Egle — Queen of the grass snakes
The cult of the grass snakes was one of the oldest in Lithuania, it came all the way from the paleolithic period. Grass snakes were considered sacred. They lived in the houses together with people. They were fed and taken care of.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents is one of the best-known Lithuanian fairy tales with many references to the Baltic mythology. Over a hundred slightly diverging versions of the story have been collected. Its mythological background has been an interest of Lithuanian and foreign researchers of Indo-European mythology.
The tale features not only human–reptile shapeshifting, but an irreversible human–tree shapeshifting as well.
A Lithuanian Folktale — Egle means “Fir” and at one time the Slavs and Balts had the Cult of the Evergreen. Numbers twelve, nine, and three were considered magical. They appear in many tales. Also, Egle (Fir) and Azuolas (Oak) are very popular Lithuanian names.
Once upon a time, there lived an older couple who had twelve sons and three daughters, the youngest of whom was called Egle. One summer evening the sisters went for a swim and they swam and splashed about, and, having had their fill of it, climbed out onshore and reached for their clothes.
Egle looked, and there, coiled up in the sleeve of her shirt, she saw a grass snake! What was she to do? Her older sister snatched up a stick to chase it out but the grass snake turned to Egle and spoke in a human voice: “Egle, my dear, promise to marry me and I’ll crawl out by myself.” Now, this only made the tears well up in Egle’s eyes, for how could she marry a snake, so she replied angrily: “Give me back my shirt without further ado and crawl off back to wherever it is you came from! But the grass snake remained where he was and said as before: “Promise to marry me and I’ll crawl out.” Not knowing what to do, Egle said that she would, and the grass snake at once crawled out of her shirt and slithered away.
Three days later a great number of grass snakes came crawling into the old people’s front yard, the matchmakers proceeded directly into the hut, and, approaching Eglė and her mother and father, said they had come to matchmaking. At first, the parents were shaken and taken aback and would not even hear of such a thing, but, learning that Egle had given her word and being confronted by such a vast number of snakes, they were much troubled. Whether they wanted to or not, the youngest and prettiest of their daughters would be marrying a grass snake and there was little they could do about it.
Off went Egle with the grass snakes, leaving her family behind. While they cried and mourned her departure but could not do anything about it. Egle, led by her escorts, headed for the seashore. Once they arrived, they were met by a handsome youth who told Egle that he was the very same grass snake that she had found in the sleeve of her shirt. They made off at once for the nearest island from where they descended to the bottom of the sea where stood a rich and beautiful palace. It was there they were married.
Their wedding celebration, where they drank and feasted and danced, lasted for three whole weeks. The palace was filled with many lovely things and Egle felt merry and happy there. She began to feel peaceful, her life became brighter and as the days went by she forgot her parents and her old home altogether. Nine years passed, and Egle now had four children — three sons, Oak, Ash, and Birch, and a daughter, the youngest of the four named Little Aspen.
One day Egle’s oldest son, who had been running about and getting into mischief, began asking his mother where her parents were. “Where do they live, mother?” he asked. “I would so like to pay them a visit!” It was only then that Egle remembered her mother and father and her whole family and set to wondering about how they were and whether they were still alive. She was filled with a great longing to see them and told her husband so. At first Grass Snake would not hear of it, but she begged him again and again and he finally agreed to let her go. “Only you must make me some yarn out of this flax first,” said he, and, giving her some silky flax, pointed at the spinning wheel.
Eglė set to work, she spun all day and night, but the bundle of flax grew no smaller. It occurred to her then that she was being tricked, and — that the flax was magic and that she could spin no yarn out of it no matter how hard she tried. So off she went to see an old woman, a sorceress, who lived close by. Egle said to her in pleading tones: “Please, wise one, please, my dear, show me how to spin this flax.” The old woman then said, “You must light the stove and throw the flax in the fire otherwise you will never be able to finish spinning it.” Egle came home, and, lighting the stove as if to bake some bread, threw the flax in the fire. It flared up and she saw a toad the size of a large washing paddle jumping about in the flames, a silky thread running out of its fiery mouth.
