Serpents and Werewolves
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For Gowan, Mirren and Colin, the three most magical people in my life!
Contents
The Snake Prince
Punjabi folktale
The First Werewolves
Greek myth
Catching Loki
Norse myth
The Ashkelon Witches
Jewish folktale
Turnskin
Breton folktale
The Swallow’s Search
Egyptian myth
The Frog, the Flies and the Frying Pan
Scottish folktale
Fooled by Foxes
Japanese folktale
Ceridwen’s Potion
Welsh legend
The Gold Sea
Canadian tribal tale
The Swan Brothers
Norwegian folktale
The Wolf Arrow
Dutch folktale
Buzzard Boy
Mexican folktale
The Laidly Wyrm
Northumbrian legend
The Accidental Wolf Cub
German folktale
How to Track Down Shape-shifters
The Snake Prince
Punjabi folktale
Snakes can hide in the most unlikely places.
One hot morning, an old woman carried her clay pot down to the river. She stood the pot on the riverbank while she washed her hands and face. When she lifted the pot to fill it with water, she saw a snake coiled up inside.
A small, brightly coloured snake.
It was beautiful, but she knew that such bright colours usually meant deadly poison. The snake hissed at her and stuck out its forked tongue. She threw her veil over the top of the pot and backed away.
But it was her only clay pot. She couldn’t afford to buy another. She had to get rid of the snake. She took a deep breath and used a stick to lift the veil.
The snake had vanished.
Inside the pot now was a beautiful necklace, made of gleaming gold and bright jewels, shaped like a snake with its tail in its mouth.
The old woman gasped. She’d never seen anything so beautiful (except possibly the snake, with its vivid jewel-coloured scales) and she’d certainly never seen anything so valuable.
She picked the pot up, with the necklace rattling inside, and she ran to the King’s palace. She showed the serpent necklace to the King and Queen, and told them the story of the snake in the pot, which they laughed at kindly. They offered her many coins for the necklace. She accepted, because coins to buy food were more use to her than fancy jewellery.
The King and Queen laid the necklace in a wooden box in their room, for the Queen to wear on a special occasion.
And a special occasion arrived the next day. The King and Queen were invited to a feast in the neighbouring kingdom, to celebrate the birth of a baby princess. The Queen tried to smile when she read the invitation. She had no children of her own, and while she was pleased for the neighbouring queen, she was sad too.
“Cheer up,” said the King, “this is a chance to wear that beautiful serpent necklace.”
They went to the bedroom and opened the wooden box.
The necklace had vanished.
Inside the box now was a baby boy, waving his arms and gurgling.
A perfect, healthy, smiling baby boy.
The Queen picked the baby up and hugged him. “This is a gift to us. A child, at last!”
So they raised the boy as their own, as the Prince of their kingdom. When he was eighteen, he was betrothed to the Princess next door.
But rumours of his unusual arrival, whispered stories of clay pots and snakes and necklaces, had spread from his city to the neighbouring kingdom. The Princess heard people mutter that she was going to marry a snake prince.
At the feast to celebrate their betrothal, the Princess whispered to the Prince, “Is it true that you’re really a snake?”
He refused to answer.
She asked again, “Are you really a snake? Tell me the truth or I’ll refuse to marry you.”
He answered, “You will regret it if I tell you the truth.”
“We will both regret it if you don’t. I can’t marry a man who keeps secrets from me.”
So they left the feast and sat on the veranda, overlooking the river.
The Prince sighed. “As a tiny child, I was enchanted by the Queen of the... erm... slithering things, to be... umm... a thing with scales. But I was granted the right to be human until someone asked me that very question. Until someone forced me to utter the word...”
“What word? What were you turned into? Who enchanted you? Tell me everything!”
“I was enchanted by the Queen of the Snakes...”
As soon as he said the word ‘snakes’ the young man vanished.
And the Princess was sitting on the veranda beside a snake. A long, smooth, beautifully coloured snake. Its head drooped sadly onto the ground, then it slid away into the darkness.
The Princess sighed. She knew his secret, but now she had lost him forever.
Unless she could persuade the Queen of the Snakes to give him back.
The next morning the Princess spoke to the men who charmed snakes in the marketplace. She spoke to the King and Queen about the day they found their son. She spoke to the old woman, now ancient and happy in her comfortable home.
The Princess came up with a plan. She rented a house by the river. At sunset, she filled four wide bowls with warm milk and sugar and laid those four bowls in the four corners of her bedroom. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the room and she waited.
She heard a gentle hissing. Then snakes came in through the windows and the door, and up through holes in the floor. Big snakes and little snakes, long snakes and short snakes, snakes as dark as night and snakes as bright as sunlight.
The snakes slithered around the Princess and the snakes slithered over the Princess.
The Princess sat still and quiet and respectful.
The snakes slithered towards the bowls of sweet milk. But they didn’t drink. They were all waiting for someone. For something.
Then the Queen of the Snakes arrived.
