, and from then on calls her husband]: Danilov, Nechaev 1975: 67-75 (=Eizin 1993: 217-224, =Yukhma 1996: 122-124); (cf. Chuvash [three daughters of an old man ask the Sun twice whose face is cleaner and whiter, the Sun answers that it is the youngest; the sisters push the youngest into the river, tell their father that the Sun called the youngest the dirtiest, she stayed to wash; the mother goes to the river, the daughter answers that a snake is strangling her, a millstone is crushing her; after this the Bear calls the girl, she does not respond; the Bear sharpened his tongue at the blacksmith, calls in a thin voice, the girl repeats the words about the millstone, etc.; the Bear pulls her out of the river, brings her as his wife; she gives birth to a son, the Bear carries them to visit her parents, leaves until Wednesday; the parents put stakes under the floor; the wife warns him not to go in, he goes in, falls on the stakes; the wife stays with her parents]: Eizin 1993: 33-35); Mari : Aktsorin 1984 [three sisters are bathing, a snake has settled on the clothes of the most beautiful one, climbed down for her promise to marry him; the snake's matchmakers burst into the house, carried the girl overseas; three years later the daughter comes to visit with her son and daughter; she tells that her husband's name is Isan Isanych; the mother goes to the shore, calls her son-in-law by name, chops off his head with a scythe; when the wife comes out, the wave whispers that the husband has been killed; the wife tells her son to become a lark, her daughter - a cuckoo, she herself disappears into the sea]: 145-146; Kaliev 2003 [Once a girl was bathing in the river. When she came ashore, she found a snake lying on her clothes. In exchange for giving her the clothes, the snake offered the girl to marry him. The girl was forced to agree. When she came home, she told her mother about it. She grabbed an axe and began to wait for the snake to appear. But there were so many snakes that she was afraid to cut off the head of the snake-groom. A year or two later, the daughter came to visit her mother. The mother, having found out how her daughter summoned her snake-husband from the water, came to the river and, calling the snake, cut off his head. The daughter, tired of waiting by the pond for her betrothed, turned into a cuckoo and is still looking for him and calling him throughout the world]: 88 (cited in Yuzieva 2016: 124); Kazan Tatars(record 1958; 3 entries in the Volga region, 1 in Tyumen) [elderly parents reluctantly let Zukhra go swimming with other girls; the Serpent crawls onto her clothes, asks her to marry him, crawls away, promising to come for Z. when she turns 18; the Serpent crawls with other snakes, peris and genies, takes Z. to the lake; under water he turns into a handsome man; he himself was kidnapped by snakes, became their Padishah; Z. with three children goes to visit his parents; the mother finds out from Z. what words she uses to summon her husband; goes to the lake with a saber, summons the Serpent, cuts off his head; Z. and the children bury him; Z. turns children into a nightingale, a swallow, a starling, and she herself becomes a dove]: Zamaletdinov 1992: 57 (=2008a, No. 52: 233-238).

Turkestan. Kazakhs [girls are bathing, telling Mirzhan that the khan himself would ask her to become his wife; a powerful voice is heard from the water, a snake crawls onto M.'s clothes, promises to return it if M. becomes his wife; M. agrees; a week later many snakes crawl up to the yurt, carry M. under water; several years later M. comes to her mother with her son and daughter, says that she is happy; answers her mother that she will call her husband with the words "Akhmet, Akhmet, come, rise from the bottom"; at night M.'s mother calls the snake, kills it with an axe, the water turns red with his blood; in the morning M. finds her husband's head by the river; tells her daughter to become a swallow, her son - a nightingale, she herself turns into a cuckoo]: Daurenbekov 1979: 103-106.

Amur - Sakhalin. Nivkh : Kreynovich 1929: 98-99 [returning home, a hunter sees his wife copulating with a man; shoots him, he turns into a snake, dies; part of the snake remains in the woman's vagina; the hunter kills his wife; later people see her (i.e. her soul) with a child in her arms in a place where snakes live; (reprinted in Ostrovsky 1997, no. 21: 154)], 99-100 [the spouses are childless; the wife dreams of a forest man in the form of a fox copulating with her; she gives birth to two girls in succession; one day the father notices toads and lizards crawling between the legs of his sleeping daughters; he pushes the sled with his daughters down the mountain; the girls' bellies burst, and toads and lizards jump out; Since then, every three generations, toads and lizards try to copulate with women of this genus; (reprinted in Ostrovsky 1997, No. 19: 147, 148; Ostrovsky's addition: toads, lizards and snakes jumped out of the burst stomachs)].

Japan. Japanese (everywhere, i.e. apparently including northern Ryukyu ) [an unknown youth visits the only daughter of a wealthy family at night; the nanny or mother advises her to stick a needle and thread into his clothes; in the morning the nanny follows the thread stretched along the ground to a deep body of water or a hollow tree; (1) finds a snake dead or dying, for snakes cannot stand iron (version 31); (2) overhears a conversation between the snake and its mother: - I told you not to go to the human girl. - Let me die from the iron needle, but I will have an heir from the girl. - But people will give her sake to drink at a festival and the child will not be born. Having learned this, the girl does not give birth to the snake's heir (version 42); (3) a dying snake predicts the birth of a son of amazing strength with three scales under his arm, he will become a famous warrior or monk (16 versions). This version also tells of a female snake visiting a young man at night and giving birth to a hero before his death (3 versions); (3) is included in the genealogies of ancient and noble families claiming descent from a snake. In (2), where the nanny learns how to get rid of the fetus, the girl drinks a certain infusion or eats rice cakes on a holiday, it ends with "why do we eat and drink this and that." The type is known in Korea (Chosen Mintan Shu , p. 132) and China (FF Communications 120 , no. 109; Eberhard, 1965, no. 29)]: Ikeda 1971, no. 411C: 103-104; Ancient Japan : The Tale of the Taira House 1982 [Kyushu, Bungo district, Katayama village; an unknown man comes to a girl at night; the mother sees that the daughter is pregnant, tells her to mark the man's clothes; the daughter sticks a needle with a ball of thread into the collar of her caftan; follows the thread to a cave in the mountain; a serpent lives there, the girl's needle pierces its throat; he predicts that their son will become a great warrior; the serpent was the god Takatio, who is worshiped in the land of Hyuga]: 361-362; Harima-fudoki [ Shidehiko said goodbye to his wife Otohihimeko , sailed away on a ship; every night a man in his appearance appears to her; O. attached a thread to his clothes, walked along it to a lake on the top of a mountain; a snake sleeps in the lake, its head is on the shore; becomes a man again, invites her to her place; O.'s servant informs her relatives; they find O.'s corpse at the bottom of the lake, bury it]: Popov 1969: 138; Miyako Islands (Ryukyu) [an unknown man visits a girl from a wealthy family at night, she becomes pregnant; her parents tell her to attach a thread to her lover's clothes in order to identify him later; following it, people come to a sacred cave where a snake lives; the woman gave birth to three daughters, who became the first priestesses of the shrine in Harimuzu]: Maruyama 2009: 32-33; Ainu[the elder sister gives birth to a boy; she tells the younger that she conceived him while lying among snakes on a fallen elm; the younger lies down on the elm; in a dream the elm woman says that her sister was playing with a snake; she tells her to run away from the elm and from her sister; the girl comes to the old people’s house, they perform a purification ritual on her; one day she comes to the elm, sees her sister and her child, who have the bodies of snakes but human heads; the girl marries the old people’s youngest son]: Nevsky 1972: 71-74.

Arctic. Copper [woman suckles caterpillar until it grows; after that it becomes its lover; one day leaves it alone in the house; people find the monster, throw it to the dogs; woman is furious]: Jenness 1924, no. 57: 75; West Greenland : Grønnow 2009 [huge kullugiaq (aka aasik – worm, caterpillar) live in the interior; kidnap women, or the woman becomes the creature’s wife; her relatives kill it and often eat it, as its body consists of pure fat; the woman gives birth to the worm and cares for it like a child; story continues]: 198; Ostermann 1939 [sister of many brothers rejects suitors; old woman tells her to take a worm as a husband; girl disappears; her middle brother finds her in the house where she is nursing a baby worm; a large worm begins to shake the house, the wife tells him that it is her brother who has come; he calls his sister to stay at home; she comes, tells everyone to hide in their beds so as not to see her child; her mother spies; sees the worm and her daughter's bloody breasts, because the worm has sucked them; having received the sister's consent, the brothers lie in wait for her worm-husband, kill him with arrows; then kill the worm-child; the sister grieves and calms down]: 127-129.

Subarctic. Chipewyan : Petitot 1884-1885, II: 19-21 in Barbeau 1952 [woman's husband is a snake, his little snakes live in a hollow tree; hunters find their lair, burn it; the ashes turn into midges]: 119; Petitot 1886, no. 14 [man sees his wife come to a tree, call her husband , copulate with the snakes that crawl out; he calls the snakes with her voice, kills them, gives his wife their boiled blood to eat; she runs to the tree, returns, attacks her husband; he cuts off her head, runs away; asks Grasshopper Woman to take him across a river; she extends her leg as a bridge; the Head pursues her husband, asks him to extend his leg for her too; the husband smashes the Head with an axe, midges fly out of it; var.: The grasshopper throws the Head into the water, the Head disappears]: 407-410; (cf. Lowie 1912 [every evening the wife goes out, supposedly to collect brushwood, and does not return for a long time; the husband watches as the wife knocks on a tree, two large ants crawl out and embrace her; the husband leaves; the wife goes to look for him, but does not find him]: 187-188).

Coast - Plateau. Né perse [a young widow meets a handsome man; he comes to sleep with her; in the morning people find the woman's corpse entwined with a rattlesnake; they burn them together with the house]: Aoki 1979, no. 11: 65-66.