Having finished spinning the thread in this fashion, Egle again asked her husband to let her go to visit her parents for a few days. This time her husband dragged a pair of iron shoes from under the bench. “You can go as soon as you wear these out,” he said. Egle put on the shoes and began walking and stamping about in them and trying to break them on some sharp stones. But the shoes were thick and strong, and, try hard as she could, she could not wear them out. In fact, there was no wearing them out at all, she now saw, they would last her a lifetime. So off Egle went to ask the old sorceress for her counsel again. “Take the shoes to a blacksmith, let him put them in a forge and heat them to white heat,” said the old woman. Egle did it and once the shoes were burnt through, she wore them out in three days and again began pleading with her husband to let her go to see her parents.
“Very well,” said he. “Only bake a pie first, for it is not polite to go visiting anyone without taking something good to eat for the children of your brothers and relatives.” But he had all the dishes in the palace put away and there were none left for Egle to mix the dough in. Egle racked her brain for a long time trying to think of how to bring water from a well without a pail and how to mix dough without a bowl, but as there was nothing she could think of she went to see the old woman again. Said the old woman: “Do not try to draw water from a well but take a sieve, stop up the holes with leaven and use it to scoop up some water from a stream. Mix the dough in the same sieve.” Egle did as she was told. She mixed the dough, baked some pies, and prepared to set off with her children. Her husband saw them off, he brought them out onto the shore and instructed her:
“Do not spend more than nine days in your parents’ house and make sure you return on the tenth. Come out to the shore with only the children and no one else and call out to me thus: If alive you are, my husband, White the foam will be and milky. If ’tis dead you are, beloved, Red the foam will be and bloody. If the sea boils up and the foam is milk-white, you will know that I am alive; if it boils up and the foam is blood-red, then you will know that I am no more. As for you, children, mind that you tell no one what you have just heard as it could be dangerous for me.”
There was no end to rejoicing when Egle appeared in her parents’ house a few days later. All her kinsfolk and their neighbors, too, came to have a look at her and everyone wanted to know how life was with the grass snakes. Was it nice, was it fun? They marveled at her account. They took turns speaking kindly to her and treating her to the best they had in the way of food and drink. Egle did not notice how fast the nine days had flown. During those nine days, her parents and her twelve brothers and two sisters had been racking their brains, trying to find a way to keep Egle with them and not to let her return to her husband. At last, they decided to worm out of her children how Egle was to call him up from the bottom of the sea, for then they could go there, lure him up out of the depths and kill him.
Her brothers took Oak, Egle’s oldest son, to the forest, stood around him in a circle, and began questioning him. But the boy pretended that he knew nothing, and even though, they threaten him and beat him with sticks, they could get nothing out of him. They let him go then but warned him not to say a word about it to his mother. The next day they had taken Ash to the forest and questioned him in the same way, and on the day after that, Birch, but learned nothing from either of them.
Finally, they lured the youngest of Egle’s children, Little Aspen, to the forest. At first she, too, said she knew nothing, but when they threatened to thrash her she blurted out the secret. Once they had this information Egle’s twelve brothers took their sharp scythes, went to the shore of the sea, and called out: “If alive you are, my husband, White the foam will be and milky. If ’tis dead you are, beloved, Red the foam will be and bloody”.
Hearing them, the seafoam turned milky and Grass Snake swam up from the sea, hoping to see his beautiful wife and children, but the twelve brothers fell upon him and slashed him to death with their scythes. The brothers then went back home but they said not a word about what had happened to Egle.
Eventually, the nine days had passed and it was time for Egle to leave. She bade all her kin goodbye and on the tenth day she went with her children to the shore of the sea, called out: “If alive you are, my husband, White the foam will be and milky. If ’tis dead you are, beloved, Red the foam will be and bloody.” At this sea darkened and boiled up with a roar, and Egle looked and saw that the foam cresting the waves was blood red. Suddenly what did she hear but her husband’s voice calling out to her: “It was your twelve brothers that slashed me to death with their scythes, and it was Little Aspen, our beloved little daughter, who betrayed me.”
Egle was filled with grief and horror, and with tears rolling from her eyes, she turned to Little Aspen and spoke these words: ‘‘Be a tree, a fearful little tree and timid, never know the peace of heart but tremble always. Let the rain torment you without mercy, let the wind pull madly at your tresses.’’
Then, addressing her brave and faithful sons, she said: ‘‘You will grow to be great trees and handsome, with Egle your mother always near you.’’
And so it came to pass. Oak, Ash, and Birch all grew up to be tall and mighty trees with Elge the Fir-tree, always nearby and so they remain and are the strongest of our trees to this day, but Aspen trembles at the touch of the slightest breeze even today, and all because she was once so frightened of her uncles that she betrayed her father and mother…
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