Eglė the Queen of Serpents

Eglė the Queen of Serpents, alternatively Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes (Lithuanian: Eglė žalčių karalienė), is a Lithuanian folk tale, first published by M. Jasewicz in 1837.

Eglė the Queen of Serpents, statue in Glebe Park, Canberra

Eglė the Queen of Serpents is one of the best-known Lithuanian fairy tales with many references to the Baltic mythology. Over a hundred slightly diverging versions of the plot have been collected. Its mythological background has been an interest of Lithuanian and foreign researchers of Indo-European mythology; Gintaras Beresnevičius considered it being a Lithuanian theogonic myth.[1] The tale features not only human–reptile shapeshifting, but irreversible human–tree shapeshifting as well. Numerology is also evident in the tale, such as twelve sons, three daughters, three days, three tricks, three weeks of feast, nine years under the oath of marriage, three tasks given to Eglė by her husband to fulfill and nine days of visits.

Etymology

Eglė is both a popular female name in Lithuania and also a noun meaning spruce (Latin: Picea). The name is said to also mean fir.[2]

One of the main characters in this fairy tale is a grass snake (Lithuanian: žaltys), but because it seems to inhabit the sea-adjacent lagoon (Lithuanian: marios), the word may actually refer either to a mythical aquatic snake or a European eel (Anguilla anguilla).

Synopsis

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.

A young maiden named Eglė discovers a grass snake in the sleeve of her blouse after bathing with her two sisters. The exact location of their bathing remains undisclosed. Speaking in a human voice, the grass snake repeatedly agrees to go away only after Eglė pledges herself to him in exchange for him leaving her clothes. Shocked, upset, hesitant (how can she, a person, marry a grass snake?), but in a hurry to get rid of the persistent snake-like reptile, Eglė agrees to marry, while not fully understanding the potential consequences and the gravity of her situation. Then after three days, thousands of grass snakes march into the yard of her parents' house. They come to claim Eglė as their master's bride and their future queen, but are tricked by her relatives each time. A domesticated goose, a sheep and then a cow are given instead of the bride to the legion of the grass snakes, but once they start a journey back home, the cuckoo, who is sitting in the birch tree, warns them about the deceit. Enraged grass snakes return for a final time and threaten everyone with dry year, deluge and famine. Finally, they take the non-fake bride, Eglė, to the bottom of the sea lagoon to their king.

Instead of seeing a serpent or a grass snake on the seashore, Eglė meets her bridegroom Žilvinas, who appears to be a handsome man - the Grass Snake Prince. They transfer to the nearby island, and from there to the underground underneath the sea, where a nicely decorated palace is located - Eglė's new home for eternity. The feast is going on for three weeks, and thereafter the couple lives happily together. Eglė bears four children (three sons (Ąžuolas (Oak), Uosis (Ash) and Beržas (Birch)) and one youngest daughter Drebulė (Aspen)). Eglė almost forgets about her homeland, but one day, after being questioned by her oldest son Ąžuolas about her parents, she decides to visit her home. However, Žilvinas (perhaps intuitively being afraid to lose his wife or sensing his fate) denies her permission to leave the Grass Snake palace. In order to be allowed to visit home, Eglė 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. 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, Žilvinas reluctantly lets Eglė and the children go. 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.

Wooden statues of Egle and her children in Druskininkai "Forest Echo" museum

After meeting the long lost family member, Eglė's relatives do not wish to let her return to the sea and decide to kill Žilvinas. First, his sons are threatened and beaten with the scourge by their uncles, in attempt to make them disclose how to summon their father; however, they remain silent and do not betray him. Finally, a frightened daughter tells them the grass snake summoning chant:

"Žilvinas, dear Žilvinėlis,
If (you're) alive – may the sea foam milk
If (you're) dead – may the sea foam blood…"