Middle West. Western Ojibwa : Jones 1916, no. 33 [husband returning from hunting finds children abandoned, wife just beginning to cook; eldest son says mother dresses up in the morning and goes out; husband watches her, sees her copulating with snakes; places cradle with youngest son on eldest son's back, tells him to run west; pierces wife with arrow, throws her into fire; when she stops talking, he runs east; children successively reach two old women; first gives awl and comb, second flint and tinder; thrown behind, they become a pile of awls, a pile of combs, a flint ridge, fire from one end of the world to the other; Toadstool carries children across river; tells pursuer not to tread on him, sitting on his back; it advances, is thrown off, goes to the bottom], No. 33a [hunter returns without game; his wife feeds son and daughter with bear fat; daughter gives fat to father, he watches wife; she knocks on wood, snake crawls out, turns into a man, copulates with her; husband kills wife, burns; his son kills chickadee; father orders him to be burned, bury ashes; says that if sky turns red, then he is dead; children watch as ghost of their mother rises from ashes of chickadee; run; girl by mistake throws flint given by father ahead of her; they cross water; girl marries unknown youth; his father gives her brother club, orders him to kill him and his people; these people were Thunders]: 379-380, 380-382; Eastern Ojibwa (southern Ontario)] [hunter notices wife embellishing herself; the eldest son tells him that every time he goes hunting, his mother also leaves the house; the hunter follows his wife; he sees her approach a tree, knock on it, and a handsome man comes out; returning home, the hunter teaches the children (both boys) what they should do; when the wife returned, her husband killed her and burned her body; he told the children: if the sunset is red, it means that the mother's lover killed her; seeing the red sunset, the children started to run; the mother (i.e. her spirit?) is pursuing; they threw a pebble (a mountain), a thorn (a thorny thicket), an awl (many awls with the points up); the mother overcame everything; by the river, the children asked a large snail to take them to the other bank; it stretched out and they crossed; when the pursuer asked the same, the snail shrank in the middle of the river and the woman drowned; the brothers settled by the lake; a man swam up in a boat; he asked the youngest to shoot, the arrow fell into the boat; asked the elder to pick it up and sailed away with him; kept it in his house; one day suggested going down the mountain on a sled; the youth refused to sit in front, sat in the back; the sled goes over stumps and stones, the youth picked up a stone and killed a man; came to the place where he left his younger brother; the younger brother turned into a wolf (or half-wolf); this is how wolves came to be]: Laidlaw 1915, no. 7: 6-7; western forest creeks[the husband notices that his wife puts on a dress decorated with shell beads, and when she returns, she wears simple clothes; watches, sees her approach a tree, knock on the bark, call "husband", a snake crawls out to her; at home, the hunter sends his wife to fetch the spoils, puts on her dress and jewelry, calls the snake with the same signal, cuts off the head, cooks the meat; gives his two sons amulets with which to create obstacles in the path of the pursuer; the wife returns, not finding the spoils she left behind; the husband says that he is cooking the flesh of her lover, cuts off her head, rises into the sky, turns into a star; the children have hidden in the underworld; the wife's head asks the objects where the children have hidden; the knife, the cape, the pot, the bison skin are silent, a pebble from under the skin shows where the children have run; the elder carries the younger, throws the first stone (fire, the head is burned, but passes), then thorny bushes (a monstrous snake makes a path under the thorns), rocks (a monstrous beaver gnaws through); the fourth amulet falls in front of the boys, a stormy river appears, another snake carries the boys to the opposite bank; while carrying the head, he throws it into the water; the eldest son tells it to become a sturgeon; the elder brother is Wesakitchak; he was taken away by a giant; the younger brother was left alone, turned into a half-wolf, killed by a monstrous sturgeon - his former mother; V. married the giant's daughter; he and his daughter were unable to destroy him; Kisemanitou sent a flood, because people had become corrupted, saved V.; created a new pair of people from clay]: Vandersteene 1969: 44-48; Western Swamp Cree (Stone Cree) [a hunter's wife leaves every day, tells the children to chop wood; by the time her husband returns, the chores are not done; the sons reply that their mother is meeting with snakes; the husband goes, cuts off the head of the snake, brings it into the house; runs away; gives the sons an awl, flint, towel (?), tells them to run; the wife finds the head of the snake, goes into the forest, finds the body of the snake; chases her husband, they rise into the sky, she kills him, he turns into the Big Dipper (that's the way she killed him up in the air, that's where the Dipper now); the husband managed to cut off his wife's head; the head chases the children; they drop the awl, thorny thickets appear; the head asks two snake-like creatures, worms, to become their wife if they make a passage underground; makes his way through this passage, again pursues the sons, they drop the flint, fire behind; she again promises marriage, overcomes the obstacle; Wisahkicahk throws the third object, it falls in front, turns into a river; the Swan carries them, tells them not to touch her neck; the head touches the neck, the Swan throws it off, she turns into a sturgeon]: Brightman 1989: 9-13; steppe creeks: Ahenakew 1929 [woman knocks on dry wood; snakes emerge from hollow, she caresses them; husband watches her; calls snakes with same signal, cuts off their heads; keeps smallest one (origin of snakes); tells eldest son to take youngest on back and run; gives them awl, flint, beaver tooth; sends wife for meat, curtains entrance to hut with net; woman finds dead snakes, rushes to house, gets entangled in net; husband cuts off her head; flees to heaven, her body pursues him; head pursues sons fleeing west; see motif L5]: 309-311; Bloomfield 1930, no. 1 [wife adorns herself every time husband goes hunting; he watches her; She goes into the forest, hits a tree, says, Husband, I have come ; the Serpent crawls out, they copulate; the husband puts on his wife's skirt, calls the Serpent with the same signal; cuts off the head, cooks the meat, gives the broth to his wife; says what the soup is made of; the wife runs to the tree, sees that her lover has been killed; returns, the husband cuts off her head; hides her two sons underground, tells the utensils not to answer the Head's questions, flies away, turns into a star; the Head asks where her children are, the stone answers; the elder brother Visakechah carries (first?) the younger one underground on his back; they throw objects (not named), they turn into fire, a thorny forest, a mountain; the Serpent makes a passage through the forest for the Head; a beaver with iron teeth gnaws through the mountain; a fourth object falls in front of the brothers, turns into a river; the Serpent carries them; when transporting Head, she says he is swimming too slowly; he throws her into the water, she turns into a sturgeon]: 14-16; Northern Ojibwa (Sandy Lake) [hunter meets woman in forest, marries; she goes to stump, undresses, calls Machi-manitou ; snakes crawl into all openings of her body; husband watches her, sends her to bring game, kills snakes with axe, gives her their blood instead of bear's; tells their two sons that if sky turns red he is dead; gives bone awl, sharp stone, flint, beaver tooth, stone chisel, tells them to run; wife runs to stump; when she returns, husband cuts off her head, cuts body in half, throws halves into sky, they can be seen now (constellations?); her Skull kills and devours him, pursues sons; sky turns red; elder carries younger on his back; throws objects, they turn into thorny thickets, a rock, a wall of fire, a pile of cottonwood stumps, a river; Beaver makes a passage in the thicket when Skull promises to allow him to copulate with him in his eye sockets and nostrils; the lost soul leads Skull through a crack in the rock; Toadstool agrees to carry Skull across the river, orders him not to touch the sore spot on his neck; Skull touches, is thrown into the water; the sons smash him with a stone, he drowns; see motif K27]: Ray, Stevens 1971: 48-52; Sauk[stranger comes to sleep with woman; one girl sees him change into a horned serpent; woman gives birth to a hundred eggs; her husband takes them to the lake shore; hatched snakes crawl to camp; people flee; snakes stay and die]: Skinner 1928, no. 15: 169.

North-East. Montagnais [woman copulates with handsome man coming out of tree hollow; husband watches her; puts on her clothes, kills snake with axe; boils its blood and gives to wife; many snakes and worms appear, woman disappears among them; husband goes to people with two children]: Desbarats 1969: 14-15; Naskapi [ Puan's husband is a bad hunter; she dreams of a handsome man coming out of a dead tree, they copulate; she finds the tree; snake promises meat for her children, she allows them to crawl under her skirt; husband wonders where the meat came from, shares his wife's food, puts on her dress, chops snake into pieces, cooks, gives wife to eat; she vomits, vomit turns into baby snakes; P. and her children disappear, man is left alone]: Millman 1993: 54-56; Huron [girl rejects suitors; marries handsome stranger; sees husband in serpent form; runs away; man takes her across sea in boat; Serpent pursues them; Thunder kills Serpent; Serpent clan descends from this woman]: Spencer 1909: 321; Seneca [as Huron; husband is water Serpent; Thunder kills him; she gives birth to snakelets, Thunders kill them too; woman returns to people]: Curtin, Hewitt 1918, no. 4 [see motif J4; ball of snake hearts hidden under Serpent's bed; Thunders ask woman to help them; strike Serpents' hearts carried away by her, they die], 6 [Horned Serpent; The Thunders give the woman a potion to drink, she burps up ants, larvae, worms]: 86-90, 268-270; Tuscarora [the girl is weak, unwell, no one will take her as a wife; the mother goes away, tells her not to open the door to anyone; at night she opens the door to a handsome man; after three days he leaves, leaving a pendant; the mother returns, sees that it is a snake scale; sees that when her daughter sleeps, the little snakes crawl out of her belly, and then return to the womb; the girl decides to throw herself into a waterfall, four Thunders pick her up, drive out the snakes (they fry them and eat them); one Thunder converges with her; sends her to her mother, tells her not to let the son who will be born out of the house, he can kill other children with lightning; the son grows up, goes out, hears the voice of the Thunders, goes towards this voice; (in the next text, see motif I80A, it is said that this youth became the youngest of the Thunders and was not as skilled as the others)]: Rudes, Crouse 1987, #35: 587-595; Passamaquoddy : Leland 1968: 266-267 [a girl falls asleep on the shore of a lake, a snake rapes her; people drive her out; an old man tells her to dance, kills the snakes she gives birth to with a stick; marries her to his son Thunder; a boy is born, the grandfather attaches thunder wings to him; the old man's daughter is Lightning], 273-274 [a woman marries five times, her husbands die each time; a sixth one watches her; she calls a snake out of the lake with a song, copulates with it; at night the husband refuses to lie with her; the snake's poison is not transmitted to the husband, the woman herself dies]; Delawares: Bierhorst 1995, #86 [girl rejects suitors; accepts the offer of a handsome stranger; he takes her to his underwater world; she finds his snake clothing, runs away; he chases; her Weasel helper climbs into his throat, cuts out his heart; Thunders rub the woman's body, snakes fall from her; she remains with the Thunders; when the clouds rise with a rumbling sound, it is the rustling of her clothing], 202 [after her period ends, the girl meets a man, he takes her to his house in the rock; hunts, but is afraid of a thunderstorm; the wife and her husband's mother flee; the Horned Serpent pursues them, falls dead by the river; twelve women appear, saying that they killed the snake; at home, the boy pierces the woman's belly with an arrow, taking out the snakes; The woman did not understand that she lived under the water with the Serpent]: 48-49, 74.

