The Caught Aitvaras: Lithuanian sakme

The sakme

Young men pasturing horses at night would see strange lights in the sky: sometimes like stars stretching away, sometimes like a fiery firebrand cutting through the dark. They called such a phenomenon Aitvaras.

One night Aitvaras flew low, black, with only its edges shining. The men decided to catch it. One stuck a knife into the earth through the space between his toes, as he had heard should be done.

Aitvaras came down onto the tops of the alders, and the trees themselves swayed. The moment was so frightening that the men understood foreign fire was better left unclaimed. They released the Aitvaras and did not try to control it again.

Interpretation: what does the caught Aitvaras mean?

Here Aitvaras appears as a fiery, sky-moving being of wealth and dangerous power. It tempts because it can be caught, but frightens because it is not a human object.

The knife in the earth works as a magical brake: a sharp iron tool tries to bind moving fire to the ground.

The most important moment is not catching but releasing. The sakme says that some power is better left untaken because it belongs to another order.

History, variants, and recording

In Lithuanian sakmes Aitvarai are often seen at night as fiery balls, firebrands, birds, or roosters. They are connected with carried wealth, grain, money, or dairy products.

This story is close to a memorate: it is told like a vision experienced during night horse pasturing or heard from elders. For that reason it has much concrete movement and little fairy-tale ornament.

Such a story told as real experience is the essence of a mythological sakme (the Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija defines the sakme as a genre that emphasizes realism). Aitvaras as a nocturnal fiery wealth-bringer is one of the most frequent figures in Lithuanian sakmes; Norbertas Vėlius studied it (Mitinės lietuvių sakmių būtybės, 1977), and variants are classified in Bronislava Kerbelytė’s catalogue (vol. 3, 2002).

Aitvaras and night horse pasturing

Night horse pasturing was a setting where young people spent long hours outdoors in darkness, near horses and fires. Such an environment was especially suited to sakmes about fiery signs in the sky.

Here Aitvaras becomes a figure both of fear and of youthful testing of old people’s knowledge.