[88][c], In a Polish tale translated as Jegle and the King of the Lakes, a fisherman has two sons and goes to fish in the lake, when, suddenly, a storm begins to rage on the lake, threating to drown the man. After the birth of their first child, the abducted wife sings it a lullaby about her past, which enrages the water goblin. In this tale, a beetle appears on the maiden's dress and proposes to her. Some time later, a "troop" of snakes came to the maiden's house to force her to fulfill her promise. After pestering her daughter with questions, Zuhra eventually tells her the secret command. Medusa is a classic example of this, and indeed many other man serpents have the hypnotic stare and superhuman strength that the snake queen is known for. . After her visit, Jegle goes to the edge of the lake to wait for her husband; her brothers follow her and wait for Zaltis to come out of the lake. Eckert, Rainer. Its mythological background has been an interest of Lithuanian and foreign researchers of Indo-European mythology; Gintaras Beresneviius considered it being a Lithuanian theogonic myth. The girl visits her family, but her brothers consult with a nearby witch, who reveals the sons know how to summon their father. [40] Another line of scholarship states that the tale refers to an ancient "Balto-Slavic totemic myth". ""Egl ali karalien": pasakos topografijos paiekos" ["Egl - the Queen of Serpents": in search of the tale's topography]. [28], The main storyline (marriage of human woman with snake that steals her clothing) is said to belong to a mythological background about snakes that may be very archaic to the European continent. [50], Other variations lie in the secret code the wife learns from her snake husband, and in the fate of the heroine and their children (sometimes all girls; sometimes all boys): they are either transformed into trees or into birds and disappear forever. Egl bears four children (three sons (uolas (Oak), Uosis (Ash) and Beras (Birch)) and one youngest daughter Drebul (Aspen)). muida also suggests that tales that lack family drama and friction might be the original forms of the story. 90 likes, 5 comments - (@elizah_leigh_art_writer) on Instagram on January 15, 2021: ""What . [35] By using the magical incantation to summon the snake bridegroom, Egle builds a bridge between her world and the aquatic one (or an underground, chthonic realm). The religious reception ties into this, as does the Freudian interpretation that . The girl and her mother board up the doors and windows and wait for a sudden storm to pass. Moscow: , 2009. p. 49. The sea prince takes her to his kingdom, marries her and she gives birth to two boys. Zuhra goes with the girls to bathe in a nearby lake and leaves her clothes on the shore. Masha's mother is the one to kill the snake husband with a hatchet. The sea prince tells he will help him, on the condition that the fisherman gives him the first thing that is on the shore (which happens to be the fisherman's only daughter). After Sira leaves, Cumba returns home to tell her mother everything. Her husband agrees to let her visit her family with her son, teaches her a spell and give her gold to gift her family. Ein Schlangenmrchen als identittsstiftende Erzhlung der Balten". [70], In an Estonian tale titled Ussi naine or Ussi naene ("The Snake's Wife"), the maiden bathes with her sisters by the sea, the snake refuses to return her clothes, the heroine gives birth to daughters that become different tree species at the end of the tale. It symbolized the pharaoh's role as lawmaker and maintainer of order, protecting the Egyptian people from the forces of chaos. According to some. Her mother learns the secret command to summon the snake husband (called Isai Isanych) and kills the husband with a scythe. 1998. Back to her castle, the princess's brothers express their distaste about their snake brother-in-law, and question their nieces about their home life. Thereafter she turns her sons into strong trees - an oak, an ash and a birch. However, when the time comes, the sky darkens and a retinue of snakes, jinns and peris come to Zuhra's house in their master's name. Prior to their departure, he instructs them how to call him from the depths of the sea and asks not to tell this secret to anyone else. However, ilvinas (perhaps intuitively being afraid to lose his wife or sensing his fate) denies her permission to leave the Grass Snake palace. [51][52][53] Some stories mention that the king of the grass snakes was wearing an amber crown or that he lived in an amber palace - a motif that recalls another Baltic fairy tale: Jrat and Kastytis. Scythian She-Dragon. As soon as he emerges from the lake, the brothers jump out of the hiding spot and beat the husband to death. Leningrad: , 1970. pp. Meanwhile, the girls are bathing in the lake. Afraid to utter any word, the Black Snake then assures her it will come back when she is eighteen, and slithers back into the lake. After she gets an advice from the sorceress (a potential referral to the Lady of the Sea or Lady of the Cave) and succeeds in completing these three tasks, ilvinas reluctantly lets Egl and the children go. FOLKLORICA - Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association 3 (2): 12. [104], In a tale from the Mari people titled " " ("Blind Love"), some sisters go to bathe in the water. [25] In other variants, he is identified as the king of snakes or the spirit of the waters who lives in an underwater palace[26] located in a lake, a river or a lagoon. The Nagas ( Sanskrit: , romanized : Nga) [1] are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half- serpent beings that reside in the netherworld ( Patala ), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. He sets a riddle for any suitors: whoever guesses the right material of both mantles, shall marry the princess. A large snake comes to the castle and guesses it right, then takes the princess with him as his bride to his abode in the sea. The serpent emerges from the water and is killed by the man. Thor battling the Midgard Serpent by Emil Doepler. URL: "Ji pagrstai gali bti laikoma balt lietuvi ir latvi pasaka, nes daugiausia jos variant urayta Lietuvoje ir Latvijoje." She does and takes her three children with her. His legs were the same. Moskva: , 1975. pp. After meeting the long lost family member, Egl's relatives do not wish to let her return to the sea and decide to kill ilvinas. Sauka, Leonardas, sudarymas, rengjas [com, cre]. .. () Tai naratyvas, kuris reprezentuoja senj lietuvi pasaulir ir kiekvienas jo tyrimas yra savaip vertingas." A donkey is one of his symbols because he would ride a donkey instead of a chariot. SINKEVIIT, Daiva. . The princess bears the snake man three daughters and goes to visit her family. She reaches home and spends some time there. #1 Late Night. Hundreds of different wings were grafted onto his body. In: . The snake makes the girl give her ring in exchange for the garments, and slithers back into the water. Under this rubric are snakes, usually of the python kind (despite the fact that naga is usually taken literally to refer to a cobra ,) deities of the primal ocean and of mountain springs; also spirits of earth and the realm beneath . " (425 ) " [HISTORY OF RECORDING OF FOLKTALE GRASS-SNAKE AS A HUSBAND (BATHING GIRLS GARMENT KEPT UNTIL PROMISE OF MARRIAGE) (425 M) AMONG RUSSIANS]. They served Hades, the god of the Underworld, and Persephone, the goddess of spring and queen of the Underworld. The girl visits her family and one of her sisters asks her what she does to return to her palace in the bottom of the lake. "Ukeikimai, magikos formuls ir vard problema balt "ali karaliens" variantuose" [Spells, magic formulas and the problem of names in the Baltic variants of the tale "The queen of grass-snakes"]. and snake. A ballet Egl ali karalien by Eduardas Balsys and numerous plays have been staged in various Lithuanian theaters, for the first time in 1960, directed by Juozas Gustaitis. In: Stryczyska-Hodyl, Ewa. The man explains he was taken by the genie race when he was little, but eventually became their leader, and the girl has nothing to fear. [60], In Latvia the tale is known as alio nuotaka or Zalka lgava ("The Grass-Snake's Wife"). This happens for the next two nights, until the girl agrees to go with the reptile. The god had impregnated the princess in the form of a shower of gold after her father had locked her away upon learning from an oracle that he would be killed by his grandson. Fand is a Celtic sea goddess also known as Queen of the Fairies and wife of Manannn. She agrees to his proposal and the snake comes later to take her to his underground palace. [106], In a tale from the Tatar people titled "" ("Zuhra"), an old couple try to have a child, but none of their children survive, until they have a girl they name Zuhra. Nagas and Lamias The next day, the snake asks her to prepare the oven and to throw it in the fire. [122], Studies suggest that characters of the tale named several geographic features, such as toponyms and hydronyms of northwestern Russia, Pskov region. In 3 volumes]. She returns home to her family with dresses and money to give her sisters, and to wait for her husband to fetch her. After seeing the dead husband, Masha curses her daughter to become a swallow, her son to be a nightingale and herself to be a cuckoo.[130]. [118], Indian scholar Suniti Kumar Chatterji summarized the Lithuanian tale and stated that it "reminded" him of the Kashmiri story about Princess Himal and Nagrai (Ngaray), the Prince of Snakes. The brothers go to the lake, summon the snake with the song and kill him as soon as he appears. They live together and have three sons. [23] The name of the serpent husband may also vary between tellings: ilvinas, Zilvynas, Zelvynas, or ilvytis. She is the sister of Vasuki, king of Nagas and wife of sage Jagatkaru. In Greek mythology, the Gorgons were snake-women whose gazes would turn people to stone; they had serpents for hair, long claws, sharp teeth and scales covering their bodies. Lvena, Ivonne. [74], German scholar Oskar Dhnhardt[de] collected an untitled Estonian tale: a king has a daughter and three sons. The girl accepts, if only to get her garments back. In: . This told that Isis was the daughter of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut and the sister of the deities Osiris, Seth, and Nephthys.Married to Osiris, king of Egypt, Isis was a queen who supported her husband and taught the women of Egypt how to weave, bake, and brew beer. Zaltis takes Jegle back to their palace, and explains her brothers will be restored to normal after a while. This formula is learned by others, who draw the serpentine being out of its hideout to kill it. [57] Following a less mythological approach, scholar Endre Bjtar suggested that its diffusion across Lithuania owes to the local snake cult,[58] recorded in historical sources. Finally, a frightened daughter tells them the grass snake summoning chant: All twelve brothers of Egl call ilvinas the Grass Snake from the sea and kill him using scythes. 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