Plains. A woman's lover is a rattlesnake; her husband watches her; cuts off her head; the head pursues their children; they throw objects after them, which become obstacles. Sarsi [a man has a wife and two sons; he combs his wife's hair, paints her face, but every time she goes to fetch firewood and returns, her hair is tangled, the paint is smudged, her clothes are dirty; he watches, sees her go to a rotten tree, knock, say she has come, snakes crawl out, wrap themselves around her body; the husband tells his sons about this, tells them to run, goes to the tree, calls the snakes with the same signal, kills them with a stick, throws the bodies into a ravine, one escapes, but has lost its tail; the wife finds only one snake, returns, the husband cuts off its head, it falls into the tipi, the body - outside, the husband runs away in the opposite direction from the sons; they ran to the river, asked the water monster to take them across; he offered them to eat his parasites; they were frogs; the brothers were clicking the seeds from which they made necklaces, the monster was pleased, lay down like a bridge, the brothers crossed to the other bank; the mother's head set off in pursuit, bit the frog, spat in disgust, the monster offered her to cross the river, threw her into the water, the head drowned; the brothers saw a raft, put a board on it, offered to take food, the eldest stepped in, they threw him on the fruit, sailed away; he shouted to the younger not to go anywhere, to wait for him; he returned, but his brother turned into a wolf; they hunt together; the wolf rushed after a deer into the river, something pulled him under the water; The old man brought the eldest brother to the river, where there were fish by the shore; they began to shoot at them, wounded the leader; The frog-shaman goes, saying that she was called to treat the wounded leader of the fish; The old man killed him, dressed up as him, went down to the fish, found the wolf's skin, revived him, he returned to the shore; The old man told everyone to close their eyes while he would heal the chief, killed everyone, returned to the shore; other fish caused a flood; The old man on the raft tells the animals to dive; only Muskrat dived, surfaced dead; The old man got grains of earth from under the claws and teeth, revived Muskrat; so she dived four times; The old man suggested that the animals run around a lump of earth, only Wolf and Otter agreed; the earth grew, they returned, having grown old, The old man rejuvenated them; so three times, after the fourth they did not return, the earth is big]: Dzana-gu 1921, No. 4: 6-8; Blackfoot(blood) [a husband gets a web to catch animals; his wife anoints herself with incense, goes to her lover-Snake; the husband watches her, burns the snakes' den; tells his two sons to run, gives them a stick, a stone, wet moss; hangs a web over the entrance to the house; the wife gets entangled in it, he cuts off her head; her body pursues him; they turn into the Moon and the Sun; if the Moon catches up with the Sun, eternal night will come; the Head pursues the sons; they throw the objects they have received, a thicket, a mountain, a reservoir are formed; first mountain rams, then ants make a passage in the mountain; for this the Head promises to become the wife of their leaders; falls into the water, drowns; one brother goes north, the other south; one becomes the ancestor of the whites; another, Napi , is the creator of the Blackfoot]: Grinnell 1893a: 44-47; Spence 1985: 205-208; Blackfoot : Josselin de Jong 1914 (Piegan) [while gathering firewood, woman returns late; husband watches, sees her knocking on a tree, a snake comes out, they copulate; he calls the snake with the same signal, cuts its throat; next day wife returns in tears; husband cuts her throat; her seven younger brothers see that only her head is left; eldest turns into a beetle, sees her drawing on chamois leather, tells her where her brothers' scalps will be; brothers send her to get meat, run away; throw her her porcupine quills, scraper, paint; she rushes to pick them up; brothers wonder what they will turn into; reject transformation into stones (women will break them to make scrapers), wood (people will burn them), water (they will drink them), deer (they will kill them), birds (children will shoot them), grass (they will set them on fire); they rise into the sky, blowing on a feather, they turn into seven stars]: 43-37; Knox 1923 [each time, collecting brushwood, the wife returns late; the husband watches her, sees her knocking on a tree, a rattlesnake comes out of it, turns into a handsome man, copulates; he calls the snake with the same signal, cuts off its head; the wife finds the corpse, cries; the husband cuts off her head; her seven brothers find an empty dugout; they hear their sister's voice outside; she says that she is dead, does not allow them to look at her; the youngest peeks, sees the head flying over the skin, which it scrapes; brothers hunt, send the youngest in the form of a beetle to watch their sister; he sees her trying on the places on the skin where she will attach the scalps of the brothers; send the sister for meat, run, taking her paint, scraper, porcupine quills, awl; throw them away, she wastes time picking them up; think what to turn into; water - people will drink; trees - they will cut down; grass - they will burn; stones - they will heat up for a steam room, women will make scrapers; animals - they will kill and eat; birds - the same; the youngest offers to become stars; they blow on a feather, rise to the sky as the Big Dipper]: 401-403; Assiniboine[husband sees wife knocking on tree stump to summon snake lover; kills all snakes, makes soup from their blood, feeds to wife; she finds dead snakes; husband tells his six sons and daughter to run away; when wife looks into house, cuts off her head; head catches up with children, gathers them in tipi, tells them not to look at it while she works on skin of moose killed by one of sons; one looks, head pursues children; awl, flint, stone thrown by them turn into many awls, into fire, into mountain; two Cranes lay their necks as a bridge across river; children cross; Cranes push head into water; it continues pursuit; children play ball and rise to sky, turn into Big Dipper; head cannot jump to sky]: Lowie 1909a, no. 22: 177-178; Mandan [see motif J18; Moon's son comes to Old Woman's garden; she makes him her grandson; her snake husband lives in her bed; she feeds him cornmeal; the youth kills him with an arrow; after a series of adventures, returns to heaven, turns into a star]: Bowers 1950: 200-205; Arapaho [husband goes to war; wife meets handsome man by river, sleeps with him; after nine months her womb bursts, she dies, giving birth to a rattlesnake; people throw it into the fire]: Dorsey, Kroeber 1903, no. 77: 147-150; Arikara[two girls are sleeping on the street, discussing young men; one wants a bright red star as a husband; in the morning, chasing a porcupine, she climbs after him into a poplar by the river, the tree grows, the girl finds herself in the sky; the porcupine turns into a handsome middle-aged man, he was the Star; she gives birth to a son with a star on his forehead; the husband tells her not to dig roots in the lowlands; she digs, sees earth in the hole; the old woman advises her to ask her husband for sinews, makes a rope out of them, the woman climbs down with her little son, the rope is short, the woman hangs; the husband throws a stone, telling him to kill the woman, leave the son alive; the boy sucks the breast of his dead mother, steals corn and pumpkins from the old woman's garden; she leaves a ball and a stick, a bow and arrows; the bow and arrows disappear, the old woman knows that it is a boy, catches him, raises him; feeds grain to rooks (blackbirds), the young man kills them, the old woman revives them (they were guarding her field); he notices a snake behind the curtain, to which the old woman was giving porridge, kills it, it falls into the pond, turning it into a lake; the old woman grieves for her husband; the young man brings a puma, the old woman lets it go (these are all her animals); the same with the bear; the young man comes to four men, they kill a pregnant bison, give the embryo to take to the grandmother; the young man is scared, climbs a tree; the men take the embryo away in exchange for a promise to make the grandmother their wife; she agrees, they get together with her; the grandmother gives him a flute, he plays, the men's dugout loses its exit, they die; the young man comes to the snakes, sits on a stone, the snakes cannot crawl into him; he lulls the snakes to sleep with a story, kills them, one is saved, crawls into his anus, into his skull; boy's father fills skull with water, causes heat, water boils, snake crawls out, boy comes back to life, makes snake short-headed; boy dies ridding country of monsters]: Dorsey 1904d, no. 14: 45-55; Arikara[two girls are sleeping on a platform in the open air; both are menstruating; one wants a red star as a husband; ends up in the sky; the husband does not allow them to dig roots in the lowlands; the wife digs, sees earth through the hole, cries; the Old Spider Woman advises making a rope out of sinews; lowers the woman, she has a baby on her back; the rope (=web) is not enough, the woman hangs; the husband throws a stone, tells him to kill his wife, save his son, cuts the rope, the woman falls; the boy sucks the breast of his dead mother; steals corn from the old woman's garden; she leaves a ball with a stick and a bow with arrows; the bow and arrows disappear, which means the boy is stealing; the old woman grabs him, raises him, he hunts; she finds a snake behind the curtain, kills it (the old woman was feeding it meat); it was the old woman's husband, she lowers him into the pond); tells the young man that a bear wants to tear him apart (hoping that this will happen); the young man brings the bear to work; the old woman lets him go; the young man sees a tipi, in it there are four dice players, one has snot, the young man shoots them off; the players accept him; they kill a female elk, give the young man an unborn calf; the young man is afraid of him, hides in a pine tree (when the females have not yet given birth, the constellation in which the young man's father is is not yet in the sky; knowing that his father will not help him, the young man is afraid); they kill the fetus for the promise to bring them the old woman; he brings them, they are happy, let them both go, giving knowledge of the rituals of catching eagles; the young man is invited by snakes, he, sitting on a stone, lulls them to sleep with a story, one crawls away; he falls asleep on the ground, the snake climbs into his anus; he cuts his stomach, chest, throat, cutting off the snake's head, but the head crawls into the skull; his father in heaven fills skull with water, water boils from sun heat, snake comes out, boy jumps up, makes snake flat, crawls on belly]: Dorsey 1904d, #16: 56-60; skidi Pawnee [Hawk goes off to war, his wife takes snake as lover; becomes snake herself, crawls underground with lover; Hawk's son tells father truth; he kills lover, spares woman; hawks have been catching snakes ever since]: Dorsey 1904b, #83: 297-299; Kiowa [see motif J18; girl climbs tree, goes to heaven, marries celestial; celestial tells her not to dig roots because buffalo have been nibbling them; she digs, sees earth and people in the hole, makes a rope of sinew, goes down; her husband throws a stone at her, killing her; the child in her womb is alive; Spider raises it; he throws a hoop for playing, it falls on his head, breaks in two, twins appear; Spider gives food to her lover-Snake; the twins find him in the tipi and kill him]: Parsons 1929a: 1-8; Kiowa-Apache[widow marries snake that comes into her tipi; eats in another tipi, brings food to the snake each time; tells grandchildren not to kill snake if they see it; they kill snake with arrow; widow says they killed their grandfather]: McAllister 1949, no. 7 [old woman finds clot of blood; cooks it, it turns into a boy; she asks for meat from tipi; he finds snake under skin, kills it; old woman says he killed his grandfather; he marries chief's daughter, see motif K27], 34: 45-46, 100-101.

