She was a daughter of Poseidon and a queen of Libya. A bronze sculpture displaying Egl and the Serpent by Robertas Antinis has been constructed in Palanga Botanical Garden, Lithuania in 1960. A group of boys overhears the incantation and summons Papa-Water to kill him. Mictlntcutli is the Aztec god of death, king of Mictlan. ("How did the cuckoo appear? " (425 ) " [HISTORY OF RECORDING OF FOLKTALE GRASS-SNAKE AS A HUSBAND (BATHING GIRLS GARMENT KEPT UNTIL PROMISE OF MARRIAGE) (425 M) AMONG RUSSIANS]. In this tale, a beetle appears on the maiden's dress and proposes to her. 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. A donkey is one of his symbols because he would ride a donkey instead of a chariot. Gorgon Medusa. In: Astramskait, Daiva (1993). The girl and her mother board up the doors and windows and wait for a sudden storm to pass. From the theodical foundation myth of Pandora, the first human woman to be created by Hephaestus, beautiful women prove disastrous for the men they seduce . Mythology In myths, legends, scripture and folklore, the category naga comprises all kinds of serpentine beings . When he was still an infant, she sent snakes to attack him in his crib. (2020). Years into their marriage, the snake takes off the snakeskin to become a man, and they have three daughters. Structural and semantic typology of the metamorphic ornithological plot of an East Slavic tale (SUS 425). [68] According to Estonian folklorists (who worked in conjunction with the Lithuanians), the Estonian archives registered 34 variants of the tale type,[69] and, at the end of the tale, the serpent's wife becomes a birch or aspen and her children turn into bark or leaves. A water snake (a crested newt, in the original) announces it is a louseskin and marries the girl, taking her to its underwater palace. One day, the man's wife wants to visit her brothers, and the man teaches her a magic command to move from the island to the continent, while also warning her not to tell anything of their life to her brothers. Her husband agrees to let her visit her family with her son, teaches her a spell and give her gold to gift her family. The full myth of Perseus and Medusa begins years before they battled. 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. In fact, she was a queen. : . . [29] It is also said that the ancient Lithuanians revered the grass snake (altys). When Egl hears her dead husband's voice and discovers how her beloved has died, as a punishment for betrayal she whispers an enchantment, which turns her fragile fearful daughter into a quaking aspen. Although the Furies appear in the Iliad as spirits who make sure things are. In: Kayanidi, L.G. On the other hand, if the tale ends with the transformation of the family into birds or reptiles, it is a tale from East Slavic origin. She reaches home and spends some time there. [110], The tale is also said to be "very popular" in the Pomeranian region. She accepts it and goes back home. [67], The tale type is reported from Southern Estonia, "especially in the Setu region". [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. They live together and have three sons. After she put her daughter and grandchildren to bed, the old woman uttered the incantation, drew forth the snake husband, in human form, out of the palace and decapitated him with an axe. The woman takes a scythe and goes to the river to summon the reptile husband to kill him. That rivers arise in lakes, pools or in caves or spring wells up on mountain sides has made such sites the classical typical den of the legendary dragons of myth. The Folk Tale about Grass Snake as a Story of Baltic Identity]. Eckert, Rainer. Egl almost forgets about her homeland, but one day, after being questioned by her oldest son uolas about her parents, she decides to visit her home. Its mythological background has been an interest of Lithuanian and foreign researchers of Indo-European mythology. Some time later, the princess takes her daughters and prepares to return home by summoning her snake husband, the boat appears dirtied with her husband's blood. On the third year, the girl herself visits her family with her children, then returns to the water. [8] Hungarian scholar Endre Bjtar[hu] called it Egle (Silver Pine), the Snake Goddess and Egle (Silver Fir), the Snake Queen. 81-82. He also claimed that this narrative was "a common African variation on the Cupid and Psyche theme". The youngest being named Egle. According to researcher Svetlana Ryzhakova, the tale first appeared in print in 1837, published by one M. Jaseviiaus or M. Jasaviius, in the supplement Biruta. [71], In an Estonian tale translated into Hungarian as A kirlylny bocskora, a king prepares two mantles, one made from louseskin, the other from flea skin. Instead of seeing a serpent or a grass snake on the seashore, Egl meets her bridegroom ilvinas, who appears to be a handsome man - the Grass Snake Prince. In: [VARVARA DOBROVOLSKAYA]. [39], The tale about a snake spouse is also considered by Russian scholarship to be a "common Slavic" or "pan-Slavic" fairy tale, with possible Indo-European origins. [41], A quantitative study, published by folklorist Sara Graa da Silva and anthropologist Jamshid J. Tehrani in 2016, seemed to indicate that the tale type shows a certain antiquity: based on a phylogenetic model, both researchers estimated that the ATU 425M type belongs to an "ancestral tale corpora" of the Balto-Slavic languages. The animal makes her promise to marry him in exchange for the dress. She summons her husband three times, but he does not respond. Leningrad: , 1970. pp. [56], According to scholar Norbertas Vlius, the tale is "more common" in the eastern area of Lithuania, where "more than two thirds" of the variants have been collected. Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA) Hecate (Hekate) is a goddess of Greek mythology capable of both good and evil. In this tale, a human maiden falls in love with a snake and they both live in an underground palace made of crystal. The religious reception ties into this, as does the Freudian interpretation that . She insists on visiting her parents and showing them their grandchildren, but her husband warns that disaster may loom upon their family. Finally, they take the non-fake bride, Egl, to the bottom of the sea lagoon to their king. In: Behr-Glinka, Andrei I. The youngest son reveals the secret command to his uncles. In: lekonyt, Jrat. Note that serpent men are different to "man serpents", which are typically depicted the other way round, having the bodies of giant snakes but the heads of human beings. Hearing of the incident, the goddess Athena got infuriated and turned Medusa's hair into snakes. 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. In Thailand, the Naga is a Pluto-analogue, an underworld deity associated with wealth. "Pastangos velninti krin: pasakos "Egl ali karalien" periferiniai variantai" [Attempts at mitigating the narrative: peripheral variants of the tale "Egl - the queen of serpents"]. Apollo (Greek god of healing, medicine, music, and poetry): Lyre (musical . The man moves out of his parents's home with his wife to an island in the middle of the sea. Angry with Zeus ' interest for her, the goddess showed no mercy towards Lamia: every time the girl gave birth to a child, Hera either murdered it or made Lamia kill it herself. They come to claim Egl as their master's bride and their future queen, but are tricked by her relatives each time. [19], The tale has become the object of scholarly interest of ethnologist Jonas Balys[lt]. Bellerophon provides a lesson in the proper relationship between a mortal hero and the gods. Zaltis agrees to let her visit his father-in-law, and he brings her to the surface world. Hecate. In: . , . The moment she hands down her first garment into the water, the bridge on which she was sitting collapses. [22], In another version of the tale, the king of snakes is named altys, they live in his palace at the bottom of the sea, and the tale ends with the transformation of her four children and herself into trees: her into a pine tree, her sons into an oak, an ash, and a birch, and her daughter into a weeping willow. [128], A literary telling is attributed to Russian author Leo Tolstoy. When Herakles was travelling through her realm with the cattle of Geryon, she stole some of the herd and insisted the hero mate with her before she would return . Salomja Nris, a Lithuanian poet, wrote a poem called Egl ali karalien (1940), which is based on the motifs of the tale. [77], Author August Lwis de Menar[de] collected a variant from the village of Voloitsa (Valyanitsy), on the Soikino peninsula. In: Palmaitis, Letas. In this tale, the heroine goes fishing and a creature named Papa-Water appears to her, intent on marrying her. SINKEVIIT, Daiva. When they finished bathing, a snake appeared and hid the maiden's shift in exchange for her hand in marriage. [84] She also cited variants wherein the daughter becomes an ortie (nettle) or a cuckoo, and the son becomes a basilisk or a nightingale. For the next week, her mother forbids her to set foot outside their yurt. The serpent frequently appears in myths and legends. [111], In a Kazakh variant, " " ("Beautiful Mirzhan and the Ruler of the Underwater Khanate"), Mirzhan, the beautiful only daughter of an old woman, is bathing in the water with some friends. Manasa is the daughter of Lord Shiva and is also known as the queen of serpents. 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. online streamer | 3.6K views, 269 likes, 139 loves, 419 comments, 27 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Irina Allyson: Hoppy Easter! She marries the snake. The girl agrees to come with him to the lake. Three years later, the girl visits her family carrying her two children in tow, a son and a daughter. A snake slithers from beneath the well, goes to the king's court, and guesses the right answer. "Krybikumo proveriai pasakoje "Egl ali karalien"" [Outbreaks of creativity in the tale "Egl - the queen of serpents"]. Cumba follows her sister to a location near the water, and sees Sira chanting a song to summon an enchanted serpent from the waters. They are a strong, handsome species who can assume either wholly human or wholly serpentine form and are potentially dangerous but often beneficial to humans. The old woman allows her daughters to join the others. The story can be subdivided into a number of sections each having parallels with motifs of other folk tales, yet a combination of them is unique. The next two years, her mother goes to the sea shore and asks about her daughter. In 3 volumes]. 