- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- invisible burden, tailor, lost spirits, thanks for help
The story
A tailor worked in Puponys. Towards autumn he was walking late from Kupiškis when he came near Blyzgė. Suddenly there was a rushing sound, and it felt as though someone had clasped his shoulders.
He felt around but could grasp nothing. As he went on, the burden pressed down like two poods of weight. Still, he continued walking.
After about half a verst his shoulders suddenly grew light, as if something had fallen away. He turned and saw nobody, but heard a voice thanking him for carrying the unseen beings through fire.
The tale explains that lost spirits had been there. They attached themselves to a person and, with his help, crossed what remained invisible to him.
Reading the story
The unseen world is felt as bodily weight and heard as a voice. No visible flames are described, and the tailor never knowingly agrees to carry the spirits. The old measures of weight and distance retain the narrator’s approximate comparisons.
Told by Elzė Tuvienė in Puponys, Kupiškis district; recorded by A. Kriauza in 1941. LTR 2431(56).
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 446, p. 485: „Pasiklydusios dvasios“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.