Eglė (vaidilutė → Pelkių Eglė)¶

Summary¶

Eglė, the last vaidilutė of the eternal flame in the Šventaragis valley, spends her last night as a mortal priestess in the prologue. After a captain of Jogaila’s insults her she leaves Vilnius on foot and, days later, walks into the Dykra and is taken by the Root-Mother, becoming Pelkių Eglė, „Eglė of the Swamps“: the swamp’s voice, the keeper of the bridge between humans and the old gods. She appears at turning points as a girl with moss-tangled hair and a yellow-cheeked žaltys (grass-snake) round her neck, and she fades as the groves fall.

Eglė (vaidilutė → Pelkių Eglė)


Tipas	veikėjas
Metai	c. 1355–1420
Status	Sagos išmonė
Pastaba	Vaidilutė at Šventaragis grove who witnesses the putting out of the sacred flame in 1387; becomes Pelkių Eglė.

Appearance & tells¶

A girl with dark, moss-tangled hair, green eyes and a gold- or yellow-cheeked žaltys coiled around her neck (Book I ch. 16; Book II ch. 3, 19). The snake is the last of the Šventaragis line; when it dies in Book IV ch. 7, Eglė can no longer hold a shape by day. In Book III she is „fainter than she was“ (ch. 16, 23), standing in Galminas’s new grove and unable to hold her form long; her last appearance is Book IV ch. 27, where the forest presses to the lake and she sees Vytautas’s past go by in the halls.

Want · Need · Lie · Truth¶


Want (external)	To keep the bridge between the people and the gods open, and to save the sacred snake, flame and groves from the axe.
Need (internal)	To let the gods become stories instead of keeping them as an army.
Lie they believe	That the Root-Mother’s gifts can hold a forest against axes for ever.
Truth they learn (or refuse)	The Green Wood is dying; her price, ‚never sell the forest‘, falls due at Salynas (Book II ch. 19), and she fades with the groves (Book IV ch. 7, 27).

Arc by book¶

Prologue / Book I: the prophecy night, her last as a mortal (prologue); she is Birutė tells Vytautas to seek her at the Šventaragis flame if he is ever lost among roots and moss (ch. 3); meets Vytautas in the Dykra during his escape (ch. 16), where he misnames her „Gintaro Šventikė“ and her silence corrects him: „Ne gintaro. Šaknų.“; takes his buckle on the offering stone and refuses the silver wolf; the ashes of ch. 23.
Book II: watches the bishop’s men hunt the last sacred snake (ch. 3); reads the blood-foam on the Neman for Vytautas’s hostage sons (ch. 9); appears to the Samogitian elder Gedgaudas at Salynas to say that the buckle was a pledge: her price comes due (ch. 19). The Book II outline also lists a last word from her in ch. 22; the text of ch. 22 does not mention her.
Book III: she and the žalčiai guide the scouts through „impassable“ woods before Grunwald (ch. 16), stands in Galminas’s grove (ch. 23) and receives the Root-Mother’s thanks (ch. 29).
Book IV: the Medininkai bishopric falls on the last great grove, and the snake dies (ch. 7); a faint Eglė shows Pilkoji’s pack the bog road home (ch. 16); her last appearance on Trakai island (ch. 27).
Books V-VI: a memory at the frame of Book V (ch. 1, 29); in Book VI (ch. 26) a girl vaidilutė called Eglė keeps the Šventaragis flame when Vytautas and the boy Jogaila feed it.

Power & magic¶

Tier 3 before the prologue (vaidilutė, born to Fire; practises Senovės Kalba and herb-lore). After she walks into the Dykra she is taken: power granted by the Root-Mother, outside the tier ladder, the swamp speaking through her. She is not an amber priestess. Costs: her mortal shape, then her daytime shape, and the price of the Dykra rescue, „never sell the forest“. She appears to Jadvyga in a dream to warn her of the White Silence.

Record vs saga¶

[Historical record]: There is no historical Eglė. The name comes from the Lithuanian folk tale Eglė žalčių karalienė (Eglė, Queen of the Grass-snakes), in which a woman marries the snake-king Žilvinas and, after her brothers kill him, turns herself and her children into trees; eglė is the spruce. The Šventaragis valley was the traditional site of the sacred flame at Vilnius. The sacred fire of Vilnius is attested only by later chronicle tradition.
[The saga’s invention]: All of her as a character: the last Šventaragis vaidilutė, her insult by Jogaila’s captain, the Dykra walk, the Root-Mother’s taking, the snake, her price and her fading.

Tarimas¶

eg-LĖ (/ɛɡˈlʲeː/), English respelling eg-LAY; stress on the second syllable. Paradigm 4: accusative Ẽglę, dative Ẽglei, vocative Ẽgle stress the first syllable; the other forms stress the ending. Pelkių Eglė: PEL-kių eg-LĖ, PEL-kyoo eg-LAY.

Appearances¶

Prologue (the prophecy night). Book I: ch. 3, 16 (the Dykra rescue), 17, 23 (the ashes), 31, 32. Book II: ch. 3, 9 (Blood-Foam), 19 (Salynas) and the afterword. Book III: ch. 16 (Forest Whispers), 23 (Galminas’s Grove), 29 (the Root-Mother’s Thanks). Book IV: ch. 6, 7, 16, 27 (her last appearance) and the afterword. Book V: ch. 1, 29 and the afterword. Book VI: ch. 26, 29.

Ryšiai

Member of: Pagan clergy (Krivis, žyniai, vaidilutės) (…–1382)

Practises: Senovės Kalba — tier 3 · Žolės (herb-lore) — tier 3

Servant of: Šaknų Motina (Root-Mother) (1382–…)

Took part in: Eglė leads Vytautas through the Dykra

Chronologija¶

Year	Event	Book
1382	Eglė leads Vytautas through the Dykra	I · Vilko Tremtis

Sąsajos¶

graph LR
  egle["Eglė (vaidilutė → Pelkių Eglė)"]
  ev_dykra_rescue["Eglė leads Vytautas through the Dykra"]
  kalba["Senovės Kalba"]
  pagan_clergy["Pagan clergy (Krivis, žyniai, vaidilutės)"]
  root_mother["Šaknų Motina (Root-Mother)"]
  zoles["Žolės (herb-lore)"]
  egle -->|Member of| pagan_clergy
  egle -->|Servant of| root_mother
  egle -->|Practises| kalba
  egle -->|Practises| zoles
  egle -->|Took part in| ev_dykra_rescue
  style egle stroke-width:3px