The Princess stood up as a huge snake approached the doorway, slipping and sliding along the ground, long and muscular and sinuous, with dark green scales. The huge snake rose up, her hooded head higher than the Princess.
The Princess said, “Greetings, Queen of the Snakes.”
The Queen of the Snakes opened her huge jaws, showed her sharp fangs and spoke. “You have gifts for me.”
“I have the drink that snakes love the most. I will put four bowls out for you and your people every night of my life, if you will give the Prince back his human form.”
“You dare to bargain with me?” The Queen of the Snakes slithered forward. Her head rose higher. Her eyes and fangs swayed above the Princess’s head.
The Princess stood firm. “Yes. You have something that I want. Give him to me, and I will give you and your followers sweet milk every night.”
The Queen of the Snakes hissed and flicked her tongue.
The Princess stood firm.
The Queen of the Snakes jerked her head forward and jabbed her fangs into the air just by the Princess’s left shoulder.
The Princess stood firm.
The Queen of the Snakes jerked her head forward and jabbed her fangs into the air just by the Princess’s right shoulder.
The Princess stood firm.
The Queen of the Snakes nodded. “We will drink, and you will have your prince.”
She lowered her head delicately to the floor and moved to the largest bowl of milk. She drank, then the other snakes drank, then they left the room, slowly, with the dry smooth noise of scales on wood.
But one snake, with a
pattern of bright gems along its back, remained in the middle of the room.
That snake writhed and wriggled and squirmed out of its bright skin. And the Prince stood up.
He thanked the Princess for freeing him from the Queen of the Snakes, then he smiled. “So, are we going to entertain a houseful of snakes every night of our lives?”
The Princess laughed. “No, we’ll put the bowls of milk in the garden from now on!”
And they lived in contentment for many years, with only a few small secrets inside their palace and many fat snakes outside.
The First Werewolves
Greek myth
The feet of the gods walked the earth long before the paws of werewolves ran here.
Many years ago, Zeus came to earth disguised as a traveller. He walked the lands and islands of Greece, to see how people lived.
After many miles, he arrived at the castle of King Lycaon. The people in the villages around recognised a strange power in Zeus. The sparking light in his eyes perhaps, or the rolling note in his voice. They bowed before him and offered him their best food and drink.
He smiled at them and walked up to the castle. He wanted to meet King Lycaon and his sons, because he’d heard rumours of their cruelty.
The King heard the praise songs of the people below. From high on the walls of his castle, he looked down and saw the traveller approach his gate, dusty and sweaty, with old-fashioned clothes and boots. Yet he could hear the people call this wretch a god...
Lycaon refused to believe this man was better than him. “He is not a god,” Lycaon said to his three oldest sons. “He is not above us. And we will prove it.”
So they invited the traveller in and asked him to wait by the fire while they prepared him a feast.
Down in the kitchens, the King summoned his youngest son, Nyctimus. Lycaon told the boy to stand beside the largest pot in the kitchen. Then Lycaon cut his son’s throat, sliced him up and dropped the flesh into the pot. Lycaon and his three remaining sons added wine, herbs and spices to the meat, and boiled up a fragrant stew.
“Let’s see if that smelly traveller can work out what this is,” said Lycaon.
They carried the stew up to the feasting hall, sat the traveller at the table and placed a bowl of stew in front of him.
The traveller hesitated. He sniffed the stew and frowned.
The three sons filled bowls for themselves and took big spoonfuls. “Yum, delicious, very filling,” they said.
So the traveller took a bit of meat and put it to his lips.
Then he roared with anger. He stood up, lifted the table into the air and tipped it over. Bowls and spoons clattered to the floor, stew spilled everywhere.
“HOW DARE YOU? How dare you test a god this way? How dare you treat a guest this way? And how dare you, how dare you eat the flesh of your own kind?”
As the god roared, his eyes flashed lightning and his voice boomed with thunder.
Lycaon recognised Zeus. The King fell to the ground and grovelled. “We only wished to test your power so that you could reveal your greatness to us, oh great powerful one.”
“HOW DARE YOU?” Zeus thundered again.
Lycaon and his sons ran...
They had tested the god, they had discovered his power, and now they were terrified. So they ran out of the castle, past the village and up towards the hills.
But as they ran, they tripped and stumbled, and started to run on four legs not two. Their fine clothes became ragged and grey and hairy, and the fabric stuck to their skin like fur.
They screamed in terror until their screams became howls.
And finally, they were wolves, running into the wilderness, running from the people who would always fear them and hunt them. They would never eat hot meat in a warm castle again.
Zeus waved his hand over the lumps of stew and pools of gravy on the floor. The boy Nyctimus stood up, brushing herbs from his shoulders and spices from his hands. Zeus lifted him onto the throne.
Then Zeus rose up to Olympus, to eat ambrosia for his supper and to tell his family about the goodness and evil he’d found as he walked the earth.
