- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- wind’s secret, promise of silence, control of rain, broken promise, whirlwind
The story
On her way to rake hay, a girl came upon the wind beside some bushes. He was warming himself in the sun without any trousers. Alarmed that the news might spread, he asked her to tell no one.
In return for her silence, he promised to make her prosperous. She asked how. Once she married, he explained, he would blow rain towards her fields whenever it was needed, and blow it away whenever it was not.
The girl married, and everything went well while she kept the encounter secret.
One day, lying beside her husband in the granary, she began telling him how she had once found the wind and what he had promised.
At that very moment a whirlwind rose. It tore off the roof and demolished the granary. The agreement that had protected her prosperity was over.
Reading the story
The reward is rain suited to the crops, rather than a bag of money. In this version, telling even the person closest to her breaks the agreement.
The 1967 notes cite J. Basanavičius, Lietuviškos pasakos I, p. 137. That entry does not give a more precise recording locality.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 609, p. 584: „Vėjas be kelnių“; PDF p. 583. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.