Eglė- Baltic FigureMortal"Queen of Serpents"

The Serpent's Bride

Young Eglė, bathing in the sea with her sisters, finds a serpent coiled in her clothing. The serpent speaks. He demands that Eglė come to him as his bride in exchange for allowing her to dress. Her family sets impossible tasks, sends animals in her place, does everything they can to keep her from the sea. But the bargain holds, and Eglė travels beneath the waters to the kingdom of Žilvinas, the Serpent King, who reveals himself as a handsome young man in his realm below the waves.

She lives happily with Žilvinas for many years and bears him four children: three sons and a daughter named Drebulė.

The Betrayal

Eventually Eglė wishes to visit her human family and persuades Žilvinas to allow the journey. He fears treachery. He tells her the secret call that will summon him from the sea and trusts her to keep it safe.

Eglė's brothers have not forgiven the serpent who took their sister. They are determined to kill Žilvinas, and they need the secret call to draw him from the water. They seize Eglė's children and torture them one by one. The three sons refuse to speak. But young Drebulė, trembling with fear, reveals the secret.

The brothers go to the shore. They speak the words. Žilvinas rises from the sea, and they cut him down with scythes.

The Transformation

When Eglė returns to the shore and calls for her husband, the waves bring only blood-stained foam. She understands at once.

In her grief she turns on her own children. The three sons who held the secret she curses into trees: oak, birch, and ash. But Drebulė, who broke under fear, receives the worst. Eglė curses her to shake in every wind for the rest of time. She became the aspen.

Then Eglė herself transforms into a spruce tree, eglė in Lithuanian, rooted on the shore where the foam came back red.