Eglė the Queen of Serpents, alternatively Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes (), is a Lithuanian folk tale, first published was a translation by M. Jasevičius in 1837.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents is one of the best-known Lithuanian folk tales, with many references to Baltic mythology. Over a hundred slightly diverging versions of the plot have been collected. Its mythological background has been an interest of Lithuanian and foreign researchers of Indo-European mythology; Gintaras Beresnevičius considered it being a Lithuanian theogonic myth.Beresnevičius, Gintaras. "Eglė žalčių karalienė" ir lietuvių teogoninis mitas: religinė istorinė studija ["Eglė - the Queen of the Grass-Snakes" and the Lithuanian theogonical myth]. Vilnius: Kultūros, filosofijos ir meno institutas, 2003. The tale features not only human–reptile shapeshifting, but irreversible human–tree shapeshifting as well. Numerology is also evident in the tale, such as twelve sons, three daughters, three days, three tricks, three weeks of feast, nine years under the oath of marriage, three tasks given to Eglė by her husband to fulfill and nine days of visits.
Published sources The tale first appeared in print in 1837, when a translation by M. Jasevičius from Lithuanian into Polish was published in the literary collection Biruta in Vilnius.Aistė Dromantaitė-Stancikienė, EGLĖS ŽALČIŲ KARALIENĖS INTERPRETACIJOS: TRUMPOSIOS LITERATŪRINĖS PASAKOS, Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies], Vilnius University, XIX (XXVI) 2003, pp. 76-83РЫЖАКОВА, СВЕТЛАНА ИГОРЕВНА [Ryzhakova, Svetlana Igorevna] (2009). ""ЭГЛЕ КОРОЛЕВА УЖЕЙ": О СПОСОБАХ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ ОДНОГО СКАЗОЧНОГО СЮЖЕТА В ЛИТОВСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ". In: МИФ В ФОЛЬКЛОРНЫХ ТРАДИЦИЯХ И КУЛЬТУРЕ НОВЕЙШЕГО ВРЕМЕНИ. Moscow: Российский государственный гуманитарный университет, 2009. p. 49. . The tale was also collected by Polish writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and published in his historical work Litwa.Kraszewski, Józef Ignacy. Litwa: starożytne dzieje, ustawy, język, wiara, obyczaje, pieśni, przysłowia, podania itd. Tom 1: Historya do XIII wieku. Warszawa: W Drukarni Stanisława Strąbskiego, 1847. pp. 416-419.
Etymology
Eglė is a popular female name in Lithuania. It is also a noun meaning tree species spruce (Latin: Picea) and fir,Sinkevičiūtė, Daiva. "Tendencies of the Formation and Usage Of Baltic Nouns with Suffix -ut- in Lithuania". In: International Scientific Conference: Onomastic Investigations. Riga, 10–12 May 2018. Riga: Latvian Language Institute of the University of Latvia. 2018. p. 105. . with cognates in other Baltic languages: Latvian egle 'spruce, fir', and Old Prussian addle 'spruce, fir'.
One of the main characters in this fairy tale is a grass snake (Lithuanian: žaltys), but because it seems to inhabit the sea-adjacent lagoon (Lithuanian: marios), the word may actually refer either to a mythical aquatic snake or a European eel (Anguilla anguilla).
Synopsis The story can be subdivided into a number of sections each having parallels with motifs of other folk tales, yet a combination of them is unique.
While bathing in a lake with her two sisters, a young maiden named Eglė discovers a grass snake coiled around the sleeve of her blouse. The snake demands that Eglė pledge herself to him for the return of her clothing; Eglė relents and agrees to marry him.
Faked brides After three days, thousands of grass snakes arrive at her parents' house. In one version, the parents yield their daughter right away, frightened by the teeming serpents. In other embellished versions, the parents trick the serpents by giving up substitutes three, sometimes four times: a domesticated goose, a sheep and then a cow, then her oldest sister. However, each time the serpents slither away with one these "brides" they are alerted by the cuckoo to the trick being played upon them. The enraged grass snakes return one final time and threaten a calamity such as burning down the parents' house, a crop-killing drought, or a famine. Afraid of misfortune, the parents surrender the real bride, Eglė, and give her away to the serpent king of the sea.
To the sea palace At the seashore, Eglė is welcomed by a handsome man, who identifies himself as Žilvinas, the snake from earlier. Žilvinas the Grass Snake Prince takes her to his palace under the sea, via a route starting from a nearby island and entering an underground tunnel. Eglė bears four children, three sons (Ąžuolas (Oak), Uosis (Ash) and Beržas (Birch) and one youngest daughter Drebulė (Aspen). They live happily for 9 years (or 5 years, etc.) and Eglė nearly forgets her homeland until being questioned by her oldest son Ąžuolas about her parents. Upon remembering her life before, she becomes homesick and begs her husband Žilvinas to let her visit her family aboveground. However, Žilvinas denies her permission to visit her hometown, unless Eglė can fulfill three impossible tasks.
Three difficult tasks The three tasks are: spinning into thread a never-diminishing, enchanted tow of silk (or a "spindle of silk"), wearing down a pair of iron shoes, and baking a "cake" without vessels or utensils.
With advice from a sorceress she succeeds in completing these three tasks. Throwing the clump of silk into the fire causes the appearance of the toad living in the foundations of the building which was the original provider of the silken tow. The enchantment having been revoked by the magical toad, the heroine is finally able to complete the spinning task. The iron clogs she takes to a blacksmith to have them annealed, thus softening them so they will wear down. Placing leaven () on the sieve turned it into a makeshift liquid holder.
