Eglė - the Queen of Serpents Erasmus IP “Modernisation of Europe by Innovating Teacher Training’ 4 – 7 July 2010 Vilnius

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 Aspen tree

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.