- Genre
- Etiological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- piece of earth, creation of a bird, lonely ploughman, song
The story
Long ago God was walking through the fields when he saw a man ploughing entirely on his own. He realised that the work was lonely and decided to make the ploughman a companion.
He took a small piece of earth and shaped it into a bird: the skylark. When it was finished, he tossed it upwards, and it flew away chirping and singing.
That, the story says, is why the skylark is grey like the earth from which it was made. Ever since, its song has cheered the ploughman at work.
Reading the story
One act explains both the bird’s colour and its company in the fields. The companionship is carried by a voice; the bird does not take over the man’s labour.
Told by Juozas Indriūnas, aged 85, in Duokiškis; recorded by B. Zaleskis in 1928. LTR 10b(117).
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 372, p. 442: „Vieversys — artojo draugas“; PDF p. 441. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.