Origins

“Eglė the Queen of Serpents” (Lithuanian: Eglė žalčių karalienė) is Lithuania’s most famous wonder tale, a Baltic myth of marriage across the boundary of worlds. It fuses the “animal-bridegroom” motif with an origin-story for the trees of the land—spruce, oak, ash, birch, and trembling aspen. The tale is austere and ocean-lapped: a snake-king from beneath the sea, an amber palace, vows that bind across tides, and a final transfiguration that turns grief into woodland. What follows keeps close to the classic Lithuanian structure and dramatis personae, while telling the story in a continuous, engaging prose and preserving its most memorable sayings.

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The Tale

There were once four children in a poor but cheerful household by the Baltic shore: three robust brothers and their youngest sister, Eglė. One hot afternoon the siblings went down to the sea to bathe. They laughed, splashed, flung their clothes on a dune, and let the green water lift them.

When they came ashore, Eglė shook sand from her blouse—and a serpent slipped from the sleeve, glossy as wet willow-bark, and coiled itself about the linen.

“Ugh! Out, creature!” cried the brothers, reaching for sticks.

But the snake raised his head and spoke, voice low as the under-tide: “She is mine by right. I have chosen Eglė for my bride.”

The brothers stared; Eglė crossed herself and snatched up her skirt. “Say rather,” she answered, “that you have chosen your death.” She shook the blouse again. The snake slid into the sea, but his voice remained, spread upon the surf: “I will come for you when the sun has set.”

That evening the house shuddered. The earth seemed to crawl; the eaves shook; and outside the door there sounded a dreadful hissing like wind through a thousand reeds. The mother peered out and nearly fainted: the yard was a black river of serpents, and at their head rose one sleek and shining, crowned with a crest like sea-foam. He spoke into the lintel: “Give me Eglė, promised bride, or we will coil about your house and squeeze it to splinters.”

The family tried tricks. They pushed out a cock wrapped in Eglė’s shawl.

“You did not promise me a rooster,” the leader hissed, and the birds scattered with a single lash of his tail.

They tried a lamb swaddled in her skirt.

“You did not promise me a lamb.”

They tried a heifer; the serpents reared and drove it terrified into the darkness.

The mother wrung her hands. “Child, what can we do?”

Eglė’s face changed—fear to sternness. “What is promised must be kept,” she said, “but I will go of my own feet.” She stepped over the threshold with a calm that made the serpents fall back like wheat before a scythe.

The great snake bowed his crested head. “I am Žilvinas, king under the waters. Follow, and take no fear with you.”

They went to the shore. A wave rose—smooth, bright, and very cold. It wrapped Eglė like glass. When it fell away she found herself in a palace of amber, music running along its ribs, light moving like honey through stone. The great snake circled her once, twice—and in a breath stood before her as a handsome youth, hair black as seaweed, eyes the green of deep water.

“Do not be afraid, Eglė,” he said softly. “Beneath the sea I carry two skins. You have seen the lesser.”

Years passed like tides. Eglė wore coral at her throat and wove sea-grass silk; her bridegroom ruled kindly; and together they had four children—three sons, whom they named Ąžuolas (Oak), Uosis (Ash), and Beržas (Birch), and a daughter, quick and delicate, called Drebulė (Aspen).

Yet the world above tugged at Eglė like moon on water. One morning she stood on a balcony of amber and said, “Žilvinas, let me go and show our children to my mother. I will return.”

Žilvinas’s brow furrowed like a tide-line. “You shall go, Eglė. But hear me: men of the shore do not easily keep faith with the sea. Take this summons; on the high beach where the eel-grass grows, speak thus:

Žilvinėli, Žilvinėli, if you live—come in milk-white foam;
If you are dead—come in blood-red foam.

“Only at that call will I rise. And keep watch on your tongue; secrets poorly guarded drown love.”

Eglė kissed him and promised. The sea lifted them in a bubble like a pearl and set them in sight of the old house.

