diff --git a/Lib/test/embed1.c b/Lib/test/embed1.c
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Lib/test/embed1.c
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+#include <Python.h>
+#include <stdio.h>
+
+void print_subinterp(void)
+{
+    /* Just output some debug stuff */
+    PyThreadState *ts = PyThreadState_Get();
+    printf("interp %p : ", ts);
+    fflush(stdout);
+    PyRun_SimpleString(
+        "import sys;"
+        "print('id(modules) =', id(sys.modules));"
+        "sys.stdout.flush()"
+    );
+}
+
+int main(int argc, char *argv[])
+{
+    PyThreadState *mainthread, *subthread;
+    PyGILState_STATE gilstate;
+    int i, j;
+
+    for (i=0; i<3; i++) {
+        printf("--- Pass %d ---\n", i);
+        Py_SetProgramName(L"subembed");
+        Py_Initialize();
+        mainthread = PyThreadState_Get();
+
+        PyEval_InitThreads();
+        PyEval_ReleaseThread(mainthread);
+
+        gilstate = PyGILState_Ensure();
+        print_subinterp();
+        PyThreadState_Swap(NULL);
+
+        for (j=0; j<3; j++) {
+            subthread = Py_NewInterpreter();
+            print_subinterp();
+            Py_EndInterpreter(subthread);
+        }
+
+        PyThreadState_Swap(mainthread);
+        print_subinterp();
+        PyGILState_Release(gilstate);
+
+        PyEval_RestoreThread(mainthread);
+        Py_Finalize();
+    }
+    return 0;
+}
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_embed.py b/Lib/test/test_embed.py
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Lib/test/test_embed.py
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+# Run the _testcapi module tests (tests for the Python/C API):  by defn,
+# these are all functions _testcapi exports whose name begins with 'test_'.
+
+import os
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import time
+import unittest
+import sysconfig
+
+from distutils.ccompiler import new_compiler
+from distutils.sysconfig import customize_compiler
+from test import support
+
+here = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
+base = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(here))
+
+
+def get_config_var(v):
+    return sysconfig.get_config_var(v) or ''
+
+
+class EmbeddingTest(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def make_exe(self, srcfile):
+        compiler = new_compiler()
+        customize_compiler(compiler)
+        # We reproduce the logic for embedding by hand since distutils is so broken
+        cc = get_config_var('CC')
+        cflags = get_config_var('PY_CORE_CFLAGS') or get_config_var('CFLAGS')
+        if cc and cflags:
+            # For some reason distutils uses compiler_so, not compiler...
+            compiler.set_executables(compiler_so=cc + ' ' + cflags)
+        ld = get_config_var('LINKCC') or cc
+        ldflags = get_config_var('LDFLAGS') + ' ' + get_config_var('LINKFORSHARED')
+        if ld:
+            compiler.set_executables(linker_exe=ld + ' ' + ldflags)
+        libs = []
+        for v in ['LDLIBRARY', 'LIBS', 'SYSLIBS']:
+            libs += get_config_var(v).split()
+
+        build_dir = support.TESTFN
+        os.mkdir(build_dir)
+        self.addCleanup(support.rmtree, build_dir)
+        srcpath = os.path.join(here, srcfile)
+        objpath, = compiler.object_filenames([srcpath], output_dir=build_dir)
+        exepath = os.path.join(build_dir,
+                               os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(srcfile))[0])
+        compiler.compile([srcpath], output_dir=build_dir)
+        compiler.link_executable([objpath] + libs, exepath)
+        if compiler.exe_extension is not None:
+            exepath += compiler.exe_extension
+        return exepath
+
+    def test_subinterps(self):
+        # XXX only tested under Unix checkouts
+        # This is needed otherwise we get a fatal error:
+        # "Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding
+        # LookupError: no codec search functions registered: can't find encoding"
+        self.addCleanup(os.chdir, os.getcwd())
+        os.chdir(base)
+        exe = self.make_exe("embed1.c")
+        p = subprocess.Popen([exe],
+                             stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
+                             stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
+        (out, err) = p.communicate()
+        self.assertEqual(p.returncode, 0,
+                         "bad returncode %d, stderr is %r" %
+                         (p.returncode, err))
+        if support.verbose:
+            print()
+            print(out.decode('latin1'))
+            print(err.decode('latin1'))
+
+
+def test_main():
+    support.run_unittest(EmbeddingTest)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    test_main()