<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (October 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Eglė the Queen of Serpents, alternatively Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes (Lithuanian: Eglė žalčių karalienė), is a Lithuanian folk tale . </P> <P> 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 . The tale features not only human--reptile shapeshifting, but an irreversible human--tree shapeshifting as well . </P> <P> Eglė is both a popular female name in Lithuania and also a noun meaning spruce (Picea). The serpents (žaltys) of the tale are grass snakes in Lithuanian, but because they inhabit the sea, the word may mean a mythical water snake . </P>

Eglė the queen of grass-snakes. a lithuanian fairy tale