All twelve brothers of Eglė call Žilvinas the Grass Snake from the sea and kill him using scythes. They do not say a word to their sister about the horrible crime they have just committed. After nine days, Eglė arrives at the seashore and calls her husband, but unfortunately only the foams of blood return from the sea. When Eglė 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. Thereafter she turns her sons into strong trees - an oak, an ash and a birch. Finally, Eglė herself turns into a spruce. [3]

Translations

The tale was translated as Spruce, Queen of the Grass Snakes.[4] In Latvia the tale is known as Žalčio nuotaka or Zalkša līgava ("The Grass-Snake's Wife").[5]

The tale type is known in Russia as Zhena Uzha ("The Snake's Wife").[6][7]

Analysis

The human-animal relationship

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.[8] It is also said that the ancient Lithuanians revered the grass snake (žaltys).[9]

According to Bernard Sergent, "human–animal marriage is an union that is too remote as incest is a too close one. Compared to a balanced marriage, between humans but from another clan or another village, that is to say–depending on the society–within the framework of a well measured endogamy or exogamy, incest transgresses the norm because it is an exaggerated endogamy, and animal marriage transgresses it because it is an exaggerated exogamy."[10]

Although its precise time and place of origin cannot be settled with certainty, the Lithuanian myth has been compared with similar stories found among Native American peoples (Wayampi, Yahgan and Coos), which could be the result of an inherited Ancient North Eurasian motif featuring a woman marrying an aquatic animal, violating human laws on exogamy and connecting the terrestrial and aquatic worlds.[11]

Lithuanian scholarship seems to agree with this assessment: the snake is the ruler of waters and represents a chaotic world. Its liaison with a human woman, which produces children, violates the boundaries between the world of land and the world of water[12] and, by killing the snake, the natural order (that is, separation between land and water) can be restored.[13] 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).[14]

Other interpretations focus on the intergroup marriage aspect of the story: Egle's family (brothers) would then represent male relatives fighting against a male from another family or clan to rescue their only sister, by torturing their nephews and niece (the fruits of this "spurious" union).[15]

In folkloristics

This tale is classified, in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, as tale type ATU 425M, "The Snake as Bridegroom"[16] (formerly "Bathing Girl's garments kept [until promise of marriage with aquatic being]").[17] These tales are closely connected to type ATU 425 ("Search for the Lost Husband"), ATU 425A ("Animal as Bridegroom"), ATU 425B ("Cupid and Psyche" or "Son of the Witch")[18] and ATU 425C ("Beauty and the Beast"). As such, some versions avert the tragic ending by following the narrative of other tale types, like ATU 425A and ATU 425C.[19]

The tale is one of the most researched in Lithuanian scholarship, under different approaches, since "it represents the old Lithuanian worldview".[20]

The tale has become the object of scholarly interest of ethnologist Jonas Balys (lt). The story has also been considered an oikotype, i.e., a form of the tale that is specific to a certain region (in this case, the Baltic geographical area).[21]

Folklorist Norbertas Vėlius has also developed an academic interest in the narrative and analysed its elements ("the dual nature of Egle, the attributes of the snake, the types of plants") in relation to the folklore of other countries.[22]

Variants

Although it can be considered a tale type developed in the Baltic area, since most of the variants have been recorded there,[23] variants are reported to have been collected in nearby countries: 23 variants in Estonia (near Lake Peipus);[24] 150 Lithuanian versions; 89 Latvian versions; 28 from Russia; 22 from Belarus; 6 in Ukraine; 3 from Poland; 2 from Bulgaria. Variants have also been found from Tatar (4 tales) and Kazakh (1 version) sources.[25] Altogether, the variants collected outside Lithuania and Latvia, from 11 countries, amount to 106 versions.[26]

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.[27][28][29] 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: Jūratė and Kastytis.[30]

According to researcher Galina Kabakova, the fate of the children at the end of the tale is important to determine the origin of that particular variant (based on a geographical method): in the main Lithuanian versions, mother and children are transformed into trees, a motif that occurs in versions collected from the Belarus's border between Poland and Lithuania, and in Russian versions collected in Lithuania. On the other hand, if the tale ends with the transformation of the family into birds, it is a tale from East Slavic origin.[31]

