Egle, The Queen of Serpents (Lithuanian: Eglė žalčių karalienė) is a very popular Lithuanian Fairy Tale, with variants recorded in Lithuania, Latvia and adjacent Baltic countries. It was first collected by M. Jasewicz in 1837.
Egle is the youngest daughter of a fisherman. When she and her sisters go to the beach to bathe, a grass snake lies on her garments and promises to return them if the girl agrees to marry it. Egle agrees to the proposal, fetches her garments and goes back home. Some days later, a host of snakes come out of the sea to Egle's house to take the girl to their master. Despite trying to avoid her fate, Egle is given to the snakes and is taken to the grass snake's underwater palace.
Now living under the sea, Egle gives birth to four children (three boys and a girl), and lives with the grass snake in his palace, until one day, she begins to be homesick and wishes to visit her mother back on land. The grass snake husband agrees to let her go, and teaches her a secret command to summon him whenever she is ready to return, but he warns her not to tell anyone.
Egle takes her children to visit her family, but her 12 brothers conspire to learn of their mythical brother-in-law: they force their nephews and niece to reveal the secret command, and the girl blabs about it. Armed with this knowledge, Egle's brothers go to the seashore and summon the grass snake from his underwater palace. After he appears, the men kill him.
Egle decides to return to her husband's underwater palace and goes to the seashore to summon him. She chants the spell her husband taught her, but he does not appear at first. She chants it again, and bloody foam pools at the surface of the water. Realizing her husband's tragic fate, she asks her children who told her brothers the secret spell, and the girl answers it was her. In her grief, she curses her sons and her daughter to become trees, and herself to become a spruce.
This tale provides examples of:
- Animorphism: In other versions, the story still ends with the death of the snake husband, and the heroine turns herself into a cuckoo.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: Egle's brothers kill her husband, she later tries to summon him, but the sea foams blood, indicating his death.
- Downer Ending: Egle's grass snake husband is dead, and she, in her mourning, curses her children to become tree species and herself into a spruce.
- Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: A variation. Egle leaves her garments on the shore and goes to bathe. When she returns, a grass snake is lying on her clothes and will only return them if the girl agrees to marry him.
- Impossible Task: In some variants, Egle's husband tries to delay his wife's return to land by setting three hard tasks for her: to wear out a pair of iron shoes, to spin a neverending tuft of silk, and to bake a pie without utensilts. With the help of a mysterious sorceress, Egle accomplishes her husband's tasks and is allowed to visit her family.
- Interspecies Romance: Egle ends up married to a grass snake.
- "Just So" Story: The story tells why the oak, ash and birch are strong and sturdy trees, while the willow will shake at the slightest whisper of a wind.
- Meaningful Name:
- Egle's name is the Lithuanian language word for 'fir' or 'spruce'.
- Depending on the variant, the grass snake may be called 'Žaltys', which means 'grass snake' in Lithuanian and also refers to a household spirit in Lithuanian mythology.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: And how! In Baltic (Lithuanian) variants, the heroine's brothers torture their nephews to learn the secret command and kill their brother-in-law. In the Russian/East Slavic ones, it is the heroine's mother that kills the snake husband.
- Rags to Royalty: In some variants, the heroine is described as being he daughter of a peasant couple. She then marries a snake king and goes to live in an underwater palace with him.
- Transflormation: At the end of the tale, Egle curses her sons, her daughter and lastly herself to become trees.
- Underwater City: In many variants of the story, the heroine gets to live with her snake husband in his underwater palace.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Egle's youngest child, her daughter, eventually reveals the secret.