Southeastern United States. Caddo [a talking dog informs his master that his wife goes to a tree, where she whistles three times and copulates with a snake that emerges from the hollow; the husband summons the snake with the same signal, cuts it into pieces, and gives it to his wife to eat under the guise of a fish; the wife herself turns into a snake, crawls away into the same hollow]: Dorsey 1905, no. 39: 66-67; Cherokee [like Creek, no details]: Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick 1966, no. 5: 426-427; Creeks [while the husband is hunting, the wife copulates with a huge worm that lives in a log; the husband kills it with a rope noose; the woman gives birth to worms; people set fire to her dwelling; some worms save themselves by burrowing into the ground (origin of earthworms)]: Swanton 1929, no. 33: 38; hichiti [as in the Creeks; the wife accompanies the hunter, comes to the lizards' nest, takes the Lizard as a lover]: Swanton 1929, no. 14: 96; (cf. tunic [at night a handsome man comes to the girl; she runs away with him, he turns out to be a rattlesnake, during the day he takes the form of a snake]: Swanton 1907: 288).

California. Kato [A serpent comes to a young girl at night, he is a man to her; warns her that she will die if she tells of his visitations; the girl's father sees the serpent, kills him; the daughter dies]: Goddard 1909, no. 30: 234-235; (cf. maidu [a girl goes to the river in the evening; always sees the same dream; once returns only in the morning and brings fish; then a large serpent crawls into the house, looks at the girl, then returns to the river; the girl asks her father to go with her; on the bank the serpent has the form of a man; next time the father gives his daughter a reed with a root tied to it: let her throw it through a hole in the roof into the hearth; she does so, runs, behind her the serpent's house explodes; the girl runs to her father; a lake forms on the site of the serpent's dwelling]: Shipley 1991: 136-140).

Great Basin. Two brothers see their mother copulating with their relative, the Snake, through a hole in the roof of a hut; they kill both of them, as well as the snakes to which the woman immediately gives birth; they keep and raise the girl, their sister. Northern Paiute (Owens-Wheley) [The Snake is the woman's husband's brother; they see many snakes and two children inside the hut; they take out the children, set fire to the hut; one snake crawls away (origin of snakes)]: Steward 1936, no. 30, 31: 398, 409; Southern Paiute (Shivwitz) [they kill the lovers with arrows; they burn the corpse of the Snake; they step on the mother's belly; snakes and lizards crawl out, they kill them all; they take out the girl last]: Lowie 1924, no. 14: 136-137.

NW Mexico. Huichol [at a spring a woman meets a serpent in the form of a man; becomes his lover; he gives her wild onions, the husband smells the smell; the wife is pregnant by her husband and by the serpent; the serpent moves into the house, hides in a vessel; the woman smells more and more like a snake; the husband calls other men, overturns the vessel, the men shoot the serpent with arrows, but it escapes into the spring; the husband kills the wife; her grave turns into a pond, there is a nest of snakes on her belly, they kill them; the water in the pond is blue, whoever drinks it becomes a wolf; the Moon Nakawé ordered votive vessels to be brought to her, helped separate the blue water from the normal water; the son born to the woman had keen eyesight like a snake and a forked tongue; became a shaman; during a drought his children sang and brought rain]: Zingg 1938: 551-553 (=1982: 247-250).

Mesoamerica. Otomi : Garibay 1957a [husband arrives, hears his child crying; finds wife with lover; he turns into a snake, wife into a snake from the waist down; husband buries them in a vessel on a mountain]: 23; Soustelle 1935 [snake comes to girl while she sleeps; men kill snake, woman gives birth to snakes, dies]: 11-12.

Honduras - Panama. Rama : Loveland 1990: 46-47 [Adam, his brother and sister lived together; there was a snake on the ceiba tree (apparently he had a relationship with his sister A.); A. cut down the ceiba tree, by morning the clearing was overgrown; the third time the brother and sister came, the tree fell, A. cut the snake, many snakes emerged from it, the sister hid one in the house under a pot; she moved away; A. came in her absence, he did not have the staff with which he killed the creatures, the snake bit his finger, crawled away; A. is ill; with the Mouse (or Shrew, Gopher) A. sailed to the land of snakes; there they found the snake that had bitten, from it they learned how to be cured; since then some people recover from snakebites, some die; (=1986: 250)], 47 [Adam's wife Eve had intercourse with the Serpent; moved away, hid the Serpent in a box; A. found the key, opened it, the Serpent flew away, began to live on the top of the ceiba tree; on the third day, A. cut down the ceiba tree, the Serpent flew away to E., she hid it under a pot; A. lifted the pot, the Serpent bit his finger; the clairvoyant told him to go to the land of snakes; A. swam there, was cured, returned with the help of the Mouse]; boruca : Maroto 1979 [a woman became pregnant by her snake lover; she gave him chicha when he stuck his head out of his hole; when she was about to give birth, she was thrown into a fire, she gave birth to snakes there, they were killed; the snake crawled away, leaving a trace - a ravine through which a stream flows; var.: baby snake crawled away]: 43-49; Quesada Pacheco 1996: 70 [woman takes rat as lover, sticks it up her ass; gives birth to rats (origin of rats); people kill them], 71-72 [woman takes snake as lover; people burn woman to prevent her from giving birth to snakes; her womb bursts, two large snakes escape], 77-78 [girl takes worm as lover, hides him under garbage; her mother finds him, her brothers kill him by pouring hot chicha on him; he had the head of a bull]; Stone 1949 [woman goes to hole in ground, gives snake chicha to drink, bathes, and has sex with him; woman's mother bewitches snake, people burn him; [a woman gives birth to snakes, people chop them up with machetes, the woman's mother burns them]: 28; cabecar: Bozzoli, Cubero Venegas, Constenla Umaña 1983 [a woman copulates with a serpent that emerges from a river in the form of a man; men shoot arrows at the young serpents, who retreat to the edge of the world]: 6; Stone 1962: 64 [the serpent is the patron of the Kibegruwák clan; one of the first women in the world belonged to this group; she told her brother that she had a husband; the brother saw a snake coiled around his sister; he realized that the serpent must not be harmed, he would be the patron of the clan], 65-66 [an evil spirit, having taken the form of a man, possessed a woman; after 8 days she gave birth to twins, after 4 days they were crawling, after another 4 they were shooting birds from an air gun; the grandmother told her daughter that her sons were not people, followed them, and saw not people, but snakes; they ate their mother, then their grandmother, who saw them swimming in a pond in the form of snakes; they began to expand the pond; Sibu was afraid that the earth would disappear and there would be water everywhere, he sent other twins (people), giving them bows and arrows; they began to shoot, the snakes went down the river to the sea and turned into whales]; bribri : Bozzoli 1976, no. 3 [a girl takes a worm as a lover, becomes pregnant; he sucks her breast, her blood; she turns pale; her brothers watch her, together with their parents they kill the worm with boiling water; she gives birth to worms, people kill them; she dies]: 30-31; Bozzoli, Cubero Venegas, Constenla Umaña 1983 [like cabecar, but the nature of the lover is not specified; the little snakes turn into whales]: 39-43; Stone 1962: 65-66; (cf. doraske [people noticed that a girl was going to a deep backwater by the river; the father followed and saw his daughter sitting on a stone in the middle of the water, and on her knees was the head of a snake; at home the daughter told him that since he had seen her, let them give her a new hammock, calabash and bench; at night a snake with horns on its head crawled up; the girl's mother, as was customary, gave him a calabash with a drink; the girl: since you have seen, let them know that she is pregnant and make a shelter for her of seven layers so that no light penetrates into it, there she will give birth; 7 young men and 7 girls spied and saw that the girl gave birth to a snake; the girl: so do not grieve now about what will happen; the horned snake-father crawled out of the water and carried away his wife and the snakelet on the rings of his tail; a storm began, rain poured down, the water rose and flooded the village; only in the hut on an old man and five girls remained on the hill; he gave each of them a branch, an ear of corn and a burning brand; he ordered them to go to the ruler, moving only at night; the girls lived in the ruler's house until they reached maturity; after marriage they founded a new village]: Miranda de Cabal 1974, no. 1: 17-19).