Estonia

In an Estonian variant, 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.[32]

Eastern Europe

Among the East Slavic populations, the tale type ATU 425M assumes the features of an etiological tale.[33]

English scholar A. H. Wratislaw collected the tale Transformation into a Nightingale and a Cuckoo from "Little Russia" in his Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources. In this tale, a human maiden falls in love with a snake and they both live in a underground palace made of crystal. She becomes the mother of twins (a girl and a boy). Her old mother seizes a sickle and "rushed into the country". The maiden "saw she had manifest death before her" and, by her command, orders her children to become birds: the boy a nightingale and the girl a cuckoo, and it is implied that a dead nettle is what remained of her.[34]

Ukraine

Researcher Galina Kabakova translated and published a variant from Ukraine titled Les coucous, les alouettes et les reptiles.[35] She also cited variants wherein the daughter becomes an ortie (nettle) or a cuckoo, and the son becomes a basilisk or a nightingale.[36]

Russia

British scholar William Ralston Shedden-Ralston translated a variant collected by Erlenwein from the Tula Government. In this variant, The Water Snake or Ujak, an old woman's daughter went to bathe with other girls in the pond. When they finished bathing, a snake appeared and hid the maiden's shift in exchange for her hand in marriage. The girl, dismissing the snake's fanciful notion, agreed to anyway. Some time later, a "troop" of snakes came to the maiden's house to force her to fulfill her promise. The snakes escorted her out of the house and into her fiancée's underwater palace. Three years passed and she returned to her mother house with two little children, a boy and a girl. When conversing with her mother, the maiden unwittingly revealed her husband's name (Osip) and the incantation to summon him. 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 next morning, the maiden returned to the pond and, after realizing her mother's heinous act, condemned her daughter to become a wren, her son a nightingale and herself a cuckoo.[37]

Cultural references
Eglė and the Serpent Statue in Palanga

Salomėja Nėris, a Lithuanian poet, wrote a poem called Eglė žalčių karalienė (1940), which is based on the motifs of the tale.

A bronze sculpture displaying Eglė and the Serpent by Robertas Antinis has been constructed in Palanga Botanical Garden, Lithuania in 1960.

A ballet Eglė žalčių karalienė by Eduardas Balsys and numerous plays have been staged in various Lithuanian theaters, for the first time in 1960, directed by Juozas Gustaitis.

The story has also inspired the creation of literary tales.[38]

Studies suggest that characters of the tale named several geographic features, such as toponyms and hydronyms of northwestern Russia, Pskov region.[39]

