The Girl with Two Husbands
Greek fairy tale about a serpent bridegroom
The Girl With Two Husbands is a Greek fairy tale translated and published by Richard MacGillivray Dawkins in Modern Greek Folktales. The tale is part of the more general cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, and is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", a type that deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands. In the Greek variants of the tale type, however, the story continues with the adventures of the banished heroine, who meets a man at a graveyard, rescues and marries him, and eventually is found by her first husband, the snake prince whom she disenchanted before.
Sources
According to Dawkins, the tale originates from Thrace with the translated title The Girl thrice accursed.
Summary
A king and queen have a daughter who is taught by a female teacher. The woman has wicked intentions and plans to marry the king by getting rid of the queen, and manipulates the princess to reach her goals: she treats the princess with kindness, gives her sweets and makes her bed with twelve pillows to sway her to her side. Now finally under her thrall, the female teacher asks the princess which she would rather see dead: the queen, her mother, or the teacher. The girl answers she would rather the teacher lives, thus the woman plots with the princess how to kill the queen: the princess is to ask for walnuts, which are in a lid, but only if the queen gives her some, then she is to close off the lid on the queen's head.
The princess does as the teacher instructed and closes the lid on the queen, killing her. After a period of mourning, the female teacher dotes on the girl even more and convinces her to ask the now widowed king to find a new wife, and mention her name.
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