Lycaon and his oldest sons ran through the hills, as the first ever pack of werewolves. Cold and hungry and forever hunted by men.
They howled their pain and sorrow and anger. They howled their unhappiness to the gods in the sky every night. But Zeus didn’t listen, because gods rarely do.
Catching Loki
Norse myth
Loki, the Viking god of mischief, was on the run.
One of his tricks had gone too far and he was hiding from the Viking gods, so they wouldn’t punish him for tricking blind Hodur into killing his own brother Baldur.
Loki was sure the gods wouldn’t find him, because Loki knew he was smarter than all the other gods put together.
First he climbed high into the mountains. Then he built himself a house with four doors, facing north, east, south and west, so he could see his pursuers approaching from any direction.
Then he worked out his escape route.
If they found him, Loki wouldn’t have to run away on his two human legs. Loki was a shape-shifter. He could become a falcon or a fly or a horse. This time, he thought he’d become a fish.
He’d built his house by a narrow river just below a waterfall, and he decided that if the gods approached, he would turn into a fish and leap into the water.
So Loki hid, in his four-doored house, by his fast cold river. And the gods didn’t find him.
But you know how boring it is, playing hide and seek, if no one finds you? Loki was used to tricks and mischief, and games and quests, so he became very bored, hiding in his four-doored house, high and lonely in the mountains.
He started to chat to himself. “None of those thick-headed warrior gods will be able to catch me. The only god who would ever be able to catch me, is myself.
“If I was chasing me, how would I catch me?”
Loki sat by the fire in the centre of his four-doored house, glancing north, east, south and west. He fiddled with a bit of string. And he wondered, if he wanted to catch a fish in the river, what would he use?
He would need something that would let water through but not let a fish through. Something light but strong. Something flexible. Loki fiddled with the string. He imagined catching a fish. He knotted, he twisted and he invented...
He invented a net. The very first fishing net.
He looked at it and laughed. “A net. That’s the only thing that could catch me! And those muscle-bound idiots couldn’t invent this. They need me to do their thinking for them. I will always be safe from them, because I will always be smarter than them.”
Then he saw them. Through the east door, he saw the gods approach. Big, tall gods with axes, hammers, spears, swords and daggers.
Loki wasn’t scared. He knew his brains were a match for their weapons.
So he stepped to the north door, which led to the river and the waterfall.
Then he glanced back and saw the fishing net on the floor. “I can’t leave that for them.” So he kicked the net towards the fire, ran out the door and dived into the river, changing into a salmon as he dived.
Loki hid under the water, hoping to return to his four-doored house once the search party moved on.
The gods stood outside the house.
“Four doors,” said Thor, god of thunder. “That’s clever. That has the smell of Loki.”
The gods stepped inside the house.
“He’s not here,” said Tir, god of war. “He saw us coming and fled. Tricksy coward. We’ll have to keep searching.”
But Honir, the god of silence, was pointing at the fire.
There were dark marks on the floor near the fire. A pattern of ash, a latticework of burnt lines and knots.
The gods stared at it.
“What is it?”
“Why would he make that?”
“Why would he burn that?”
The god of silence pointed at the riv
er.
The gods smiled.
“What would that pattern catch?” said Thor.
“That might catch a fish...” said Tir.
So they sat down, they copied the pattern on the floor and they made the second fishing net.
They took it outside, they stretched it across the river, then Thor and Tir walked slowly up the riverbanks, pulling the net between them, driving any fish in the river towards the waterfall.
As the gods and their net forced Loki upriver, towards the trap of the high rocky fall, Loki realised he had no option but to reveal himself. He leapt out of the water, hoping to jump over the net and swim away.
But Thor’s fast hand grabbed the fish as he leapt. Thor slammed the fish down on the bank so hard that Loki became man-shaped again, then bound Loki so tightly that the shape-shifter couldn’t shift again.
And Loki was taken back to Odin to face justice. Loki, the trickster god, finally caught in a net he’d invented himself. Finally caught by his own cleverness.
The Ashkelon Witches
Jewish folktale
Once there was a coven of eighty witches, who lived in a cave above the town of Ashkelon and enjoyed tormenting the people of the town.
They often caused fires to blow out and cows to run dry of milk. Then one day, they turned a whole family into winged creatures. The father and sons turned into birds, the mother and daughters turned into butterflies, and the new baby turned into a caterpillar.
The local rabbi, Rabbi Shimon ben Shetah, decided the witches had gone too far and it was time to get rid of them.
He waited for a day of heavy rain, because in his wisdom he knew that witches are terrified of rain. He called seventy-nine of his students to him. He told each student to fetch two robes and a large pot, then to wear one robe, to fold the other up and to place it in the pot.
The rabbi and his students walked up the hill to the cave, balancing the pots upside down on their heads, keeping the second robes dry in the rain. Just inside the entrance to the cave, they changed into their dry robes and rolled the pots containing the wet robes out of sight down the hill.
Then the rabbi called, “Witches, come out to dance with me and my fine young students!”