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Lithuanian mythological tales

The Squirrel’s Tail

Editorial retelling and context

Other animals laugh at the squirrel’s tiny tail. When it asks for help, it receives a tail unlike any they have seen.

A general illustration for the folklore library, not a documentary depiction of this story’s setting or characters.
Original AI-generated collection illustration; not a historical document or an image of this particular story.
Genre
Etiological legend
Source status
folkloric
Motifs
tiny tail, mockery, heard complaint, gift

The story

God made the squirrel small and gave it a very little tail. Animals with large, handsome tails began to laugh at it: that tiny thing would not even keep the flies away.

The squirrel went to God and complained. The others kept mocking it because its tail was so small.

God gave it a new tail, unlike any animal had possessed before. By the end of the story, the squirrel’s tail is the finest and most beautiful of them all.

Reading the story

A small feature makes the squirrel a target for mockery; the gift reverses the comparison. The squirrel does not have to win an argument or outwit its tormentors.

The 1967 notes cite Mūsų tautosaka IX (1935), no. 336; no separate narrator is named in that entry.

Source and retelling

Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 355, p. 435: „Voveries uodega“; PDF p. 434. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.

The Squirrel’s Tail sources