# The Three Snake-Leaves explained — Household Tales > Chapter companion for Household Tales by Jacob Grimm. ## What happens A poor youth leaves home, serves a king at war, and single-handedly wins a battle. He marries the king's beautiful daughter, who has vowed that if she dies first, her husband must be buried alive with her. When she dies, he is entombed with her, but he revives her using three magical snake-leaves he sees bring a dead snake back to life. Afterward, his wife's love turns cold; she conspires with a skipper to throw him into the sea. His faithful servant rescues him with the same leaves, and the king exposes the treachery, sentencing the wife and skipper to death. ## Themes in this chapter ### Transformation and Redemption The youth transforms from a poor burden to a hero and king; the snake-leaves bring the dead back to life, offering a second chance. ### Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished The faithful servant and the youth are rewarded with life and justice, while the unfaithful wife and skipper are drowned. ### Promises and Their Consequences The princess's vow to be buried alive with her husband leads to his entombment; the youth's promise to the king binds him to a deadly fate. ### Family Dynamics and Betrayal The princess betrays her husband despite his love and sacrifice, and the king ultimately judges his own daughter. ## Character check-ins ### the youth The poor son who becomes a hero, marries the princess, is buried alive, and is twice revived by the snake-leaves. ### the princess The king's daughter who demands a husband willing to be buried alive with her, then later betrays and attempts to murder her husband. ### the servant The faithful servant who keeps the snake-leaves, witnesses the murder attempt, rescues his master, and helps expose the truth. ### the young King The youth who becomes king after marriage; he is buried alive, revived, thrown into the sea, and revived again. ## Key lines > There was once on a time a poor man, who could no longer support his only son. Then said the son, 'Dear father, things go so badly with us that I am a burden to you. I would rather go away and see how I can earn my bread.' A poor father could not afford to keep his son, so the son decided to leave home to find work. _Opening: the son's departure due to poverty._ > The King had a daughter who was very beautiful, but she was also very strange. She had made a vow to take no one as her lord and husband who did not promise to let himself be buried alive with her if she died first. The princess was beautiful but eccentric, demanding that any suitor agree to be buried alive with her if she died. _The princess's unusual marriage condition._ > Then it took the three pieces of the snake, laid them together, as they ought to go, and placed one of the leaves on each wound. Immediately the severed parts joined themselves together, the snake moved, and became alive again, and both of them hastened away together. The second snake reassembled the first snake's body using three green leaves, bringing it back to life. _Discovery of the snake-leaves' power._ > And once when the young King lay there asleep, she called in the skipper and seized the sleeper by the head, and the skipper took him by the feet, and thus they threw him down into the sea. While the king slept, his wife and the skipper threw him overboard into the sea. _The wife's betrayal and murder attempt._ > The King said, 'There is no mercy. He was ready to die with thee and restored thee to life again, but thou hast murdered him in his sleep, and shalt receive the reward that thou deservest.' The king declared that his daughter deserved no mercy for her treachery and sentenced her to death. _The king's judgment and punishment._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/household_tales_se/chapters/the-three-snake-leaves - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/household_tales_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/household_tales_se/chapters