What rejoicing there was! The mother wept into Eglė’s hair; the brothers clapped the sons upon the shoulders, marvelled at their sea-born strength, and tossed little Drebulė like a bird. There were feasts; the neighbours crowded the door; and each evening Eglė said gently, “I must return at dawn.” Yet each dawn they delayed her: “One day more,” begged the mother. “Only until Sunday,” wheedled the brothers.

They wanted more than company; they wanted the summoning words. “How,” asked the eldest brother, all honey, “does your husband come to shore?”

Eglė smiled like one who has been warned. “He comes when I wish it,” she said, and said no more.

The brothers tried the sons first—bribery, flattery, toys bright as dragonflies—but the boys were true as their names. “We do not speak our father’s secret,” said Ąžuolas; Uosis and Beržas nodded, solemn as young trees in wind.

At last they coaxed Drebulė aside, with sweets and whispers, and then with threats. She trembled (as she always would), and in a rush of tears told them the very words.

Night fell. The brothers took scythes and spears and went down to the beach where the eel-grass stroked their boots.

The eldest called in a sing-song voice he had never used before:

Žilvinėli, Žilvinėli—if you live, come in milk-white foam!

A wave lifted, white as cream. Within it rose a dark, sleek head—trusting, swift. The brothers leapt as one. The foam reddened. A long hiss unravelled into the night—and then there was only the wash of the sea.

In the morning Eglė took her children by the hand and went to the shore, singing as if the tide itself had taught her.

Žilvinėli, Žilvinėli—if you live, come in milk-white foam;
If you are dead—come in blood-red foam.

The sea heaved up a low wave. Red laced its lace. Eglė stood very still.

“Who taught them?” she asked, voice like a shell, thin and cutting. “Which of you broke our house’s lock?”

Ąžuolas, Uosis, and Beržas shook their heads, eyes fierce with grief. Little Drebulė hid behind her mother’s skirt, shivering like a leaf, and the truth fluttered out of her without words.

Eglė’s face changed. The amber of her years undersea seemed to crack along a fault and show the resin-darkness within.

“Listen, my children,” she said. “There is no path now back to what was. The world will learn from us the names of its trees, and our sorrow will be their shapes.”

She stood upon the wet sand and spoke the old, heavy words that turn breath into bark:

“Ąžuolas—become Oak, broad-shouldered and enduring. Hold fast the earth with roots like a warrior’s arms.”

The eldest staggered—as a trunk grows—and stood suddenly still, a sapling that knew its future.

“Uosis—become Ash, straight and tall, good for oars and spears, quick to the bend and quick to return.”

The second boy’s limbs lengthened into smooth bole; his fingers feathered into leaves.

“Beržas—become Birch, white-barked and tender, the first to green in spring and the last to abandon the light.”

The youngest son shone pale as moon-wood; a strand of tears ran down his new bark like a silver ribbon.

Then Eglė looked upon Drebulė, who shivered so hard the sand about her shook. Love and fury struggled in the mother’s face; both won.

“Drebulė—become Aspen. Let the air that touches you remind you what a word can do; tremble forever, and let mercy live in your trembling.”

The girl gave a small cry and in the next breath quivered upward—a slim tree whose leaves never rest, whispering to every wind.

At last Eglė folded her hands over her breast and set her eyes upon the line where sea meets sky.

“As for me, I will be Spruce—Eglė of the forests, needled and evergreen, standing watch where the land remembers the sea.”

She spoke, and the tide took her feet; from the foam there rose a spruce that planted itself just beyond the reach of waves, dark, high, and singing the low song of resin and salt.

People say that when the wind moves out of the west, the spruces lean a little, as if listening; the oaks hold their ground, stubborn and strong; the ashes stand tall, ready to row storm or sun; the birches brighten the edges of dusk; and the aspens never cease to murmur—soft, soft—of promises and their prices.

As for Žilvinas, the sea keeps his counsel. Sometimes in a storm the foam runs white as milk, sometimes red as rust; and on certain evenings, if you speak the words very softly on the eel-grass shore—Žilvinėli, Žilvinėli…—you may hear, far under the water, the sigh a wave makes when it remembers being a man.