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The White Snake is a German fairy tale included in the complete volume of the Brothers Grimm, tale number 17. It is Aarne-Thompson type 673.
Synopsis
A wise King receives a covered dish every evening. A servant is curious one night when he retrieves the King's dish, he discovers a coiled white snake under the cover. The servant takes a small bite and discovers that he can communicate with animals.
Shortly afterwards the servant is accused of stealing the Queen's ring. He is given one day to prove his innocence or submit to punishment. After having given up, he sits awaiting his demise when he overhears a goose complaining about a ring stuck in her throat. The servant leaps up, grabs the goose and hurries to the kitchen. When the cook slits the goose's neck, there is the missing ring. The King apologizes and offers the servant land and riches. The servant declines accepting only a little gold and a horse on which to see the country side.
On his journey to a town the servant first encounters a number of animals in distress including three fishes out of water, ants at risk of being trodden upon and starving Raven fledglings in a nest. In each case the servant heeds the call for help and in each case the grateful animals respond with "I will remember and return the favour".
In the town the King has announced that he wishes to marry off his daughter, but any suitor must agree to complete an arduous task to the end or be put to death. After one glimpse of the beautiful girl, the young man agrees. The King tosses a golden ring into the sea and tells the young man to retrieve it. He also adds that the young man must either bring the ring back, drown retrieving the ring or be drowned upon returning without it.
Immediately three fish appear floating a bit of seaweed ahead of them and on the seaweed rests the King's ring. Astonished, the King agrees to the marriage of his daughter to the young man. However, the daughter sets him upon another task of refilling sacks of grain that she has spilled in the grass.
The young man is discouraged because he believes it impossible to gather all of the grain from the ground and he lays down and falls asleep shortly. When he wakes he looks over at the sacks that were empty the night before, they are now filled with grain with not one grain missing. The Ant King had had all of the ants working all night to fill them.
However the daughter is still not happy and sets the servant off to find an apple from the tree of life. After many days he collapses under a tree and , an apple falls onto his hand. He looks up to see the three ravens, now grown. Overjoyed, he returns to the King's daughter and she finally agrees to marry him. They share the apple from the tree of life and live happily together to an old age.
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