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. " ". A similar assessment was made by professor Jack V. Haney, to whom the tale type appears "only around the south Baltic coast". [11], This tale is classified, in the AarneThompsonUther Index, as tale type ATU 425M, "The Snake as Bridegroom"[12] (formerly "Bathing Girl's garments kept [until promise of marriage with aquatic being]"). . Finally, Egl herself turns into a spruce. Years pass, and the girl is missing life on the land. She convinces her husband to let her go to the surface to visit her parents, and he gives her gold and silver to gift his mother-in-law. Le projet du Dictionnaire de motifs et de contes-types tiologiques chez les slaves orientaux. THE DRAKAINA SKYTHIA (Scythian Dracaena) was the first ruler of the land of Skythia. In order to be allowed to visit home, Egl is required to fulfill three impossible tasks: to spin a never-ending tuft of silk, wear down a pair of iron shoes and to bake a pie with no utensils. Once more about the semantics of serpent in European folk-lore]. She tries to calm him down and pleads to be allowed ashore to visit her mother once. " - " [NON-FAIRY PROZE OF VELIZHSKY REGION IN SMOLENSK DISTRICT - GENERAL AND SPECIAL IN LOCAL TRADITION]. All of Medusa's siblings were monsters by birth and, even though she was not, she had the misfortune of being turned . However, the princess's younger brother mimics her voice and tricks the snake into coming out of the water, only to be beheaded by the princess's brothers. Nagas and Lamias [30] Under this lens, the grass snake could be seen as a totemic ancestor, akin to the swan maiden, who plays the role of ancestress of many peoples. The priests of Heliopolis, followers of the sun god Re, developed the myth of Isis. The girl sees the dead husband and commands the son to become a lark and the daughter a cuckoo, while she is washed away by the waves, never to be seen again. Human suitors test their skills. In Hindu mythology, snakes have been depicted as both powerful and feared creatures, often associated with divinity, and are believed to have a significant impact on humans. When he . In: Stryczyska-Hodyl, Ewa. The girl rushes back to the lake and, seeing her dead husband, curses her two children to become white swans and herself a gray cuckoo. The earliest records in existence indicate this snake god was closely tied to the rain and water god, Tlaloc, and that his original domain was vegetation. "Le mari-serpent ou Pourquoi le coucou coucoule". Riga: , 1969. pp. At least 12 different approaches are reported. Her old mother seizes a sickle and "rushed into the country". [17], The tale is one of the most researched in Lithuanian scholarship, under different approaches,[a] since "it represents the old Lithuanian worldview". Medusa did not come into existence as a woman with a head of snakes. 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. However, he is rescued by a mysterious man with greenish hair who introduces himself as Zaltis, the King of the Lakes. 585 ff (trans. In this variant, The Water Snake or Ujak, an old woman's daughter went to bathe with other girls in the pond. "TENDENCIES OF THE FORMATION AND USAGE OF BALTIC NOUNS WITH SUFFIX -UT- IN LITHUANIA". Liliana Daskalova Perkowski, Doroteja Dobreva, Jordanka Koceva & Evgenija Miceva. "Veikj ir viet vardai, j kaita Egls pasakoje" [Names of characters and places and their change in the fairy tale "The snake as bridegroom"]. The exact location of their bathing remains undisclosed. They are known as Nagas, and they played a very important role in shaping the consciousness of this nation and many other cultures. "), a mother finds a louse in her house, fattens it and make a pair of shoes for her daughter. ""Egl ali karalien": gyvybs ir mirties domenas" ["Egl the queen of serpents": domain of life and death]. One day, the princess finds a louse in her father's hair, who decides to fatten the bug and use its hide as part of a suitor riddle: whoever guesses the nature of the hide shall marry the princess. While Iphicles screamed in fear, Heracles grabbed one snake in . Her family tries to trick him twice, first with a goose, then with a she-goat. That evening, a giant snake comes out of the sea and knocks at the girl's door. "On the Cult of the Snake in Ancient Baltic and Slavic Tradition (based on language material from the Latvian folksongs)". After much insistence, the brothers learn of the secret command and go to the seashore. 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