Northern Andes. Embera [girl's mother kills her snake lover]: Wassen 1933: 117 ; Nonama [old woman keeps snake which turns into man at night; people kill snake]: Lotero Villa ea: 27; Kogi [Semangáya lived later than Hába Nabobá; married Máma Juídeji but cheated on him with others; MH conjured her so that men rejected her but she desired them; S. sat down by the roadside to weave a bag (mochila; sign of love proposal), but men paid no attention; saw a swaying tree, mistook him for a man but was mistaken; then offered herself to the snake, gave birth to snakes; MH collected them and cooked them, but one snake crawled away; S. gave birth to 12 more snakes; MK and another man set fire to the house with snakes at night; in the morning MK took S.'s burnt bones to the cave; but one snake escaped, which is why they still bite people, and if MK had not burned them, there would be no way out; MK turned S.'s bones into stone]: Reichel-Dolmatoff 1985(2), no. 12: 57 (=1951(2), no. 10: 52-53); yupa [a woman went to fetch water, began to dance by the river; after three weeks a man approached her, walking from the house of leaf-cutter ants; each time she became pregnant; the husband followed, saw the lover appearing in the form of a snake, killed him; the woman gave birth to many snakes]: Wilbert 1974a, no. 35: 120; paes [a young man came and began to live in the hills, a girl began to visit him; a mother saw a snake with her daughter; the girl gave birth to a son, worms came out of his body; the girl's mother took them out, the child died; the girl threw herself into a lake, began to live in it with her lover; a shaman threw roots and a bandage of a woman who was menstruating into the lake; the girl and her lover left the lake in a black cloud; after this the lake dried up]: Bernal Villa 1953, no. 3: 294 (=Nachtigall 1955: 300-301); guambia : Franco 1991 [or in two lizards]: 16; Hernández de Alba 1965 [the mother did not allow her daughter to go out alone; a snake entered the room in the form of a cat; the girl gives birth to a son by the snake, does not allow anyone to touch her child; the mother takes the baby in her arms, it turns into a snake, crawls away, a lake forms on the site of the village; they dug a canal, the water carried away many; at the bottom they found a fern, blood spurted out of it, it was the mother snake; if the grandmother had not taken the baby in her arms, all the tropical fruits would have grown in the Guambia area and it would not have been cold]: 119-120; (cf. Muisca [chief Guatavita kills wife's lover; gives wife his penis to eat, tells her to sing about what happened; she throws herself into lake with newborn girl; becomes wife of water monster; chief sends shaman, he emerges with dead girl, whose eyes monster has devoured; G. throws girl back into lake, this is what monster wanted]: Simón 1882-1892(2) [1627], ch.2: 245-246 (translated in Siebert 1972: 202-205).

Southern Venezuela. Sanema : Colchester 1981, no. 30 [woman went into the forest with her husband; while he was hunting, had intercourse with a serpent; when her husband returned, she told him where the serpent lived; her husband killed it]: 63-64; Wilbert, Simoneau 1990b, no. 228 [Colchester 1981, no. 31: 64-65; in the forest, the serpent dropped fruits on the woman; she sat down on the ground, it crawled into her vagina; so she came home with it, giggled at night; in the morning, she put the serpent in a vessel, told her husband not to open the lid; the husband opened it, poured boiling latex, the serpent died]: 440-441; Yanomam [a Paca woman secretly met with an Earthworm; hid it behind her fireplace near a pile of brushwood; in the forest the Worm turned into a man, got a lot of game for his wife; the woman explains to her brother that a falcon killed the game; in the forest the Worm dropped fruits from a tree for her, then came down, climbed into her vagina; the brother and mother found the Worm at home, covered it with hot coals; when the woman began to give birth, earthworms crawled out of her whole body; she threw herself into the water; the worms born in the river became electric eels; Paca turned into a paca]: Wilbert, Simoneau 1990b, No. 227: 436-439.

Guiana. Caribbean of Dominica [Arawak girl Sésé violates the prohibition to bathe during her period; becomes pregnant by a "dog's head" snake living in a pond; every night she comes to the shore, the snake comes out of the water in the form of a man, they make love; S. gives birth to a boy in his mother's house; every night he goes to the pond to play with his father, then returns to his mother's womb; S.'s brother is perplexed as to how she, without an axe to cut down a tree, gets the seeds of Mimusops riedleana; he watches S., sees a snake crawl out of her womb, climb a tree, turn into a man, shakes the branches, the fruits fall; the next day the brother chops the snake into pieces; S. collected them, covered them with leaves; on this site are huts, in them are Caribs; at first they lived peacefully, but then S. tells them to take revenge on the Arawaks]: Delavarde 1938: 202-203; kalina [a girl found the excrement of a white snake, did not know what it was, painted herself; saw a drawing of snake skin in a pond, looked up, saw the snake aramari on a tree; her father told her to take off the paint; the snake began to come to the girl in human form, brought game, only she could see it; at the end of the year the girl menstruated again, she sat in a shelter, aramari came to her in the form of a snake, ate her; the sleeping snake was found and burned; plants grew in this place that are used in hunting, fishing and love magic]: Jara 1986: 184-185; oyampi [they do not kill the lover; a woman gives birth to two fish, her mother cooks them]: Grenand 1982, no. 16: 140-141.

Ecuador. Colorado [girl's mother kills her snake lover by pouring boiling water on him; girl dies giving birth to all kinds of worms]: Aguavil, Aguavil 1985: 194-200; Imbabura Province [woman sits on the ground by her hearth; a large worm crawls into her; husband wonders why his wife cleans the hearth so often; finds the worm, kills it, peppers it, gives it to his wife to eat]: Jara, Moya 1987: 112.

Western Amazonia. Shuar : Pelizzaro 1990 (=1993): 26-27 [a girl gets together with her nephew; one day he stays until morning, people see him, he turns into a caterpillar; the girl gives birth to caterpillars in the garden, dies; her mother rushes to crush them; the caterpillars begin to eat the cassava], 28-29 [while crushing corn, the girl sits on the ground; one day she accidentally sits on a worm's hole; it crawls into her vagina, she likes it; when leaving, she covers the worm's hole with an ear of corn; gives birth to a beautiful boy; he cries incessantly, especially when it rains; his mother tells her mother to bathe the child in warm water, but she bathes him in hot water, the child turns into a worm; the mother guesses to start crushing corn; the worm crawls out toward the sound, the mother pours boiling water on it; told her daughter to take a cleansing drug], 30-31 [a lazy girl did not go anywhere, sat by the hearth; a beetle crawled into her, the beetles multiplied in her, began to suck her blood; a brother felled a tree, told his sister to move away, but she remained where she was; the tree crushed her, the beetles, having sucked blood, ran out of her stomach]; Rueda 1987, No. 47 [a woman sits on the ground, grinding corn on a grain grater; a worm crawled out of the ground, copulated with her; she gave birth to a boy, told his mother not to bathe him in hot water, she bathed him, he turned into a pile of worms; the grandmother summoned the worm-father with the grinding of the grain grater, poured boiling water on him; the woman cried]: 205-206; aguaruna : Akutz Nugkai et al. 1977(2), no. 11 [as in Chumap Lucía, García-Rendueles 1979; a black boy is born, everyone thinks he is a black man's child; in hot water he turns into worms; from then on girls are not allowed to sit on the ground]: 135-137; Chumap Lucía, García-Rendueles 1979, no. 38 [while sitting on the ground, a woman grinds corn on a wooden board for grinding boiled cassava; an earthworm crawls into her vagina and has sex; when leaving, the woman covers the worm's hole with a board; she gives birth to a dark-skinned boy; he grows up and likes water; the woman does not tell her mother to bathe her in hot water; she bathes him and he turns into a worm; the grandmother finds the hole and begins to grind corn the same way her daughter did; a worm crawled out, she poured boiling water on it; sprinkled the floor with ashes, put branches in the hammock as if a child were sleeping there; told her daughter what had happened], 38a [as in (38)]: 449-450, 451-455; napo [the husband's unmarried sister is always pregnant; the wife notices her sitting over a hole in the floor, stamping her foot, summoning a worm; the couple poured boiling water on it, in the ground like thunderclaps; the couple killed a girl in the forest, worms crawled out of her belly, the couple killed all but two; one day two young men came to the husband, they were the worms; they took him to their mother, but he was unable to cross the river of hot water]: Ortíz de Villalba 1989, no. 21: 46-48; sion [husband kills anaconda lover]: Chaves 1958: 147-148.

