Eglė - the Queen of Serpents
Erasmus IP “Modernisation of Europe by
Innovating Teacher Training’
4 – 7 July 2010
Vilnius
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
The structure of this folk tale is not typical of its genre
structure:
the hero of the folk tale – the Grass snake – is
supernatural , thus the marriage to him should pass
through a number of tests:
 the first one is the woman has to step over to agree to
marry him and to burn her husband’s skin;
 the diarchy, first of all, from the male’s side, then from
the female’s.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
The common structure of a folk tale:
at the beginning all the characters have to be tested whether they
know the rules of the game, whether they are able to conquer the evil or
supernatural powers and worthy their roles in the folk tale;
since the moment they pass the test, everything goes on smoothly.
The logics of the folk tale “ Egle, the Queen of the Grass Snakes”:
- broken,
- there is no compositional centre where all the adventures should meet
and as it is typical of a classic folk tale;
- the moment when Eglė gives her promise to marry the Grass Snake
could be considered the nodus of all the events of the tale.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
Then a series of three tricks follow: when thousands of grass snakes come for the bride
into Egle’s parents home/farmstead they are tricked by the bride’s relatives three
times. A goose, a sheep and a cow are given instead but the cuckoo warns about the
deceit every time
Then the reader is taken to the fantastic world of water, to the bottom of the sea, which
belongs to the Grass snake or Prince Žilvinas. The environment, the surroundings
where Žilvinas’ palace is established has some kind of autonomy, this fact is not
typical of the Lithuanian folklore (Lithuanians worship Earth), Zilvinas’ world is
related to the world of miracle with no ties to reality.
In order to get away from it one has to carry out three impossible to do tasks. Eglė
completes the tasks successfully, reaches the land and there is no further successful
development of the events.
No more miracles occur. At this episode the junction of two types of folk tales is
evident, the wonder tale is over and the listeners of the tale confront with the
features of the archaic folk tale which characters rely on fate, destiny: Egle’s children
three sons and a daughter are tortured by their uncles, Egle’s brothers, in order to
get the password /secret calling of their father. The boys, Egle’s sons, remain silent,
the daughter betrays her father.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
When Egle finds out that her husband is dead, there are
no magic forces that would help her to make him
alive. Instead of a happy ending, we have an unusual
ending when mother turns her children into trees.
This moment demonstrates the ties of a folk tale with
mythology: the identity link between a man and a
tree is pointed out. The eldest son is transformed into
an oak; oak has always been given a priority in the
hierarchy of trees (next slide).
Oak has always been given a
priority in the hierarchy of trees
Stelmužės Oak Tree
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
Ash tree
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
Birch trees
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
Spruce tree
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
The Baltic peoples have extremely intimate relations
with the trees. The oak and the linden are key trees in
folklore.
Oak, linden, birch, maple, pine and spruce were
prominent among sacred trees. Particularly the old,
mighty, twin-boled trees were believed to possess
strong healing powers. They were untouchable; none
dared to cut them down.
Eglė the Queen of Serpents
The folk tale “Eglė, the Queen of Grass snakes”.
There is no happy end, there is no way out, there is no satisfaction
for the reader or listener.
The boundaries of the folk tale merge together with reality and
leave much of space for interpretation. It either makes us think
of a possible sequence of the folk tale, or says here we are in the
word of reality with all the society strata represented by the trees
of oak, ash, birch, and aspen on the lowest step in the hierarchy
of deciduous trees;
a special status there is of spruce, a coniferous tree, in this
hierarchy. Very complicated, as much complicated as in our
societies.