In the temple of Athena in Athens, a snake held in a cage was believed to be the reincarnation of Erichthonius, an early king in ancient Greece. -: , 1984. pp. [121], Similarities can be found in Vodnk, a story written by Czech author Karel Jaromr Erben as a poem in the book Kytice z povst nrodnch ("A Bouquet of Folk Legends"). Once more about the semantics of serpent in European folk-lore]. [Kazakh folk tales. Lamia was a beautiful Libyan queen loved by Zeus. 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. 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. Beyond religions and ideologies, there is a primal fear of beings that are quite different and incomprehensible to us. lekonyt, Jrat. A mother tells her young daughter of a dream she had about clothing her daughter in white robes swirling like foaming water and with pearls of tears hiding deep distress around her neck. Zuhra runs back home and tells her mother everything, and they fence the house, hoping it will keep the snake out. In: . In this tale, three sisters are bathing in the water. In: , . Category:Mythological queens Queens regnant and Queens consort depicted in mythology . 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. Bagoinas, Saulis. Hecate. The elder two leave the lake and, take their garments and go home. "Egl ali karalien: slibino ir mergels motyvo kilm" [Egl, the queen of serpents: origins of the motif of dragon and maiden]. The next day, the girl and her daughters go back to the lake. "" ": ". The other girls flee in fear, while Mirzhan runs to the shore to get her clothes, but a snake sits on them. Rules over: Marriage, women, birth and the heavens; Title: Queen of Heaven; Gender: Female; Symbols: Jewelled crown, sceptre, pomegranate The old woman allows her daughters to join the others. Mictlntcutli is the Aztec god of death, king of Mictlan. On the third year, the girl herself visits her family with her children, then returns to the water. [124][125], According to researcher Svetlana Ryzhakova, professor V. Kazakeviius stated that in the Polish region of Suwaki, a legend is told of a girl named Egle or Egla who married a snake being that lived in an underwater crystal palace.[126]. 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. They transfer to the nearby island, and from there to the underground underneath the sea, where a nicely decorated palace is located - Egl's new home for eternity. He marries the elder in church. . . . Three years pass, and the snake's human wife has given birth to a boy and a girl. "Lietuvi pasak tyrim imtmetis: nuo tradicins komparatyvistikos iki iuolaikini metod" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. The woman takes a scythe and goes to the river to summon the reptile husband to kill him. [100], Russian scholarship states that a tradition in Pskov holds that the daughter of the snake husband turns into a frog. Mictlan is the realm where Quetzalcoatl went and revived human civilizations. 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. [60], In Latvia the tale is known as alio nuotaka or Zalka lgava ("The Grass-Snake's Wife"). "Lietuvi pasak tyrim imtmetis: nuo tradicins komparatyvistikos iki iuolaikini metod" [Hundred years of the Lithuanian folktale research: from the traditional comparativism to the modern methods]. The moment she hands down her first garment into the water, the bridge on which she was sitting collapses. In this variant, The Water Snake or Ujak, an old woman's daughter went to bathe with other girls in the pond. He explains she disenchanted him and he will make her his wife as the "Queen of the Seas" ("du wirst fortan Knigin des Meeres sein"), in his palace in the middle of the sea. [122], Studies suggest that characters of the tale named several geographic features, such as toponyms and hydronyms of northwestern Russia, Pskov region. [3] Perseus was the son of Danae, daughter of Acrisius the King of Argos, and Zeus. In this tale, titled Wie die Trauerbirke entstanden ist ("How the weeping birch came to be"), a rich man finds a louse on his daughter's hair, fattens it, kills it and makes a pair of shoes out of its hide. [129] In his tale, titled The Snake, the serpent lies on the smock of a girl named Masha. Bellerophon provides a lesson in the proper relationship between a mortal hero and the gods. 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. The old woman convinces her daughter to spend a night on her old home, while she goes in the dead of night to the shore to summon the snake spouse and kill him. In: . She explains she lives underwater and to return she only has to call on her husband's name: Ahmet. [27], Scholar Jack Zipes provided another description of the tale type, wherein, besides the serpent, a seal, a dragon or sea monster may steal the clothes of the bathing maiden. According to historian Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the Greeks used the Medusa story to justify the destruction of idols and temples of an ancient goddess mother wherever they found them. Three years pass, and the girl has been living in a splendid underwater castle, but begins to long for home. As soon as the lacustrine king emerges, his brothers-in-law try to grab him, but his magic turns them into stones. 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. The girl, dismissing the snake's fanciful notion, agreed to anyway. That evening, a giant snake comes out of the sea and knocks at the girl's door. As the water engulfs her she is abducted by the water goblin. She often had a serpent's tale even when the rest of her form was that of a beautiful woman. A toad and a crab jump out of the water to tell the woman the girl is doing fine. Hera was jealous of her husband Zeus' mortal lovers and children, and even before Heracles was born she tried to destroy him. She tries to summon her husband, but, realizing something is wrong, she finds the snake's body. 