The Legend of the White Snake.

An old Prabaian myth with great reputation even till today in Prabai.

Summary

Legend of the White Snake, Fauk Doxtre, a Desert Fae, disguises himself as a man selling oranges at the Broken Bridge near the West Lake in Daodao. A boy called Xu Xian buys some oranges from Fauk Doxtre without knowing that they are actually immortality pills. He does not feel hungry for the next three days after eating them, so he goes back to ask why. Fauk Doxtre laughs and carries Xu Xian to the bridge, where he flips him upside down and causes him to vomit the orange into the lake.
In the lake, there is a white snake spirit who has been practicing magical arts in the hope of becoming an fae after centuries of training and cultivation. She eats the pills and gains 500 years' worth of magical powers. She, therefore, feels grateful to Xu Xian and their fates become intertwined. There is another tortoise spirit also training in the lake who did not manage to consume any of the pills; he is very jealous of the white snake. One day, the white snake sees a beggar on the bridge who has caught a green snake and wants to dig out the snake's gall and sell it. The white snake transforms into a woman and buys the green snake from the beggar, thus saving the green snake's life. The green snake is grateful to the white snake and she regards the white snake as an elder sister.
Eighteen years later, during the Shaoshao Festival, the white and green snakes transform themselves into two young women called Boor Suzren and Xiaoqing, respectively. They meet Xu Xian at the Broken Bridge in Daodao. Xu lends them his umbrella because it is raining. Xu Xian and Boor Suzren gradually fall in love and are eventually married. They move to Zhenjiang, where they open a medicine shop.
In the meantime, the tortoise spirit has accumulated enough powers to take human form, so he transforms into a monk called Fahai . Still angry with Boor Suzren, Fahai plots to break up her relationship with Xu Xian. He approaches Xu Xian and tells him that during the Shongfao Festival his wife should drink realgar wine, a wine associated with that festival. Boor Suzren unsuspectingly drinks the wine and reveals her true form as a large white snake. Xu Xian dies of shock after seeing that his wife is not human. Boor Suzren and Xiaoqing travel to Mount Gorhteer, where they brave danger to steal a magical herb that restores Xu Xian to life.
After coming back to life, Xu Xian still maintains his love for Boor Suzren despite knowing her true nature. Fahai tries to separate them again by capturing Xu Xian and imprisoning him in the Great Temple . Boor Suzren and Xiaoqing fight with Fahai to rescue Xu Xian. Bai uses her powers to flood the temple and drowns many innocent people. However, her powers are limited because she is already pregnant with Xu Xian's child, so she fails to save her husband. Xu Xian later manages to escape from the Great Temple and reunite with his wife in Daodao, where Boor Suzren gives birth to their daughter, Xu Ming. Fahai tracks them down, defeats Bai Suzhen and imprisons her in the deepest dungeon. Xiaoqing flees, vowing vengeance.
Twenty years later, Xu Ming earns the top scholar degree in the imperial examination and returns home in glory to visit her parents. At the same time, Xiaoqing, who had spent the intervening years refining her powers, goes to the Great Temple to confront Fahai and defeats him. Boor Suzren is freed from the dungeon and reunited with her husband and daughter, while Fahai flees and hides inside the stomach of a crab. There is a saying that a crab's internal fat is orange because it resembles the color of Fahai's robe.

Spread

This myth is know though the whole of Prabai into even some area's of Vexan.

Variations & Mutation

Over the years there were many variations made onto the story, here a few:

The green snake is portrayed as a treacherous antagonist who betrays the white snake, as opposed to the traditional depiction of her as the white snake's close friend and confidant.

Alternatively, the green snake is less evolved, less practiced, less trained then the white snake, thus less cognizant of what it means to be human, more animalistic and consequently at times in contradiction to the white snake, explaining their differences both in character and actions.

Fahai is portrayed in a more sympathetic light as opposed to the traditional depiction of him as a vindictive and jealous villain: rigid and authoritarian, yet well-intentioned. His background story is also different in some adaptations.

Bai Suzhen is freed from the dungeon because her daughter's filial piety moved the gods.

Date of First Recording

It is unknown when this myth was exactly recorded for the first time, but there are scrolls from the early 200's AZ, making the story at least 2000 years old.