"Serpent Queen Egre"

Feb 09, 2023

A fairy tale about a man who became a snake queen

One day, Aigle, the youngest girl who lives on a livestock farm in the countryside, was bathing with her two older sisters when she found a snake in her clothes. The serpent, who speaks human language, offers to return Egle's clothes if Egle takes a vow of marriage, and Egle agrees, since she cannot leave naked. After three days, thousands of serpents came to meet the bride, but Egre's family continued to trick the serpents by giving them livestock such as sheep and cows. When the cuckoo, who was watching, warned the snakes that he had been deceived, the angry snakes reappeared and forcibly dragged Egle to the bottom of the sea and took him away. Waiting at the bottom of the sea was not a serpent, but a human bridegroom. It was Zilvinas, the serpent king in human form, who lived happily in an undersea palace with three sons and a daughter. One day, when the children ask him about his hometown, Egre misses his family and offers to go home with the children, but Silvinus refuses. Silvinas presented three impossible conditions to Egre, who kept begging him, and said that if he could achieve them, he would go. Rolling endless silk, wearing iron shoes, baking pies without utensils. Egre enlisted the witch to succeed in these seemingly impossible conditions, and Silvinus reluctantly allowed him to return home. After being reunited with Egre after not seeing him for a long time, Egre's family decides to kill Silvinus because they can't let Egre go home. Unbeknownst to Egre, Egre's father threatens his nephews and nieces, Egre's children, to learn the spell to summon Silvinus. The children did not betray their father and remained tight-lipped, but the frightened daughter passed on the spell. "Zilvinas, dear Zilvinas, If alive - may the sea foam milk If dead - may the sea foam blood…" bubbles) The twelve brothers of Egre summoned Zilvinus and killed him with a scythe. Egre, unaware of her husband's death, casts a spell to summon him back to the palace, but all that appears in the sea is foam of blood. Upon learning of her husband's death, Aegle turned herself and her children, who had betrayed their father, into trees. The sons were transformed into oaks, ash trees, and birch trees, the daughter into poplar trees, and Egle himself into a spruce tree.

In Lithuania, "Eglė" is a noun used for "common female names" and "spruce trees" respectively.

"Egle the Queen of Serpents"