Mythological sakme
folkloric
Laumės as washers, Thursday evening, lake footbridge, backward-twisted whip, three washing paddles
The sakme
A hardworking housewife, saving daylight hours, took the baby’s swaddling cloths to wash on a lake footbridge in the evening. It happened to be a Thursday evening.
From the next Thursday onward, after sunset, Laumės began washing by the bridge. The sound was so strong and eerie that the people in the house became uneasy.
An old man advised them to twist a fiber whip backward and go to the bridge when the washing was heard again. The housewife’s brave brother Jakamas did so: although he saw nothing, he struck across the bridge and found three Laumės’ washing paddles.
For several Thursdays the Laumės begged him to return their paddles. They said they would no longer wash there. Jakamas took pity and carried the objects back. From then on the bridge was silent.
Interpretation: what do the Laumės’ washing paddles mean?
The sakme speaks about boundaries of time and place. Thursday evening, the lake footbridge, and a child’s laundry create a space where human work intersects with Laumės’ activity.
The backward-twisted whip shows magical reversal. To affect invisible beings, one must act not in the ordinary way but in reversed order.
The washing paddles are the Laumės’ work tools. Once they are taken, the Laumės cannot repeat the washing that frightens the household. Yet their request to have the tools returned reminds us that even a dangerous being has a claim to its own implements.
History, variants, and recording
In Lithuanian sakmes Laumės often wash, weave, spin, or punish badly performed women’s work. A waterside is one of their most typical places of appearance.
Thursday is often marked in sakmes as a special time, when certain work may no longer belong to humans but to mythical beings.
This is a mythological sakme told as a real event. Laumės washing by water and punishing humans for improper work are among the most frequent Lithuanian legend figures; Norbertas Vėlius studied them (Mitinės lietuvių sakmių būtybės, 1977; Chtoniškasis lietuvių mitologijos pasaulis, 1987), and such legend types are classified in Bronislava Kerbelytė’s catalogue (Lietuvių pasakojamosios tautosakos katalogas, vol. 3, 2002).
Work, fear, and agreement
The sakme ends not with the destruction of the Laumės but with an agreement: the human returns the objects, and the Laumės do not come back to wash.
It is therefore not only about victory over a supernatural force. It is a story about setting boundaries between the human world and another world.
