- Genre
- Etiological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- forbidden opening, sack, curiosity, black plumage, catching frogs
The story
When the world was young, people complained to God that snakes and other biting creatures injured them and sometimes killed them. God gathered snakes, grass snakes, frogs and other such creatures into a sack.
He was busy tending an oven, so he entrusted the load to a stork. The bird was to carry it to the sea and throw the whole sack into the water. Above all, it must not untie it.
The stork shouldered the sack and set off. When it sat down to rest, curiosity overcame it. As soon as it loosened the tie, a snake slipped out. The stork chased it, while every other creature escaped into the marsh.
Returning to the sack, the stork found it empty. It went back sadly and told God what had happened. Still tending the oven, God seized a charred piece of wood and struck the bird on its back for disobeying him.
The blow left a black mark. The stork hated the patch and remembered which creatures had brought it this trouble. That, the story says, is why it still catches and swallows frogs and snakes.
Reading the story
One act of curiosity explains both a patch of dark plumage and the bird’s prey. In this version the stork is already a bird when it receives the sack; it does not begin as a human.
The 1967 notes identify a record made by K. Būga, LMD I 139(7). The entry gives no separate date or narrator.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 364, p. 438–439: „Gandras, varlės ir gyvatės“; PDF p. 437–438. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.