See also

References
  1. Beresnevičius, Gintaras. "Eglė žalčių karalienė" ir lietuvių teogoninis mitas: religinė istorinė studija ["Eglė - the Queen of the Grass-Snakes" and the Lithuanian theogonical myth]. Vilnius: Kultūros, filosofijos ir meno institutas, 2003.
  2. SINKEVIČIŪTĖ, Daiva. "TENDENCIES OF THE FORMATION AND USAGE OF BALTIC NOUNS WITH SUFFIX -UT- IN LITHUANIA". In: International Scientific Conference: ONOMASTIC INVESTIGATIONS. Riga, 10-12 May, 2018. Riga: Latvian Language Institute of the University of Latvia. 2018. p. 105. ISBN 978-9984-742-98-4
  3. http://europeisnotdead.com/disco/books-of-europe/european-fairy-tales/lithuania-egle-the-queen-of-serpents/
  4. Zheleznova, Irina. Tales from the Amber Sea. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1981 [1974]. pp. 204-212.
  5. Stryczyńska-Hodyl, Ewa. "Užkeikimai, magiškos formulės ir vardų problema baltų "Žalčių karalienės" variantuose" [Spells, magic formulas and the problem of names in the Baltic variants of the tale "The queen of grass-snakes"]. In: Acta humanitarica universitatis Saulensis [Acta humanit. univ. Saulensis (Online)]. 2009, t. 8. pp. 28, 34. ISSN 1822-7309
  6. Леонид Геннадьевич Каяниди. "СКАЗКИ ТИПА 425M «ЖЕНА УЖА» ИЗ СМОЛЕНСКОЙ И БРЕСТСКОЙ ОБЛАСТЕЙ". In: ЖИВАЯ СТАРИНА 2 (102) 2019. pp. 34-37. ISSN 0204-3432
  7. ВАРВАРА ЕВГЕНЬЕВНА ДОБРОВОЛЬСКАЯ [VARVARA DOBROVOL’SKAYA]. "ИСТОРИЯ ФИКСАЦИИ СКАЗКИ «ЖЕНА УЖА» (425 М) У РУССКИХ" [HISTORY OF RECORDING OF FOLKTALE “GRASS-SNAKE AS A HUSBAND (BATHING GIRL’S GARMENT KEPT UNTIL PROMISE OF MARRIAGE)” (425 M) AMONG RUSSIANS]. In: Традиционная культура. 2015. № 4. pp. 133-142.
  8. Алексеев Сергей Викторович. "К реконструкции праславянской мифологии". In: Знание. Понимание. Умение, no. 4, 2011, pp. 81-82. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/k-rekonstruktsii-praslavyanskoy-mifologii.
  9. Lurker, Manfred. The Routledge Dictionary Of Gods Goddesses Devils And Demons. Routledge. 2004. p. 207. ISBN 0415340187
  10. Sergent 1999, p. 26.
  11. Sergent 1999, pp. 36–37.
  12. Lūvena, Ivonne. "Egle — zalkša līgava. Pasaka par zalkti — baltu identitāti veidojošs stāsts" [Spruce – the Bride of the Grass Snake. The Folk Tale about Grass Snake as a Story of Baltic Identity]. In: LATVIJAS UNIVERSITĀTES raksti. n. 732: Literatūrzinātne, folkloristika, māksla. Rīga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds, 2008. p. 12.
  13. Šlekonytė, Jūratė. "Lietuvių pasakų tyrimų šimtmetis: nuo tradicinės komparatyvistikos iki šiuolaikinių metodų" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. In: Tautosakos darbai, t. 49, 2015. p. 131. ISSN 1392-2831
  14. Stryczyńska-Hodyl, Ewa. "Užkeikimai, magiškos formulės ir vardų problema baltų "Žalčių karalienės" variantuose" [Spells, magic formulas and the problem of names in the Baltic variants of the tale "The queen of grass-snakes"]. In: Acta humanitarica universitatis Saulensis [Acta humanit. univ. Saulensis (Online)]. 2009, t. 8. pp. 28-34. ISSN 1822-7309
  15. Žmuida, Eugenijus. ""Eglė žalčių karalienė": gyvybės ir mirties domenas" ["Eglė the queen of serpents": domain of life and death]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2011, 42, p. 159-169. ISSN 1392-2831
  16. Felton, Debbie. "Apuleius' Cupid Considered as a Lamia (Metamorphoses 5.17-18)." Illinois Classical Studies, no. 38 (2013): 230 (footnote nr. 4). doi:10.5406/illiclasstud.38.0229.
  17. Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 144.
  18. Felton, Debbie. "Apuleius' Cupid Considered as a Lamia (Metamorphoses 5.17-18)." Illinois Classical Studies, no. 38 (2013): 231 (footnote nr. 7). doi:10.5406/illiclasstud.38.0229.
  19. Sauka, Leonardas. "Pastangos švelninti kūrinį: pasakos "Eglė žalčių karalienė" periferiniai variantai" [Attempts at mitigating the narrative : peripheral variants of the tale "Eglė - the queen of serpents"]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2007, 33. pp. 48-49. ISSN 1392-2831
  20. "Tyrimo objektu dažniausiai pasirenkama pasaka „Eglė žalčių karalienė“ (ATU 425M). (...) Tai naratyvas, kuris reprezentuoja senąją lietuvių pasaulėžiūrą ir kiekvienas jo tyrimas yra savaip vertingas." Šlekonytė, Jūratė. "Lietuvių pasakų tyrimų šimtmetis: nuo tradicinės komparatyvistikos iki šiuolaikinių metodų" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. In: Tautosakos darbai, t. 49, 2015. p. 133. ISSN 1392-2831