NW Amazonia. Huitoto [mother kills snake lover]; Yépez 1982 [Aime Hurama has a daughter, Monayaterisai; Jusido Bunaima came to chew coca, asked her to marry him; AH, his wife, and daughter went to the plot; when they returned, HM became a bird, the daughter asked him to catch it, kept it in a basket; when they came again, the bird was gone, and HM was a man; they thought that he had taken the bird; the next night AH and HB chewed coca again; HB: you have to endure it; but AH still went out to urinate; HS: since you don’t want coca, tobacco, you can’t endure it, you will eat earth, dry wood; M. was sitting on a mat; Jusido Bunaima crept up to her from below in the form of a worm, conceived a son, Jusitofe (cassava); mother sent M. to bring water in a sieve for sifting cassava flour, found a worm, poured boiling water over it; HB in a dream told M. to put the child she would give birth to in a pot, cover it with a leaf, make a cake from the foam that rose, and not show it to her parents; they saw an ant running with a piece of cassava, learned that their daughter had cassava; M. told them not to sleep, to watch the child; a cassava tree grew out of the child, with pineapples, caimo, aguacate and other fruits on its branches; a lake grew with the tree, the fruits fell into the water; the old woman-Rat got them; M.'s father Aima Hurama began to look for an axe; a woodpecker axe, a bird axe with a hard beak, an ordinary axe, a toad axe, a piranha axe were no good; with difficulty he woke up his uncle the fox; he took a knife, cut the liana by which the tree was tied to the sky; when the tree fell, Fox injured his throat, the sons of AH smeared the wound with yellow medicine, since then foxes have yellow throats; as a reward, foxes are allowed to eat fruits in the gardens; AH collected oil from the water, brought it, planted it, manioc grew; ritual songs and accessories are from the same lake and tree]: 63-69; okaina : Blixen 1999, No. 3 [the parents make sure that the youngest daughter does not have contact with a man; a snake digs a passage under her bench, copulates with her at night; the father suspects that his daughter is pregnant, asks her to take out a splinter for him, sees that her nipples have darkened; the mother sends her for water, finds the snake, scalds her with boiling water, it disappears; brings the girl cultivated plants; parents see ants carrying away pieces of cassava; a snake produced a peach palm and other fruit trees]: 43-49; Girard 1958 [a virgin Amena Kog(oe)n became pregnant by a snake that crawled out of a hole in the ground to her, bringing her much food; her mother noticed a hole in the floor, poured boiling water into it, the snake died; in a dream its spirit tells her to leave the son she will bear at the head of a ravine; four days later a giant tree was found there; on its branches were sweet and bitter cassava, corn, peanuts and other fruits; the girl ate them, and other people ate the earth; when she told them, the people cut down the tree, planted fruit; a spring gushed out where the tree fell; as punishment for cutting it down, people have been dying ever since]: 133-134, 137 [this is the first woman]; 1961: 130; bora[a girl became pregnant by a worm, but everyone thought it was from her own father, no one wanted to marry her; the people left, leaving the girl and her father alone; the father climbed a tree, threw fruits that fell on his daughter's belly; she immediately gave birth to a son-fish; she left him in the cradle at home, went to the plot herself to dig cassava; the father saw the child, threw him into the water; the daughter cried, went back to the river, became pregnant again, gave birth to an axe; sent it along with the berries she had collected to her father; went to live under water; her family despised her, but her father sent supplies via a crocodile]: Wavrin 1932: 142; karihona [Kuwai hears laughter from a fragrant tree; cuts out a woman, makes a vagina with a monkey's tail; threw a feast, climbed a palm tree for fruits, Vultures made him fall from the tree by witchcraft, temporarily die; his wife fell in love with the leader of the Vultures; the Vultures began to chop up K.'s corpse with knives, but the knives bounced off; when their leader approached, K. grabbed it, plucked it, was able to pull out the last feather only with his teeth, felt pain, since then he has had a toothache; the Vulture wanted people to die from this, but K. did not agree; the people guarding the Vulture fell asleep, his feathers grew, he flew away; when K. was not at home, the Vultures returned, carried off the woman; K. met a waterfowl (anhinga), she was collecting grass for the holiday that the Vultures arranged; she said that a new woman was preparing chicha, K. recognized her as his wife; the bird gave K. wings, he flew to the sky; in the guise of an old man, he began to dance at the holiday; In the morning the Vultures went fishing (i.e. worms in corpses); K. recognized his wife by the way she cooked, she him by the way he chopped wood; on the way home K. smeared his wife with honey to kill the smell of the vultures; her children from the Vulture remained in the sky; the wife went to the Drake, K. brought her back again; her next lover becomes the master of the waters Kanakanañi; calling him, the woman slaps the water with an inverted calabash; the two sons of the water bird tell K. about this; he calls the monster with the same signal; the water parts, a maloca (house) and fruit trees appear; Kuwai sends two gadflies to bite Kanakanañi in the testicles; he does not react to the bites of the yellow ones, but dies from the black ones; Kuwai cuts off his penis, sprinkles it with pepper and salt, gives it to his wife instead of a palm larva, as if by accident, breaks all the vessels with water; the woman runs to the river to drink, Kuwai kills her with a club, she turns into a river dolphin; all the dolphins are her children; the burning brand in her hand became a stinging ray, Kuwai's club - an electric eel]: Schindler 1979, No. 3: 56-69; cubeo : Goldman 1963: 148 [ Kuwaicarved a woman out of wood, brought it to his mother, who made her all the necessary parts; the woman went to the river for water, met an Anaconda, began to copulate with him every day; K. noticed this, waited until the lovers were united, killed the Anaconda with an arrow; cut off the penis, cut it into four lengthwise parts, turned it into fish, gave it to his wife; told her what she ate; the wife spat it out, went to the river; the Anaconda did not appear; K. threw out his wife, she again became a tree; var.: the woman began to wait for her lover, but only a thin snake like a rope swam up and said that he was dead], 237 [caiman; no details]; Pereira 1980(1) [ Uanari is sailing in a boat, a woman appears in it; in his absence, she agrees to fly away with the Royal Vulture (KS); U. took the form of an old man, lured a bird, which promised to take him to his wife if he cured her; his wife did not recognize him; after the end of the dabukuri festival, U. became younger; KS agrees to take U. and his wife to the ground; on the way he asks, Is my burp fragrant? - Yes! On the ground, U. shouts that the burp stinks; after the death of his first wife, U. takes the younger of the old woman's two daughters; she converges with the Serpent in the form of a man; U. followed him, killed his lover with an arrow, gave his penis to his wife to eat under the guise of a fish; said that she ate; the mother-in-law asked U. to clear the area; the birds helped to do this in a day; the son-serpent came out of the womb of U.'s wife to collect fruits for her; the tip remained in the womb; the woman threw it at the foot of the tree, ran home with her sister; U. made all the participants of the festival look like him, he himself left; the people rose to the sky, a storm began; U.'s wife turned into a river dolphin, her sister and mother threw her into the river; the Serpent son cries out to his mother, Inhom, inhom! ]: 268-277; maku [Idn Kamni makes a woman out of rubber; she bites a stick with her vagina; a coati or piranha extracts her vaginal teeth; she comes to the site pregnant, although IK has not yet copulated with her; he watches her, sees her squat down, pick up a leaf, a snake crawls out of the hole; IK does not take food from her, calls the snake with the same signal, throws a noose around it, gives the ends to two birds; when the wife sits down, the birds tighten the noose, the part of the snake that entered the vagina remains there; IK goes with his wife to collect fruits, throws them from the tree; the fruit falls on her stomach, she gives birth to snakes; IR cuts off their heads, they turn into spiders; this is how snakes and spiders appeared]: Silverwood-Cope 1972, No. 5: 231-232; tatuyo[Dyeba the jaguar is the son of the Sun, more man than beast; rejects animal wives, the maca woman, because she is wild; climbs a tree above the river, his testicles hang down like the fruits of Pouteria ucuqui; fish swim up (they are women); he falls in the form of a fruit and, with the help of various lianas created by him, catches Dyawira (D.) - the daughter of the anaconda Wai Pino (wai - "fish", pinô - "anaconda", i.e. Anaconda-Fish); other fish warned D. that this was not just a fruit, but she did not listen; Dyew's penis is like a jaguar's, he cannot get together with D.; she gets him drunk, corrects his penis; a monkey helps D. collect wild fruits; D. takes them to the river to his father, receives cassava, tobacco and other cultivated plants in exchange; D. forbids anyone to watch her planting with her sisters; Dyawira watches, D.'s sisters turn into weeds; the name Dyawira also means a kind of fern that grows like a weed; Dyawira mistakenly does not smoke, but eats tobacco, thinking it is a fish; suffers from a stomach ache; visits his father-in-law with his wife; he is at first angry, then throws a party; every time he returns from the field, D. cheats on Dyawira with the son of an anaconda; a bird informs Dyawira about this, he kills her lover, forces his wife to eat his penis; people and fish fight for a long time; Dyawira is seduced by vultures, carried to heaven; Dyawira covers himself with ulcers, ends up in the land of vultures, gets his wife back, vultures and little eagles pursue him; Dieba finds honey, D. rushes to suck it, suffocates, turns into a tree frog - "mother of feathers"]: Bidou 1972: 82-95; Barasana : Torres Laborde 1969: 50-52; Andoke : Landaburu, Pineda 1984: 98-102; Tukano [Dyâpinõ-maxkõ - the daughter of a water serpent, cheated on her husband with her cousin, also a water serpent; the husband ambushed and killed her rival; the wife is pregnant; she went to collect fruits, but can no longer climb the tree; the child-serpent came out of her womb, climbed to collect fruits; she was frightened by his appearance, ran to the house, hid under a pot; the son-serpent followed her, began to call her from the roof of the house, a flood began; when the water flooded the house, D. turned into a fish, the serpent son swam after her]: Brüzzi 1959: 55-62 in Bodiger 1965: 70; desana [the girl was in a separate hut because of her period; a seven-headed serpent comes to her; the shamans (paye) killed him and burned him; he came to life, turned into the Milky Way; {seven-headed – probably European influence}]: Reichel-Dolmatoff 1968, no. 4: 200; arapaso[anaconda Dia Pino - ancestor of the Arapaho; having taken the form of a handsome man, gets together with the wife of Iapo; she calls her lover out of the river every time by hitting the calabash; I. hid in a tree, lay in wait for the lovers, began to shoot poisoned darts from a blowgun at the man; he threw himself into the water, became an anaconda, swam to the island of Numiani Tuku, his body floated up; the husband cut off the anaconda's penis, put it in a bag with fish, gave it to his wife to fry and eat; began to play the flute, the wife understood everything, rushed to the river, began to drink, burped up a snake-like fish; the husband left, the woman became pregnant; the child from her womb offers the mother to pick fruit for her from the tree; in the form of a snake, he came out of her mouth, threw fruit, the tail remained in the woman; She left the frog to answer for itself (when the fruit fell, the woman always said "uh"), sailed away in a boat; the anaconda son, his name was Unurato, noticed her, lay down on a house, which was actually a hill; the people drove the woman away, she threw herself into the river, became a piranha; U. in the form of an anaconda, becoming larger and larger, swam to Manaus; taking the form of a man, met a European; when he appeared before him in the form of a snake, he shot at him, the snake skin came off; therefore the Arapaho - Pina Mahsa, "People of the Snake"]: Chernela, Leed 2003: 46-48.

