- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- night horse watch, found tether, whirlwind, tree, unrecognised object
The story
At dusk a boy was on his way to watch horses grazing through the night. On the road he found a tether, the kind used to hobble a horse’s legs. He picked it up and fastened it around his middle.
As soon as he had done so, a whirlwind seized him. It lifted him off the ground and carried him along, spinning him around.
Luckily, as he was swept past a tree, he caught against it. The tether came undone, and the boy fell to the ground without injury.
When he recovered, he looked for the cord, but it had disappeared. People said it had been the wind’s tether. In the dusk he had failed to recognise it: such a bond was neither linen nor hemp, neither braided nor twisted like an ordinary rope.
Reading the story
An everyday object associated with night horse-watching becomes an unrecognised supernatural find. The tree frees the tether; the boy neither casts a spell nor overpowers the wind.
Recorded by J. Bruožis in the Klaipėda region; LMD I 525(10). The 1967 note supplies no recording year or narrator.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 608, p. 583: „Vėjo ryšys“; PDF p. 582. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.