On the Ascension Day, about three in the afternoon, a young man, a student named Anselm, was rapidly walking through the Black Gate in Dresden. He accidentally knocked over a huge basket of apples and pies, which were sold by an ugly old woman. He gave the old woman his skinny wallet. The merchant hastily seized him and burst into terrible curses and threats. “You will fall under the glass, under the glass!” She screamed. Accompanied by malevolent laughter and sympathetic glances, Anselm turned onto a secluded road along the Elbe. He began to complain out loud about his worthless life.

Anselm's monologue was interrupted by a strange rustling that came from an elderberry bush. Sounds resembled the sound of crystal bells. Looking up, Anselm saw three lovely golden-green snakes twining around the branches. One of the three snakes extended its head to him and looked at him with tenderness with wonderful dark blue eyes. Anselma was seized with a feeling of highest bliss and deepest sorrow. Suddenly a rough, thick voice came, the snakes rushed to the Elbe and disappeared as suddenly as they had arisen.

Anselm embraced the elderberry in a longing, frightening the townspeople walking in the park with their looks and wild speeches. Hearing unflattering remarks at his own expense, Anselm woke up and rushed to run. Suddenly they called out to him. It turned out to be his friends - the registrar Gerrand and the corrector Paulman with his daughters. The Conrector invited Anselm to take a boat ride along the Elbe with them and end the evening with dinner at his house. Now Anselm clearly understood that the golden snakes were just a reflection of the fireworks in the foliage. Nevertheless, that same unknown feeling, bliss or sorrow, again squeezed his chest.

During the walk, Anselm nearly turned over the boat, shouting strange speeches about golden snakes. Everyone agreed that the young man was clearly not in himself, and his poverty and unluckiness were to blame. Geerbrand invited him to hire a scribe for decent money to archivist Lindgorst - he was just looking for a talented calligrapher and draftsman to copy manuscripts from his library. The student was sincerely glad of this proposal, because his passion was to copy difficult calligraphy works.

The next morning, Anselm dressed up and went to Lindgorst. As soon as he wanted to take up the door knocker on the door of the archivist's house, when suddenly the bronze face twisted and turned into an old woman whose Anselm scattered apples at the Black Gate. Anselm staggered back in horror and grabbed the cord of the bell. In his ringing, the ominous words were heard to the student: "You should already be in the glass, in the crystal." The cord of the bell went down and turned out to be a white transparent gigantic snake. She twisted it and squeezed it, so that blood splashed from the veins, penetrating the body of the snake and staining it red. The snake raised its head and laid its tongue of red-hot iron on Anselm's chest. From sharp pain he lost his senses. The student woke up in his poor bed, and over him stood Conductor Paulman.

After this incident, Anselm did not dare to approach the archivist's house again. No convictions of friends led to anything, the student was considered really insane, and, according to the registrar Gerrand, the best way to do this was to work with the archivist. In order to introduce Anselm and Lindgorst closer, the receptionist arranged a meeting for them in a coffee house one evening.

That evening, the archivist told a strange story about a fire lily that was born in a pristine valley, and about the young man Phosphorus, to whom the lily burned with love. Phosphorus kissed a lily, it broke out in a bright flame, a new creature emerged from it and flew away, not caring for the young man in love. Phosphorus began to mourn the lost girlfriend. A black dragon flew out of the rock, caught this creature, hugged it with wings, and it again turned into a lily, but its love for Phosphorus became a sharp pain, from which everything around it faded and faded. Phosphorus fought the dragon and freed the lily, which became the queen of the valley. “I come from that valley, and the fire lily was my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, so I myself am the prince,” Lindgorst concluded. These words of the archivist caused a thrill in the soul of the student.

Every evening a student came to that elderberry bush, hugged him and exclaimed sadly: “Ah! "I love you, snake, and I will perish from sorrow if you do not return!” One such evening, archivist Lindgorst approached him. Anselm told him about all the extraordinary incidents that happened to him recently. The archivist informed Anselm that the three snakes were his daughters, and he was in love with the youngest, Serpentina. Lindgorst invited the young man to him and gave him a magical liquid - protection from the old witch. After that, the archivist turned into a kite and flew away.

The daughter of Conrector Paulman Veronica, having accidentally heard that Anselm could become a court adviser, began to dream about the role of a court counselor and his wife. In the midst of her dreams, she heard an unknown and terrible creaky voice, which said: "He will not be your husband!"

Hearing from a friend that the old fortuneteller Frau Rauerin lives in Dresden, Veronica decided to turn to her for advice. “Leave Anselm,” the witch told the girl. “He's a bad man.” He contacted my enemy, an evil old man. He is in love with his daughter, a green snake. He will never be a court adviser. ” Unhappy with the words of the fortuneteller, Veronica wanted to leave, but then the fortuneteller turned into the girl’s old nanny, Lisa. To delay Veronica, the nanny said she would try to heal Anselm from the spell of the sorcerer. For this, the girl must come to her at night, into the future equinox. Hope woke up again in Veronica’s soul.

Meanwhile, Anselm set to work with the archivist. Lindgorst gave the student some kind of black mass instead of ink, strangely colored feathers, unusually white and smooth paper and ordered the Arabic manuscript to be copied. With every word, Anselm’s courage increased, and with it, skill. The young man seemed that the serpentine was helping him. The archivist read his secret thoughts and said that this work is a test that will lead him to happiness.