Murder of the King With the tasks completed, Žilvinas reluctantly lets Eglė and the children go. Prior to their departure, he instructs them how to call him from the depths of the sea and asks not to tell this secret to anyone else.
After meeting the long lost family member, Eglė's relatives do not wish to let her return to the sea and decide to kill Žilvinas. First, his sons are threatened and beaten with the scourge by their uncles, in attempt to make them disclose how to summon their father; however, they remain silent and do not betray him. Finally, a frightened daughter reveals the summoning chant:
"Žilvinas, dear Žilvinėlis, If (you're) alive – may the sea foam milk If (you're) dead – may the sea foam blood…"
When the serpent king Žilvinas arrives from the sea, all twelve brothers of Eglė take the scythe. and cut him into pieces. They do not say a word to their sister about the horrible crime. After nine days, Eglė arrives at the seashore and calls her husband, but unfortunately only the foam of blood returns from the sea. When Eglė hears her dead husband's voice and discovers how her beloved has died, as a punishment for betrayal she whispers an enchantment, which turns her fragile, fearful daughter into a quaking aspen. She then turns her sons into sturdy trees - an oak, an ash and a birch. Finally, Eglė herself turns into a spruce (or fir; ).
The names of the characters reflect the type of trees they turn into: means spruce or fir; her sons ("oak"), ("birch"), ("ash"); and the daughter ("aspen," poplar genus).
Translations The tale has been translated by Irina Zheleznova (1974) as Spruce, Queen of the Grass Snakes.Zheleznova, Irina. Tales from the Amber Sea. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1981 . pp. 204-212. Hungarian scholar called it Egle (Silver Pine), the Snake Goddess and Egle (Silver Fir), the Snake Queen.Bojtár, Endre (1999). Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People. CEU Press. pp. 243 and 349. .
The tale was translated into German language as Egle, die Schlangenkönigin by German professor in his book of Lithuanian folktales,Cappeller, Carl [Übers.]. Litauische Märchen und Geschichten. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2019 . pp. 19-27. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111678931 and as Das Weib des Schlangenmannes ("The Wife of the Snake-Man"), which was published in Mitteilungen der Litauischen literarischen Gesellschaft.Lietūvių literatūros draugijā. Mitteilungen Der Litauischen Literarischen Gesellschaft. Zweiter Band. Hift. VII-XII. Heidelberg: C. Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1887. pp. 233-238.
Analysis In folkloristics This tale is classified, in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, as tale type ATU 425M, "The Snake as Bridegroom" (formerly "Bathing Girl's garments kept [until promise of marriage with aquatic being]"), of which the Lithuanian version is recorded in 120 variants according to Bronislava Kerbelytė (cf. ).Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 144.
These tales are closely connected to type ATU 425 ("Search for the Lost Husband"), ATU 425A ("Animal as Bridegroom"), ATU 425B ("Cupid and Psyche" or "Son of the Witch")Felton, Debbie. "Apuleius' Cupid Considered as a Lamia (Metamorphoses 5.17-18)." Illinois Classical Studies, no. 38 (2013): 231 (footnote nr. 7). . and ATU 425C ("Beauty and the Beast").Zipes, Jack. The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. London and New York: Routledge. 2011. pp. 224-225. . As such, some versions avert the tragic ending by following the narrative of other tale types, like ATU 425A and ATU 425C. According to Stith Thompson's reworked folktale classification, tale type AaTh 425M involves a magical formula or incantation to summon the serpent husband. This formula is learned by others, who draw the serpentine being out of its hideout to kill it.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Third printing. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1973 . p. 144. In this vein, in his study, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn noted that, in Lithuanian and Latvian variants, the formula is "unitarily formed", which is later learned by the snake husband's brothers-in-law via the youngest child.
In Lithuanian scholarship The tale is one of the most researched in Lithuanian scholarship, under different approaches, since "it represents the old Lithuanian worldview".
The tale has become the object of scholarly interest of ethnologist . In his analysis of Lithuanian folktales (published in 1936), he previously classified the tale as 425D*, Žalčio žmona ("The Girl as Wife to a Snake"), with 27 variants reported until then.Balys, Jonas. Lietuvių pasakojamosios tautosakos motyvų katalogas [Motif-index of Lithuanian narrative folk-lore]. Tautosakos darbai [Folklore studies] Vol. II. Kaunas: Lietuvių tautosakos archyvo leidinys, 1936. pp. 39-40.
The story has also been considered an oikotype, i.e., a form of the tale that is specific to a certain region (in this case, the Baltic geographical area).
Folklorist Norbertas Vėlius has also developed an academic interest in the narrative and analysed its elements ("the dual nature of Eglė, the attributes of the snake, the types of plants") in relation to the folklore of other countries.
Motifs The serpent husband According to , a "traditional feature" of the tale type is that the supernatural husband lives under water. In this regard, in another version of the tale, the king of snakes is named Žaltys, and husband and human wife live in his palace at the bottom of the sea.Bradūnas, Elena. ""If You Kill a Snake — The Sun Will Cry". Folktale Type 425-M: A Study in Oicotype and Folk Belief ". In: Lituanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. Volume 21, No. 1 - Spring 1975. p. 10.The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Vol. 1. Bron R. Taylor (Editor-in-Chief). Jeffrey Kaplan (Consulting Editor). Thoemmes Continuum. 2005. p. 157. . The name of the serpent husband may also vary between tellings: Žilvinas, Zilvynas, Zelvynas, or Žilvytis.Astramskaitė, Daiva (1993). "Ados Martinkus studija apie Eglę". In: Tautosakos darbai II (IX): 93.