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 day, two snakes come to her house to fetch her to their master. [16], According to Stith Thompson's reworked folktale classification, tale type AaTh 425M involves a magical formula or incantation to summon the serpent husband. After much insistence, the brothers learn of the secret command and go to the seashore. #1 Late Night. 67-75. Z zagadnie przysowioznawstwa, https://doi.org/10.17161/folklorica.v3i2.3670, HISTORY OF RECORDING OF FOLKTALE GRASS-SNAKE AS A HUSBAND (BATHING GIRLS GARMENT KEPT UNTIL PROMISE OF MARRIAGE) (425 M) AMONG RUSSIANS, The Complete Russian Folktale. Pasaka par zalkti baltu identitti veidojos ststs" [Spruce the Bride of the Grass Snake. [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 two elders leave, while the youngest, named Lilla, tries to find her dress and sees a snake on it. [55], The tale type is recognized as being "most at home in the Balto-Slavic regions". [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. In: , 1 (11): 11. Thereafter she turns her sons into strong trees - an oak, an ash and a birch. The youngest son reveals the secret command to his uncles. "Romeo Moses and Psyche Brunhild? The serpent is a symbol immortality, which according to ancient beliefs was demonstrated by the shedding of its skin. He takes her to his underwater castle and marries her. The Black Snake then appears and demands Zuhra as his bride. Leningrad: , 1979. p. 132. [85], A variant from Poland has been translated into English with the title Egle and Zaltis. Finally, they take the non-fake bride, Egl, to the bottom of the sea lagoon to their king. According to Greek myths, she was a very beautiful young woman who had many suitors. [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]"). There are several Aztec gods and goddesses of the underworld, but Mictlntcutli is the most prominent one. 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. [72], In an Estonian tale published by folklorist Oskar Loorits with the title Die Schlangenbraut ("The Snake's Bride"), a mother consults with a wise man the fate of her daughters: her two elders shall marry later, but the youngest shall soon meet her intended mate, a snake. [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. 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. 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. Sensing something wrong, she inquires her daughters about it: the youngest confesses. . 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. 142-144. SINKEVIIT, Daiva. The water goblin gets angry and thumps on the door, ordering the girl to go with him because his dinner has to be made. " ". [3] [4] [5] Camasb gets stuck in a cave after he tries to steal honey with a few friends, his friends leave him alone in the cave. [102][103], According to scholarship, only one Belarusian variant of the tale contains the daughter's transformation into a frog. When he . Cumba follows her sister to a location near the water, and sees Sira chanting a song to summon an enchanted serpent from the waters. After Sira leaves, Cumba returns home to tell her mother everything. Masha marries the snake and returns from the sea to her mother's house with her two children. One day, the girl is sent to wash some clothes at the beach when a wave crashes and carries them away. In a furious rage the goblin returns to the lake and through the shrieking storm screams that pierce the soul are heard. [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. Dragons also represent the dark reaches of where we have come from - the sources of humanity's allegorical river, for which the snake has often been used as a metaphor. The girl begins to cry and becomes a birch tree, her two elder daughters birch bark and the youngest a trembling leaf. 4, 2011, pp. Its liaison with a human woman, which produces children, violates the boundaries between the world of land and the world of water[33][34] and, by killing the snake, the natural order (that is, separation between land and water) can be restored. When opening the door the mother finds a tiny head without a body and a tiny body without a head lying in their blood on the doorstep of her hut. [119][d] Indian scholarship states that the tale exists in the oral repertoire of the region, with multiple renditions appearing in both Persian and Kashmiri in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hera was worshipped* in all parts of Greece and temples were built for her at Argos and Salmos. 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. and takes it out on Alcmene instead of on Zeus - Hera sends two snakes to the cradles: baby heracles strangles both snakes - Heracles is brought up with the best and then learned . While Iphicles screamed in fear, Heracles grabbed one snake in . All of Medusa's siblings were monsters by birth and, even though she was not, she had the misfortune of being turned . The angels deliver God's message to her: She can return to Adam, no harm no foul, or God will kill 100 of her children every day. One day, he meets a despondent fisherman on the shore, who laments to the sea prince that he has not caught any fishes. She leaves for the lake to do her laundry. 1998. According to some. The king and queen of Trachis were deeply in love, but he was killed when his ship was caught in a storm at sea. [2], The tale was also collected by Polish writer Jzef Ignacy Kraszewski and published in his historical work Litwa. The girl agrees to come with him to the lake. In: Litwa: staroytne dzieje, ustawy, jzyk, wiara, obyczaje, pieni, przysowia, podania itd, Mitteilungen Der Litauischen Literarischen Gesellschaft, https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/k-rekonstruktsii-praslavyanskoy-mifologii, Egl ali karalien: slibino ir mergels motyvo kilm, "Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales", The Complete Russian Folktale: Russian Wondertales, Ukeikimai, magikos formuls ir vard problema balt "ali karaliens" variantuose, https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1515/9783112611289-086, Powiat sokalski pod wzgldem geograficznym, etnograficznym, historycznym i ekonomicznym, Szkice folklorystyczne: Wok legendy i zagadki. 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