- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- All Saints’ night, floor sprinkled with sand, tiny footprints, dead children
The story
The legend says that dead children return to visit their parents on All Saints’ night. Before the feast, a mistress had her house swept clean and the floor sprinkled with sand.
In the morning she found little footprints everywhere. At first she could not understand where they had come from: there was not a single small child living in the house.
Then she remembered the feast and recognised a sign of visitors. Within the story’s belief, her dead children had come home during the night.
Reading the story
The children neither appear directly nor speak. Their return is inferred from marks in the sand. The source specifies All Saints’ night, rather than an unspecified autumn night.
Told by Marcijona Grikšienė in Rūteliai, Kaltinėnai district; recorded by A. Brazdeikis in 1937. LTR 1167(655).
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 442, p. 484: „Vaikų pėdelės“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.