  21. Šlekonytė, Jūratė. "Lietuvių pasakų tyrimų šimtmetis: nuo tradicinės komparatyvistikos iki šiuolaikinių metodų" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. In: Tautosakos darbai, t. 49, 2015. p. 130. ISSN 1392-2831
  22. Šlekonytė, Jūratė. "Lietuvių pasakų tyrimų šimtmetis: nuo tradicinės komparatyvistikos iki šiuolaikinių metodų" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. In: Tautosakos darbai, t. 49, 2015. p. 133. ISSN 1392-2831
  23. "Ji pagrįstai gali būti laikoma baltų – lietuvių ir latvių – pasaka, nes daugiausia jos variantų užrašyta Lietuvoje ir Latvijoje." Bagočiūnas, Saulis. ""Eglė žalčių karalienė": pasakos topografijos paieškos" ["Eglė - the Queen of Serpents": in search of the tale's topography]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2008, 36, p. 64. ISSN 1392-2831
  24. Bagočiūnas, Saulis. ""Eglė žalčių karalienė": pasakos topografijos paieškos" ["Eglė - the Queen of Serpents": in search of the tale's topography]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2008, 36, p. 68. ISSN 1392-2831
  25. Sauka, Leonardas. "Veikėjų ir vietų vardai, jų kaita Eglės pasakoje" [Names of characters and places and their change in the fairy tale "The snake as bridegroom"]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2008, 35. pp. 184-193. ISSN 1392-2831
  26. Sauka, Leonardas. "Pastangos švelninti kūrinį: pasakos "Eglė žalčių karalienė" periferiniai variantai" [Attempts at mitigating the narrative : peripheral variants of the tale "Eglė - the queen of serpents"]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2007, 33. pp. 45-55. ISSN 1392-2831
  27. Sauka, Leonardas. "Kūrybiškumo proveržiai pasakoje "Eglė žalčių karalienė"" [Outbreaks of creativity in the tale "Eglė - the queen of serpents"]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2010, 39. pp. 66-79. ISSN 1392-2831
  28. Žmuida, Eugenijus. ""Eglė žalčių karalienė": gyvybės ir mirties domenas" ["Eglė the queen of serpents": domain of life and death]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2011, 42. pp. 160-161. ISSN 1392-2831
  29. Lūvena, Ivonne. "Egle — zalkša līgava. Pasaka par zalkti — baltu identitāti veidojošs stāsts" [Spruce – the Bride of the Grass Snake. The Folk Tale about Grass Snake as a Story of Baltic Identity]. In: LATVIJAS UNIVERSITĀTES raksti. n. 732: Literatūrzinātne, folkloristika, māksla. Rīga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds, 2008. p. 15.
  30. Bliujienė, Audronė. Northern Gold: Amber in Lithuania (c. 100 to c. 1200). Leiden, The Netherlands; Boston: Brill. 2011. p. 33. ISBN 978-90-04-21118-6
  31. Kabakova, Galina. «Le projet du Dictionnaire de motifs et de contes-types étiologiques chez les slaves orientaux». Revue des études slaves [Онлайн], LXXXIX 1-2 | 2018 (§30). Выложить онлайн 09 juillet 2019, Наводить справки в 04 février 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/res/1526; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/res.1526
  32. Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum. Ussi naine: Muinasjutte soovide täitumisest. Tartu: EKM Teaduskirjastus. 2015. pp. 11-15. ISBN 978-9949-544-75-2
  33. Kabakova, Galina. "Le mari-serpent ou Pourquoi le coucou coucoule". In: EURASIE, 2007. vol. 17: "Oiseaux: Héros et devins". pp. 127-142.
  34. Wratislaw, A. H. Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources. London: Elliot Stock. 1889. pp. 160-161.
  35. Kabakova, Galina; Ojog, Elena. Contes et légendes d'Ukraine. Paris: Flies France, 2009. pp. 146-149. ISBN 978-2-910272-56-2
  36. Kabakova, Galina; Ojog, Elena. Contes et légendes d'Ukraine. Paris: Flies France, 2009. ISBN 978-2-910272-56-2
  37. Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. Russian Folk-tales. New York: R. Worthington, 1878. pp. 126-129.
  38. Dromantaitė-Stancikienė, Aistė. "Eglės žalčių karalienės interpretacijos: trumposios literatūrinės pasakos" [Interpretations of Lithuanian folk tale Eglė žalčių karalienė: short literary tales]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2003, 26. pp. 76-83. ISSN 1392-2831
  39. Bagočiūnas, Saulis. ""Eglė žalčių karalienė": pasakos topografijos paieškos" ["Eglė - the Queen of Serpents" : in search of the tale's topography]. In: Tautosakos darbai [Folklore Studies]. 2008, 36, pp. 64-72. ISSN 1392-2831

