Neck-Coiling Viper of the Ungrateful Rescue Tale

Overview

A man finds a small viper, takes it home and raises it. Once grown, it coils around his neck and refuses his demand to come down. When he proposes going to court, it answers that he should run. On their way they meet a hedgehog, and the man explains that the creature he raised now refuses to release him. The encounter is presented through direct exchanges among man, viper and hedgehog; the account gives no judgment by an actual court.

A woman brings couscous. The viper comes down when invited to eat, allowing the hedgehog to tell the man to kill it; he crushes its head. The hedgehog then flees into a bush rather than remaining with the person it helped. The man admits that otherwise he would have taken it to feed his children, and the hedgehog denounces human ingratitude. The ending makes the helpful animal’s escape a separate response to the man’s intended exploitation, after the viper’s actual death.

Origins & earliest records

René Basset, Contes populaires berbères (1887), no. 7, L’homme, la vipère et le hérisson, complete printed pp. 16–17, headed Zouaoua. Source note 11, p. 140, identifies manuscript no. 1 in the Bibliothèque nationale’s Berber collection, distinct from manuscript no. 17 used for neighboring animal tales.

Records & interpretation

Complete French narrative inspected in original DjVu pages 54–55, printed pp. 16–17, including the hedgehog’s escape and the man’s intended use of it as food. Original note 11 inspected in DjVu page 178, printed p. 140; its reference to Manuel de langue kabyle, Textes pp. 13–14, is a bibliographic lead rather than a second inspected edition.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Contes populaires berbères

   René Basset, French translator and editor · 1887

   No. 7, complete pp. 16–17; source note 11, p. 140; comparative note 12 is separate from the local narrative.

Family & connections

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References

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1. Primary collected narrative; original facsimile inspectedOriginal edition, complete narrative 7Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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