On a cold and windy night of the equinox, the fortuneteller led Veronica into the field. She opened a fire under the cauldron and threw at him those strange bodies that she brought with her in the basket. Following them, a lock of Veronica’s head and her ringlet flew into the cauldron. The witch told the girl not to stop looking at the boiling brew. Suddenly Anselm stepped out of the cauldron and held out his hand to Veronica. The old woman opened the faucet at the boiler, and molten metal flowed into the substituted form. At that very moment, a thunderous voice sounded above her head: “Get out, hurry!” The old woman with a howl fell to the ground, and Veronica lost her senses. Recovering at home, on her couch, she found in her pocket through her wet coat a silver mirror, which was cast by a fortuneteller last night. From the mirror, as at night from a boiling cauldron, her lover looked at the girl.

Student Anselm worked for many days at the archivist. Cheating went quickly. It seemed to Anselm that the lines he was copying had long been known to him. All the time he felt Serpentina next to him, sometimes her light breathing touched him. Soon, Serpentina appeared to the student and said that her father actually comes from the Salamander tribe. He fell in love with a green snake, the daughter of a lily that grew in the garden of the prince of the spirits of Phosphorus. The salamander wrapped the snake in its arms, it broke into ashes, a winged creature was born from it and flew away.

In desperation, the Salamander ran through the garden, devastating it with fire. Phosphorus, the prince of the country of Atlantis, was angry, put out the fire of the Salamander, doomed him to life in the form of a man, but left him a magical gift. Only then will the Salamander relieve this heavy burden when there are young men who hear the singing of his three daughters and love them. In the dowry, they will receive a Golden Pot. At the moment of betrothal, a fiery lily will grow out of the pot, the young man will understand her tongue, comprehend everything that is open to ethereal spirits, and with his beloved will begin to live in Atlantis. The Salamander, who finally received forgiveness, will return there. The old witch seeks possession of a golden pot. Serpentina warned Anselm: "Beware of the old woman, she is hostile to you, since your childishly pure character has already destroyed many of her evil spells." In conclusion, the kiss burned Anselm's lips. When he awoke, the student discovered that the serpentine's story was imprinted on his copy of a mysterious manuscript.

Although Anselm's soul was turned to dear Serpentine, he sometimes involuntarily thought about Veronica. Soon Veronica begins to appear to him in a dream and gradually takes hold of his thoughts. One morning, instead of going to the archivist, he went to visit Paulian, where he spent the whole day. There, he accidentally saw a magic mirror, which he began to look with Veronica. In Anselm, the struggle began, and then it became clear to him that he always thought only of Veronica. A hot kiss made the student feel even stronger. Anselm promised Veronica to marry her.

After lunch, the registrar Geerbrand came with everything that was needed to prepare the punch. With the first sip of the drink, the oddities and wonders of the last weeks rebelled again before Anselm. He began to dream aloud about Serpentine. Suddenly, after him, the master and Geerbrand begin to shout and roar, as if possessed by demons: “Long live the Salamander! May the old woman perish! ” Veronica tried in vain to convince them that old Lisa would certainly defeat the sorcerer. In insane horror, Anselm fled to his room and fell asleep. Waking up, he again began to dream of his marriage to Veronica. Now neither the archivist's garden nor Lindgorst himself seemed so magical to him.

The next day, the student continued his work with the archivist, but now it seemed to him that the parchment of the manuscript was covered not in letters, but in tangled squiggles. Trying to copy the letter, Anselm dripped ink on the manuscript. Blue lightning flew out of the spot, an archivist appeared in thick fog and severely punished the student for a mistake. Lindgorst imprisoned Anselm in one of those crystal cans that stood on a table in the archivist's office. Next to him stood five vials in which the young man saw three schoolchildren and two scribes, who once also worked for the archivist. They began to taunt Anselm: "The madman imagines that he is sitting in a bottle, and he is standing on the bridge and looking at his reflection in the river!" They laughed at the crazy old man, showering them with gold for drawing scribbles for him. Anselm turned away from the frivolous comrades in misfortune and directed all thoughts and feelings to dear Serpentina, who still loved him and tried, as she could, to alleviate Anselm's position.

Suddenly Anselm heard a dull grunt and recognized the witch in the old coffee pot opposite. She promised him salvation if he marries Veronica. Anselm proudly refused. Then the old woman grabbed a golden pot and tried to hide, but the archivist overtook her. The next moment, the student saw a mortal battle between a sorcerer and an old woman, from which Salamander emerged victorious, and the witch turned into an ugly beet. At this moment of triumph, Serpentina appeared before Anselm, announcing the granted forgiveness to him. The glass cracked, and he fell into the arms of the lovely Serpentina.

The next day, the registrar Geerbrand and the corrector Paulman could not understand how the ordinary punch brought them to such excesses. Finally, they decided that the damned student, who infected them with his madness, was to blame. Many months have passed. On the day of Veronica’s name day, a newly made court adviser Geerbrand came to Paulman’s house and offered the girl a hand and a heart. She agreed and told her future husband about her love for Anselm and the sorceress. A few weeks later, Mrs. Gebrand, the court counselor, settled in a beautiful house on the New Market.

The author received a letter from archivist Lindgorst with permission to publicize the story of the strange fate of his son-in-law, a former student, and now the poet Anselm, and with an invitation to complete the story of the Golden Pot in the very hall of his house where the famous student Anselm worked. Anselm himself became engaged to Serpentina in a beautiful temple, inhaled the aroma of a lily that grew from a golden pot, and gained eternal bliss in Atlantis.