In a great kingdom there lived a mighty goddess, and with her the prince of her choosing, a strapping young lad who was just the thing for a Goddess to have hanging off her arm and around the palace to give massages and pamper her . All the other goddesses in the other kingdoms were insanely jealous. But all was not well in the kingdom.
 The young prince had a pet, a one eyed trouser snake. No, one really knew why it had only one eye, it just did. He had it as long as he could remember, and he was quite attached to it. That wasn’t the problem however, what was the problem was that every so once in a while the trouser snake would slither up the trousers of a young maiden working in the fields and simply gobble her up. The peasants were very angry about this, every time a maiden went missing  everybody knew that the one eyed trouser snake had gotten her.
 This went on for years, much to the chagrin of the entire kingdom. The Goddess found that the snake hardly ever ate what it was fed at home, preferring to go slither off into the wild to eat yet another fair maiden. The Goddess forgave and forgave the snake, but there seemed no end to it’s carnage. Finally she knew she must do something. She summoned the prince.
 Young prince, you simply must do something about that  snake of yours. I simply cannot have it eating a maiden any old time it pleases. I want you to do something about it.
 “But goddess! “ begged the prince.” I can’t simply do away with the snake, I’m rather attached to it you see. It’s been with me since birth, and while it has a mind of it’s own, and does eat the occasional maiden, I can’t bear to part with it. Surely there is another way?”
 “Perhaps there  is. “ admitted the Goddess. “maybe if we can keep your one eyed trouser snake locked up in a cage it woiuld not be able to get at the maidens, and therefore we would not have a problem.”
 While it pained the prince to do so, he admitted defeat and agreed to the caging of the serpent. They had a fine cage built, and placed the sanke inside it. All was well for a day, but the very next day the goddess awoke to find the snake not in the cage,  and another maiden missing. It came slithering home later that day, the prince herding it along. The goddess was furious. It seems the snake had simply slithered out between the barsof the cage and gone to have another maiden. 
 “Prince!” yelled the goddess. “This is ridiculous! We simply must dispose of the snake. Look another maiden gobbled up!”
 “Well “ said the prince . “What if we put it in a bottle? There would be no bars to slither between and the snake would stay home and not gobble up any more maidens.”
 This seemed sensible to the Goddess, and she agreed. The next morning she checked the bottle, and once again the snake was gone. It seemed it had slithered up the bottle, out the top and gone off to gobble another maiden. 
 When the prince returned, herding along the snake, the Goddess was furious.she grabbed the snake, put it back in the bottle , and this time put it in the bottle head first. She tied a string around the snake’s tail, and fastened it to the bottle’s rim. The snake twisted, turned, slithered and squeezed but it just could not get past it’s own tail to get out of the bottle, and if it did, it couldn’t drag the bottle off to gobble a maiden.For weeks it tried, but it simply couldn’t  escape the entrapment of the goddess.
 One day the prince went to the goddess. “Goddess,” he spoke “My snake is very hungry. For weeks on end you have kept it prisoner, without so much as a bite to eat. Could my snake please eat?”
 “I don’t think the snake is hungry enough yet prince .” replied the goddess. “From now on the snake is on a strict diet, and it will have only what I feed it, when I choose  to feed it. “
 And they all lived happily ever after, the maidens, the prince, the goddess and the snake..

The end.