Besides the last number, three other types of monster marriage stories
are common in Jamaica, all of which, though versions overlap or vary,
follow a fairly fixed pattern. They may be distinguished as the Snake
husband, the Devil husband, and the Bull husband.
The Snake husband story is very common. Besides the half dozen here set
down of the many versions offered me, seven Jamaica stories already
collected follow the general pattern with more or less exactness. See
Lewis, 291–296, Sarah Wintun; Milne Home, 54–55, The Sneake; 46–50, De
Sneake an’ de King’s Darter; Bates, JAFL 9:121, The Yalla Snake;
Jekyll, 26, The Three Sisters; 102–104, Yellow Snake; 65, Tacoma and
the old Witch Girl.
The story has three parts. (1) A difficult young lady refuses all
suitors, but falls in love with a Snake dressed as a handsome man. (2)
He has borrowed his fine parts and on the journey home drops them one
by one, becomes a Snake, and takes her to his home. (3) Her brothers
hear her song of distress and rescue her just as the Snake is about to
swallow her. These elements are fairly constant in modern Jamaica
versions.
(1) “The pick and choose” idea occurs in Bates’s, all Jekyll’s and all
my versions, although the idea that fine clothes do not make the man is
also emphasized.
For the “pick and choose” motive, compare Zeltner, 85, where the girl
refuses to marry anyone but “un homme n’avant aucune ouverture;”
Nassau, 68, where she will have no man with “even a little bit of a
blotch on his skin;” Tremearne, FL 22:346, where he must have “not one
blemish;” and Christensen, 10, where the girl refuses to marry anyone
with a scratch on his back. In none of these cases does the husband
take the form of a Snake. Compare also Jacottet, 126–159, where are
recorded five snake-husband stories, four of which are enchanted beast
stories (two of the “Beauty and the Beast” type and two of the “Yonec”
type), and the fifth is a good and bad-mannered girl story, none of
which use the “pick and choose” motive.
(2) The borrowed clothes appear in both Milne-Home’s versions, in
Bates’s, in two of Jekyll’s and in two of mine. In Milne-Home, the
story ends with the dropping of the clothes; in Jekyll and in two of
mine, the monster carries her to his den or “stone-hole.”
The clothes-borrowing idea occurs in Cronise and Ward, 178–186, where
“half-man” borrows his other half; in Dayrell, 39; Fortier, 71; Hollis,
Masai, 201–202; Parsons, Andros Island, 48 iv, 49 v, 50 i, 53 iv, and
in Sea Islands, 46.
(3) In Jekyll, 102, and all my versions, the girl’s song for help and
the answering swallowing song furnish the main interest of the story;
and the rescue by the brothers follows in Jekyll and in my two
versions. In my third version, the Snake swallows the girl while her
parents are sleeping. In Lewis’s much earlier story, a jealous
sorceress gives her step-daughter over to a great black dog named
Tiger, who takes her away to his den. She sings until her hunter
brothers hear her song, rush in and rescue her.
In Renel 1:275–277, a girl weds a beast in disguise, because of his
handsome clothes, is carried away to his hole, and finally attracts her
mother’s ears by her song of lamentation. In other African stories of
monster marriages, the song is entrusted to a bird messenger.
For the rescue, see Jekyll’s Bluebeard story, 35–37; Bleek, 61–64;
Christensen, 10–14; and numbers 83 and 86.
Evidently the story has become fixed in Jamaica out of a number of
different elements and does not depend upon a common source. The lesson
to the over-fastidious girl, ridicule of her fear of the ordeal of
marriage, and the old setting of the rescue by hunter-brothers, are
drawn together into a coherent story. It is the song that makes the
story popular.