Bibliography

Further reading
  • Behr-Glinka, Andrei I. "Змея как сексуальный и брачный партнер человека. (Еще раз о семантике образа змеи в фольклорной традиции европейских народов)" [Serpent as a Bride and an Intimate Partner of a Man. Once more about the semantics of serpent in European folk-lore]. In: Культурные взаимодействия. Динамика и смыслы. Издательский дом Stratum, Университет «Высшая антропологическая школа», 2016. pp. 435-575.
  • Bradūnas, Elena. ""IF YOU KILL A SNAKE — THE SUN WILL CRY". Folktale Type 425-M: A Study in Oicotype and Folk Belief". In: LITUANUS: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. Volume 21, No.1 - Spring 1975.
  • Palmaitis, Letas. "Romeo Moses and Psyche Brunhild? Or Cupid the Serpent and the Morning Star?" In: Caucasologie et mythologie comparée, Actes du Colloque international du C.N.R.S. - IVe Colloque de Caucasologie (Sévres, 27-29 juin 1988). Paris, PEETERS, 1992. pp. 177-185. ISBN 2-87723-042-2
  • Sauka, Leonardas, sudarymas, rengėjas [com, cre]. Pasaka "Eglė žalčių karalienė". Tomas 1, Lietuvių variantai [First Tome: Lithuanian variants]. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2007. ISBN 978-9955-698-66-1
  • Sauka, Leonardas, sudarymas, rengėjas [com, cre]. Pasaka "Eglė žalčių karalienė". Tomas 2, Latvių variantai [Second Tome: Latvian variants]. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2007. ISBN 978-9955-698-67-8
  • Sauka, Leonardas, sudarymas, parengė [com, cre]. Pasaka "Eglė žalčių karalienė". Tomas 3, Finų, slavų, romanų, tiurkų variantai [Third Tome: Fairy tale "The Snake as Bridegroom" (ATU 425M) in Balto-Finnic, Slavic, Romanic and Turkic foklore]. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2008. ISBN 9789955698685
  • Sauka, Leonardas, sudarymas, parengė [com, cre]. Pasaka "Eglė žalčių karalienė". Tomas 4, Tyrinėjimai, kitos žinios [Fourth Tome: research and other data]. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2008. ISBN 9789955698692
  • Stryczyńska-Hodyl, Ewa. "Popularność motywu "O żonie węża" w folklorze i literaturze Bałtów". In: Perspectives of Baltic philology II. Edited by Jowita Niewulis-Grablunas, Justyna Prusinowska, Ewa Stryczyńska-Hodyl. Pozn, P. pp. 223-237. ISBN 9788360517796
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