A Cure for Serpents A Cure for Serpents A Cure for Serpents: A Doctor in Africa is a 1955 travel book by Alberto Denti di Pirajno, later the Duke of Pirajno, an Italian doctor, writer and former colonial governor of Tripoli. Set in Libya, Ethiopia and Somaliland, the book is a collection of anecdotes about various places he visited in his work as a physician in North Africa in the 1920s and the people he met, which includes tribal chieftains, Berber princes, courtesans and Tuareg tribesmen and of a lioness, which became part pet and part guard. The book was translated into English in
A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers another Romanian tale of this type, "The Boys with the Golden Stars". Even in this tale, however, the villain of the piece is the mother-in-law. The Chinese "The Pretty Little Calf" has the child murdered and restored in animal form; only the transformation to and from the title calf occurs, but it is more closely related to this tale in the villains, who are the first and second wife, the heroine being an official's third wife. A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers or The Golden Twins is a Romanian fairy