Central Amazonia. Munduruku [an Utukerebö woman comes to a tree, calls a green snake Tupašerebö to come down, copulates with him, who then throws down fruits to her; the woman tells her mother that she has gathered the fruits that were lying on the ground; her brother spies on her, calls the snake in the voice of U.; kills him; U. finds the corpse; she has a son by the snake; he grows up, asks his uncle for an arrow, shoots him with it]: Murphy 1958, no. 49: 125-126; Maué [two Onhiamuaçabê brothers do not want her to marry because she knows the properties of plants, including medicinal ones; she owns the sacred place of Noçoquem, where she has planted a Brazil nut; a small snake falls in love with her, leaves a scent on the O. trail; O. walked along it, a snake touched her leg, O. froze, the snake became pregnant; O. gave birth to a boy, brought him to N.; Agouti told O.'s brothers that someone was burning a fire in N. and baking nuts; they lay in wait for the boy, cut off his head; the mother found the remains, took it out, planted the left eye, and a false guaraná grew; from the right grew a real one (a liana with edible fruits, which is grown specifically by the Maue); from the buried body of the boy grew the first Maue]: Pereira 1954: 121-122; Uggé 1991, no. 1: 116-121.

Central Andes. Pilhao (Diniel Carrion Province, Pasco Department, NW of Lake Junin): Arguedas, Izquierdo Ríos 1947 [girl becomes pregnant, dreams that she is giving birth to two eggs, that she must put them in a calabash, add milk, her sons will be born-snake, she must breastfeed them; next time she is instructed in a dream to run without looking back, because the snakes will devour everyone in the village; she turns around, turns into stone; two men Tomás Ricapán and Yunca Yacán come out of a mountain (or from a mountain), cut off the heads of snakes, they and the snakes turn into stones; people offer them coca and cigarettes]: 93-94; Duviols 1976: 289-290 [the wife of one of the Huayna (enemy of the Huanca) caciques dreams that she will give birth to a girl who will destroy Pilhao; the wife of another, that she will give birth to two young defenders; when the girl reaches 12 years of age, she is sent to herd llamas; she dreams of a monster, nine months later gives birth to two eggs, leaves them under a waterfall; her snake sons tell her to flee, for they will destroy both villages of Pilhao; she flees, the snakes devour everyone; two young men, Tumayricapac and Yunkicayan, kill the snakes with clubs; a woman with a young son sees the battle, screams, after which she, the young men, and the snakes turn into stones], 290 [the woman gives birth to an egg, a snake hatches from it, sucks her breast, says that he is hungry and will eat the people of the village; Tumayricapak cuts off the head of a snake, both turn to stone; the water in Lake Culebra is red because of the blood of the snake]; Canchis Province (Cusco Department, Marangani District) [a shepherdess meets a thin, tall young man in the mountains; he crawls quickly; he becomes her lover; he refused to show himself to her parents; he ordered a hole to be cleared by a grain grinder next to the barn; the girl moved into the barn under the pretext of guarding it from thieves; she is pregnant; the medicine man advises sending her to another village to give birth, to look under the grain grinder; the snake was cut into pieces, the head was beaten to death with difficulty; the girl gave birth to snakes, they were immediately killed, buried together with pieces of their father's body; the girl was cured and got married]: Lira 1990: 40-46 (=Arguedas 1949: 96-102); Aymara (Puno dep.) [a girl named Cutila from the village of Chuquircami is visited at night by a handsome young man; she becomes increasingly pale, one day asks her lover to come to a ravine during the day to discuss the wedding; a snake crawls up, tells her that he is her lover, says that she will give birth to eggs and must put them in a vessel; the eggs hatch into baby snakes; when K. goes to buy food for them, her mother opens the vessel, pours boiling water over the snakes; the father snake turns the village and its inhabitants into stone; only K. lives there now]: Lopez, Sayritupa Asqui 1990: 14-18.

Montagna – Jurua. Shipibo : Gebhaert-Sayer 1987, no. 8 [girl sits on a mat all the time, pale; mother sends her for water, finds a worm in a hole under the mat; it asks her not to kill her brother-in-law, but she pours boiling water on him; girl takes Anaconda as a lover; he gives her a fish, she feeds it to her sick brother; brother gets better, watches over his sister, sees her calling her lover, Sinkain, Sinkain , chops him into pieces, throws the tail into the river; girl asks her father to revive the dead man; he glues the pieces together with a potion obtained from a liana; only the tail is missing]: 357; Roe 1982, no. 4 [girl sits on the ground, making clay pots, copulates with a worm; mother pours boiling water over him; daughter goes into the forest; Jaguar sees worms in her vagina; puts medicinal leaves there, driving out spiders, scorpions, snakes, fish, lizards; wife takes a splinter out of his teeth; from the pain he turns into a jaguar; wife with two children return to people; jaguars attack the village; elder brother goes to his father-jaguar; since then people and jaguars live separately]: 52-53; marubo : Melatti 1984: 110-111 [woman Sheta Veká came into contact with a snake/worm; copulates with it while sitting on the floor; it got fruits and fish for the woman; mother noticed; husband SHV and other men killed the snake; pregnant woman goes into the forest, calls on the jaguar to eat her; gives birth to twins Wani (Morning Star) and Yawewa (Evening Star); if she wears black - hood, night, if white - day; meets Topáne , son of the forest woman Shoma Wetas; she ate her children; she had knives in her elbows, but her husband broke them off; of the children of Shoma Vetsa only T. was saved; when Sheta Veká came to T., her mother-in-law and her sister began to eat her children; T. pushed them both into a fiery pit; T.'s children became Creoles], 131-134 [Sheta Veká has a snake lover; the mother-in-law found him in the section of the house where the daughter-in-law was sitting, the father-in-law killed him, threw away the head; at this time the woman's husband killed her human lover on the property; she left, ended up with Rane Topáne, son of Shoma Vetsa; gave birth to snakes, poisonous ants, the Morning Star, the forest spirit Mincho; after this RT married her, brought her to his mother's house; she had a sister, Kencho; they ate their first three sons; then RT made a pit, made a fire in it, pushed the mother and aunt together; night birds, jaguars, night monkeys, spirits of the dead mourned her death; the souls of Shoma Vetsa and the boys she had eaten appeared; Sheta Veká woke her husband, but he grabbed only the eldest; the rest ran away, from them the Creoles descend]; Cashinahua[the girl rejects suitors; copulates with a worm, sitting on the ground; the mother pours boiling water on the worm; the pregnant daughter goes into the forest, wants to be eaten by a jaguar; Puma puts her in a stream, throws fish poison into the water; worms come out of her, turn into eels and all kinds of snakes; she cramps her legs prematurely, several worms remain (since then people have helminths); Puma gives her in marriage to his brother Jaguar, but remains her lover; her mother-in-law, a Jaguar, devours her children as soon as they are born; her son Jaguar wants to kill her; she says that she cannot be killed with an arrow, a club, cannot be drowned, she can only be burned; Rabbit says that all the animals will come to avenge the murder of his grandmother, but he will save them; while the grandmother is burning, Jaguar and his wife hide under a pot; animals try to lift it, Rabbit imperceptibly interferes; one spark falls on the forehead of those hiding (origin of headache)]: Ans 1975: 47-65; Yaminahua [sits low to the ground in a hammock]: Zarzar 1990: 20-21; Kapanawa [worm's hole under a grain grinder; girl explains her movements to her mother by saying that an ant is biting her; mother pours boiling water on the worm; woman gives birth to worms and a son; he is endowed with magical powers]: Hall Loos, Loss 1980(2): 11-13, 35-37, 53-55, 93-95; Ashaninka (River Campa) [girl meets Rainbow Man; gives birth; tells mother not to wash baby with warm water; she washes it, it falls apart; girl goes to Rainbow]: Patte 1993: 123-138; pyro [lover not killed; girl's mother throws baby snake into fire]: Matteson 1951, no. 3: 56-57.

Bolivia – Guaporé. Tacana : Hissink, Hahn 1961, nos. 166-167, 203 and 204 [woman's mother or husband throws her lover, a banana or manioc worm, into the fire], 174 [at night a Copperhead crawls into the woman; her husband kills the snake, beats his wife]: 299, 303, 324-325; Chacobo : Balzano 1984 [girl rejects suitors; sits on the floor of her room, copulating with a snake that crawls into her from below; her mother pours boiling water into the snake's hole, hangs the dead snake in the doorway; girl goes into the forest; a Jaguar copulates with her, is bitten by a rattlesnake, which is in her vagina; [brings out snakes by pouring a potion into her vagina; some crawl away, and the present ones are descended from them]: 27-28; Kelm 1972, #17 [girl refuses all men; sits on a snake hole in the house, has sex with the snake; mother was sweeping, saw a snake, poured boiling water on it, hung the corpse in the doorway; girl went into the forest, is pregnant with snakes; a jaguar in human form began to have sex with her, the snakes bit him on the penis; then he brought out the snakes with medicine; snakes of all kinds crawled out, the jaguar killed them; a monkey asked for a machete to kill snakes, missed several, which is why there are snakes now; a son was born, all three came to the woman's mother; the husband warned her not to give the child to the grandmother, the mother gave it to him, the child bit the grandmother, she died; the family returned to the forest; grandmother's husband went and killed the jaguar]: 242-243; (see aikana [husband dies; widow meets young man in forest, stays with him; it was a snake, woman soon died]: Becker-Donner 1955: 285).

