*Lithuanian folk tales and stories : Egle - the queen of serpents*

*“Once somewhere in Lithuania lived a family that had three daughters and nine brothers. The youngest daughter named Egle was the most beautiful. One day, she and her sisters went to a lake for an evening swim. When they came back to get dress, Egle found a snake among her clothes. The snake asked her to get married with him. She just wanted the snake to go away so she agreed. The snake disappeared. Seven days later, Her family and she found a carriage pulled by hissing grass-snakes to ask for their bride. Because her parents didn’t want to lose their daughter so they dressed a white goose as the bride and put it in the carriage. The snakes went away. But on the way they heard the cuckoo say that it was not the real bride. They came back to ask for the real bride. This time, the parents dressed a sheep. On the way the cuckoo said it was not real bride. They came back again and threatened to burn the house. This time, Egle kept her promise. Parents wept and bid farewell to their beloved daughter.*

*The grass-snakes brought Egle to the sea shore where she found a handsome young man waiting for her. He was the snake who asked her to marry him and also the king of the snakes. His name was Zhilvinas. He brought her to his underwater castle. They lived happily and had four children three boys and one girl. One day, Egle missed her home. She asked her husband to allow her visit her family. Zhilvinas promised to agree if she could wear out the iron shoes he had given for her. Egle walked on the rocks and pebbles, but the shoes did not have even a tiniest scratch on them. With the help of an old sea switch, she did that for him. Consecutively, Zhilvinas asked her to spin a tuff of silk which was an endless job, for it did not shrink no matter how much she spun and to make bread without any pans. With the helps of the sea witch, she overcome these challenges.*

*Before Egle and their children got back to her family, Zhilvinas told them not to stay longer than 9 days and upon returning to the seashore to call him by name and say: “if you are alive, come as milk foam, if you are dead, come as blood foam.”*

*When she and her children got back her family, because her family didn’t want to leave her and wanted to kill her her husband. The brothers took each Egle’s child for each day to pasture the horses to ask how to call their father when they wanted to return home. The boys all didn’t betray their father, they didn’t tell the uncles. When they asked the daughter, she was afraid of the angry uncles to hurt her so she told them. The brothers called Zhilvinas and attacked him. When Egle and their children came to the seashore and called her husband, they saw blood foam. Egle was heart broken and cast a spell on her children. The sons became trees that are valued even today for their great strength. The little daughter turned to a frail aspen tree that shakes in the mildest wind. Egle herself turned to a fir tree and stayed close to the sea shore to mourn for her husband forever.”*