A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Parker’s No.250 explains a princess’s successive wedding-night deaths through a cobra. Seven princes have married her and died by the following morning. Her father therefore warns a new suitor against the marriage. The youth insists, remembers his teacher’s advice about sleeping cautiously in an unfamiliar place, and remains alert after the princess has gone to sleep.

Hearing a sound, he sees a cobra as large as a Palmyra trunk descending from the roof. The narrator identifies it as a young man who died through his love for the princess and was reborn as the snake, retaining hostility toward her husbands. The prince steps aside until it has almost reached the ground, then cuts it into three pieces with a sword. He displays the pieces the next morning, and the king orders the remains burned in the cemetery.

The snake does not emerge from the princess’s body and is not her transformed form. Those features must not be imported from the separate Bengal and Kashmir stories in Parker’s notes, where snakes come from a woman’s nostrils. The human lover is unnamed, and the main tale supplies neither an earlier marriage to the princess nor a curse producing the rebirth. After the danger ends, the narrative continues through a twelve-year war, a mistaken suspicion about the prince’s own son and his eventual kingship; the cobra never returns.

Rebirth from a human loverPalmyra-trunk size comparisonRoof descentKilled in three pieces
01

Origins & earliest records

Sri Lankan village tale recorded by H. Parker

02

Records & interpretation

Complete numbered main narrative, comparisons and all associated footnotes read.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III

    H. Parker · 1914

    No.250. Main pp.328–334; comparisons pp.334–336; two footnotes.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

H. Parker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III (1914)

III. No.250. Main pp.328–334; comparisons pp.334–336; two footnotes.

Complete parker3-s250.txt retained/read including ending and notes. Main witness distinguished from all comparator retellings; no inferred hybrid anatomy or added resurrection.

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translated folktaleParker, Volume III (1914), No.250Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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