Southern Amazonia. Kalapalo [a girl had a two-headed snake living under her bench; it copulated with her while she was grating cassava; her brother's wife noticed; while the girl was in the field, she killed the snake with a blow to the head]: Basso 1987: 303-304; mehinaku [Kataihu brings a Tepu worm from the forest in a calabash, it lives in a hole in the far corner of the house, she gives it cassava porridge, copulates with her while grating cassava; people follow, her lover kills the worm with a stick; the next day K. calls for the worm, finds the corpse; gives birth to a boy with a head and penis like T.]: Gregor 1985: 53; iranshe [wife is pregnant for a long time; husband sees her lying in a hammock, with snakes and butterflies {probably caterpillars} nearby; some of them crawl back into her womb, some crawl away (the origin of snakes, etc.); the husband calls her into the forest, offers to sit in a basket, burns her alive]: Pereira 1985, no. 66: 233-234; Bororo [relatives bring the woman a lot of meat and fish, but she feeds them half-starved; a boy pretending to be asleep sees her sit down on a mat, puts boiled meat next to her, rattles a bell; the snake crawls up, copulates with her, devours the meat; the men send the woman for corn, one of them puts on her belt, paints himself like a woman, calls the snake with the same signal; the men kill the snake, hang its head over the woman's mat; turn into hawks, fly away to the sky, turn into rain spirits; seeing the snake's head, the woman scolds the boy; he runs to the village square, asks the men who have flown away to moderate the heat; they send rain; during the rain the voice of these spirits is heard]: Wilbert, Simoneau 1983, no. 103: 196-197.

Eastern Brazil. Kayapo : Wilbert 1978, no. 50-51 [people burn lizards, both those living in trees and those born to a girl by a lizard; some escape], 125 [Banner 1957: 57-58; a husband and wife moved away; the husband turned into a snake (there were no snakes before), stopped caring for the garden, but hunted; gluttonous, cooks meat for his wife on many fires; a man came from the village, the wife hid him so that he would watch what was happening; he returned; another man wanted to go too; when the snake began to sing, he began to sing along, the snake ate him; the warriors killed the sleeping snake with clubs; the wife gave birth to snakes; people began to kill them, but the mother saved many and ordered them to bite people, avenging the death of their father], 126 [Lukesh 1968: 96-99; the husband turned into a snake with a human head, his wife took him away from the village to live separately from the others; a man came, his wife hid him, he saw everything; another also decided to come and look, but the snake noticed him and ate him; others came, the snake caught up with one and also ate it, the others ran away; the warriors found the snake sleeping, killed it; the woman gave birth to snakes; people began to kill them, some escaped, the mother ordered them to take revenge on people and bite them], 127 [Metraux 1960: 14-16; there was no corn, people ate wild fruits, avocado, wood and lizards; there was no fire, they dried meat in the sun; Having learned that his wife had a lover, the husband decided not to fight him, but took his wife behind two mountains; cleared a plot of land, planted corn, cassava, yams, bananas; turned into a snake with a human head; brought a tapir, a peccary, an armadillo from hunting; the lover came, the wife hid him under the roof; having returned to the village, she told about what she had seen; he also came to look, but when he answered the snake's question, who was there, the snake ate him; the men killed the snake with arrows, burned the house, took away the cultivated plants; the snake's wife gave birth to snakes twice; people killed those born in the village, those born in the forest crawled away; their mother told them to bite people, since they killed their father]: 152-154, 309-310, 311-313, 314-316; Wilbert, Simoneau 1984a, no. 151 [Nimuendaju MS; a married woman copulated on a plot with a rattlesnake and other snakes; her husband saw and left her; she gave birth to snakes of all kinds, they crawled away in all directions; the latter brought her some bast, tied it around her body, and took it with her; the woman turned into a snake]: 443; collapse : Wilbert, Simoneau Wilbert 1978, no. 48 [Schultz 1950: 156-158; the man and woman did not know about sex; a black snake taught the woman to copulate; appeared in the form of a handsome man; when she was about to give birth, said that he would not come again; at the river the child left the mother's body, became a fish or a paca, swam, and returned; at the age of 10 he became a good hunter; while he and his mother were boiling the entrails of a peccary, a boy emerged from the cauldron; this family peopled the earth]: 148-150; 1984b, no. 34 [men burn the son of a rattlesnake]: 95; tshukarramae [men burn the son of a caterpillar and the tree in which the caterpillar-lover lived]: Wilbert, Simoneau 1984a, no. 28: 69-73.

Chaco. Chamacoco: Wilbert, Simoneau 1987a, #75 [Cordeu MS; enemies killed the husband; the wife went with other women to catch eels; chose the fattest one, put it in a clay pot; tells the children not to touch it; when leaving, she takes the pot with her, undresses and inserts the eel into her vagina, sometimes pulling it back by a string tied to the tail, sometimes letting it go deeper; the eel understood that he was now the woman's husband; the children opened the pot, guessed everything, killed the eel, washed it and roasted it with the others; they left for the whole day, telling the youngest to say that they had prepared food for their mother; the woman took her pot and went to the river; the brothers decided to go to the sky; it was low; the eldest made a hole with an arrow, they climbed there along a liana; the youngest climbed last and his leg got caught, but the sky continued to rise; the elder ones became three bright stars of Scorpio, and the younger one behind them, a less bright star; when the woman opened the pot, she realized that her children had killed an eel; she asked the shaman to find out where the children were; he took out a mirror, saw nothing for a long time, and then noticed a leg in the sky; the woman called the birds; for a day and a half they tried to fly up to the sky, but none of them could; finally, an eagle flew up, began to peck the leg in different places, and different colors poured out from there; they collected them in vessels; the discolored leg gradually disintegrated and the pieces fell to the ground like falling stars; seeing them, people remember this incident; the woman painted the birds different colors, and painted herself black, becoming a carau bird (Mesembrinibis cayenensis)], 76 [Cordeu 1980; the woman's sons caught a small eel, she asked to leave it for her; she put it in an empty termite mound; it grew quickly; She summoned him by knocking on a termite mound; when his penis grew large, she made him her husband; she fed her sons, supposedly, with beans, but they were bitter; in fact, it was eel milt that he gave her; the children told the youngest to follow their mother; the children summoned an eel with the same signal, killed it, caught others, and the youngest roasted his mother's lover and gave it to her to eat; only the youngest managed to shoot arrows to the sky; as they hit the sky, it sank; the brothers entered the hole, the sky began to rise, the hole closed, and the youngest's leg remained outside; the woman noticed her reflection in a pond when she began to drink; she sent all the birds to get the leg, but no one could fly so high; only an eagle flew up, pecked the leg, the blood flowed and filled the exposed vessels with paint of different colors; when the paint flowed out, the leg fell out; "the eel's wife" painted all the birds], 77 [Frič MS; the husband brought Lalhorha's wife a small eel, let their child play with it; L. placed the eel in a pot on the edge of the swamp; the eel grew; the woman knocked on the pot, the eel crawled out, copulated with her; instead of sperm, it emitted caviar; she cooked it and ate it, fed it to the child; he does not like these "berries"; he watches the mother, tells the father; the father calls the eel with the same signal (by hitting the pot), cuts off the tail; cooks it together with the meat of other eels, gives it to the wife, tells the son not to eat it; the wife guesses,finds a dead eel; the village is empty, everyone has fled, the youngest son is the last to escape; the sky was low; shooting arrows, the boys pushed it aside; made a hole, climbed into the sky; when the last one was climbing, the hole closed, the boy's leg was left hanging; the mother saw her reflection in the water, then looked up; tells the birds to cut off the leg; the hawk pecks the leg, first red blood flows into the vessel provided, then black, white; when the hawk cut off the leg, the sky closed forever; the woman painted the birds depending on how well they sang; the vulture sang badly, it was painted with black and white stripes]: 252-262, 263-269, 270-272;chamacoco [three brothers caught a newborn eel; their mother leaves him to grow up; sees his penis and takes him as a lover; he gives her his caviar {milt?}; the sons feel a strange taste in the wild beans that their mother is collecting; the youngest peeks in, sees how the mother whistles for the eel, copulates with him, he gives her caviar under the guise of beans; the sons killed the eel, gave their mother its fried meat, ran to the sky; the youngest shot at the sky to make it descend; the elders immediately went into the hole in the sky, the youngest commanded the sky to rise, but did not yet remove his leg; the mother saw the reflection of the leg in the water, asked the birds to cut off the leg; only the falcon (he eats only live prey) was able to fly up to the sky, which had already risen high, cut off the leg; tells the woman to prepare vessels, blood of different colors flows into them; the woman paints the birds the way they want; then paints herself black, turning into a karau bird (Mesembrinibus cayenensis), cries out in mourning for the loss of her children]: Cordeu 1984: 237-238; maka [after collecting the pods, the woman sat on the ground, spread her legs, and began to grind the beans in a mortar; at this sound, an eel crawled out of the ground, crawled into her vagina; the husband was surprised at why the woman often laughed; he himself began to grind the beans in a mortar, the eel crawled out at the sound, the husband pierced it with a dart and hung it in the house; when the eel did not come out, the woman began to cry; the husband showed it to her; the other women understood why their neighbor was so cheerful]: Wilbert, Simoneau 1991a, no. 93: 210-211 (same in brief, no. 94: 212); toba : Wilbert, Simoneau 1982b, no. 183 [girl replies that her period ends when her husband is with her; neighbor picks up a skin from the floor of her hut, sees a snake; Carancho the hawk lands on this spot, the snake thinks that the girl has arrived, crawls out, he kills it; men want to feed the girl her lover, she refuses, they burn the snake; girl gives birth to 6 spotted snakes, Carancho kills them; Mother of Snakes says that her husband died because of the girl, turns her into an iguana]: 346-348; 1989a, no. 400 [during her period, a woman clears a space every time, sits on the ground, a snake climbs into her vagina; people follow the woman, try to catch the snake; she gives birth to a baby snake, goes to live with the snake; they are left alone]: 553-554.