- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- wedding money, forest benefactor, guest list, feared musician
The story
A poor young man wanted to marry but had nothing with which to start a household. In the forest he complained aloud. A stranger approached and promised all the money he needed, provided he was invited to the wedding.
The young man agreed and received the help. The gentleman told him to return to that spot and call: “Baubut, Baubut, come to the wedding!”
Back home the young man grew afraid. What if his benefactor was an evil being? He consulted a priest, who suggested trying to frighten the guest with saints.
Called in the forest, Baubutas readily accepted the invitation. Who would be the groomsmen? Guardian angels, the bridegroom replied. Excellent men, the guest said; he knew them well. And the bridesmaids? Holy spirits. He praised them too. The young man began to despair of keeping him away.
Then Baubutas asked who would play the music. Perkūnas, said the bridegroom. The guest immediately declined. Five years earlier Perkūnas had struck his side so hard that it still hurt. He wanted no further meeting with him.
Reading the story
The Christian wedding guests do not frighten the devil here. Perkūnas’s name and the remembered pain of his blow do. The repeated questions prepare the final, decisive answer.
Told by eighty-year-old Anelė Kavaliauskaitė-Jutkelienė in Nemunaitis; recorded and transcribed from tape by S. Skrodenis in 1962, LTR 3517(1734).
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 507, p. 527–528: „Baubut, prašom į vestuvę“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.