This he did and set off alone with the snake, and after some days they reached the snake’s home.  The snake told Lita to wait outside while he went and apprized his parents and he told Lita that when he was asked to choose his reward he should name nothing but the ring which was on the father-snake’s finger, for the ring had this property that if it were placed in a seer of milk and then asked to produce anything whatever, that thing would immediately appear.  Then the snake went on to his home and when the father and mother saw him they fell on his neck and kissed him and wept over him saying that they had never expected to see him again; the snake told them how he had gone to the country of men and how a reward had been set on his head and he had been hunted, and how Lita had bought him from the men who would have killed him.  The father snake asked why he had not brought Lita to be rewarded and the snake said that he was afraid that when they saw him they would eat him.

But the father and mother swore that they could not be guilty of such ingratitude, and when he heard this the snake went and brought in Lita, and they entertained him handsomely for two days; and on the third day the father snake asked Lita what he would take as his reward.  Lita looked round at the shining palace in which they lived and at first was afraid to speak but at last he said:  “I do not want money or anything but the ring on your finger:  if you will not give me that, I will take nothing; I saved your son from peril and that you will remember all your lives, and if you give me the ring I will honour you for it as long as I live.”  Then the father and mother snake consulted together and the mother said “Give it to him as he asks for it” so the father snake drew it from his finger and gave it to Lita and they gave him also some money for his journey back; and he went home and found the other three animals safe and sound waiting for him.

After a time his father said that Lita must marry; so marriage go-betweens were sent out to look for a bride and they found a very rich and beautiful girl whose parents were agreeable to the match.  But the girl herself said that she would only marry a man who would build a covered passage from her house to his, so that she could walk to her new home in the shade.  The go-betweens reported this, and Lita’s father and brothers consulted and agreed that they could never make such a passage, but Lita said to his father:  “Arrange the match; it shall be my charge to arrange for making the covered passage; I will not let you be put to shame over it.”  For Lita had already put the ring to the test:  he had dropped it into a seer of milk and said “Let five bharias of parched rice and two bharias of curds appear” and immediately the parched rice and curds were before him; and thereupon he had called out “The snake has worthily rewarded me for saving his life;” and the cat and the otter and the rat overheard what he said.