- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- night horse watch, campfire, hatchet, mischievous little people
The story
The narrator recalled his youth, around 1825. Men watching horses at night would chop firewood with a small axe, light a fire and lie down beside it.
On many evenings little people came to them. They ran around the men and the flames, seized the hatchet and tossed it into the fire. Then they called out mischievously that the plemputė was burning.
The horse guards were used to the sight and paid little attention. Whenever one of them got up to retrieve the axe, the little figures moved away from the fire and out of his path, or disappeared altogether.
Reading the story
The anthology places this story in its aitvarai and kaukai section. This retelling keeps the narrator’s description of small supernatural people, without adding a plot about carrying wealth or protecting a household.
The 1967 notes cite an earlier source: J. Basanavičius, Lietuviškos pasakos II, p. 136. The remembered date is not a date of recording.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 533, p. 541: „Maži žmogyčiai prie ugnies“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.