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The forester, her husband, who was also kind-hearted, agreed to let her have her own way in the matter, and so the little serpent found a home and care and affection.

They kept him warm and fed him well,
And fortune did upon them dwell.

From that time on, peace and contentment and prosperity brightened the little cottage. Everything went smoothly and comfortably, though whether the little serpent had really anything to do with it or not, I cannot say.

Serpents grow up very quickly, and, what with the warmth and the good food and the affection, the little serpent soon grew to be a big one, oh, monstrous big! so that when he lay in front of the fire he took up the whole of the rug, and Sapatella had to scold him in order to make room so that she could attend to her cooking.

One day when she had nearly tripped over his tail and fallen with a pot of boiling water in her hands, Sapatella said to it: ‘You are grown too big to be lying about before the fire all day. You must get up and do something.’

‘Very well, mother,’ said the serpent–it always called her mother, and Cola it called father, just as a son would. ‘Find me a wife and I will get married and settle down.’

Sapatella did not very well know how to set about finding a wife for a serpent, even an adopted one; but she agreed to speak to Matteo her husband about the matter when he came home that night.

After supper, accordingly, she put the serpent’s request to the forester.

‘Our serpent wants to get married, Cola,’ she said; ‘so you must find him a wife.’

‘Very well,’ said Matteo. ‘I will hunt through the forest when I am out, and try and find another serpent for him to mate with.’

‘Oh, that will not do at all,’ said the serpent, who had been listening very intently to its adopted parents’ conversation, though it seemed to be sleeping peacefully all over the floor in front of the fire. ‘I do not mate with serpents. You must get the King’s daughter for me. To-morrow you must set out to the palace, and tell the King that I require his daughter in marriage.’

Naturally Matteo did not at all care about his errand; but his wife entreated him to go, and so on the morrow the good man set forth, the serpent watching him depart from the cottage door, chanting all the while:

‘To the King my message tell,
And fortune will upon you dwell.’

Well, Matteo walked along through the forest on his way to the King’s palace, and the nearer he got to his journey’s end the more difficult and dangerous his errand seemed to grow. He thought the King would be sure to be very angry, and he might even order him to be hanged for a knave, or beaten off the palace grounds for a fool.

But he kept thinking of what the serpent had said, and, as good fortune dwelling upon us is something we all like to have, the forester kept on his way and resolved faithfully to carry out his errand.

He came at last to the palace gates, and as, in those days, in that country, any one who wanted to could walk in and speak to the King, this simple old fellow passed in with the crowd who were going to seek help or justice, and in due time he came before the King.

‘O great King!’ he said, ‘a serpent who is my adopted son has sent me to ask your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

The King stared, and then he frowned, and then he stared again. Kings are accustomed to receiving strange requests; but never anything so strange as this.

Fortunately for Cola, the King was a good-humoured, easy-going man, and, thinking that he had to do with some harmless old lunatic, he only laughed, as did all the courtiers and people who stood about him.