- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- stolen stone, house foundation, pursuit, high hiding place
The story
Perkūnas had a large pile of stones. The devil was building a cottage and needed one more stone for its foundation. Instead of asking, it stole one from Perkūnas and set it in the wall below the house.
When Perkūnas discovered the theft, he grew angry. Ever since, he strikes at the devil wherever he sees it: sitting on a stone, hiding in a tree or swimming through water.
The devil tries to climb high so it can spot its pursuer from a distance. The story also uses this to explain a fear of standing beneath a tall tree during a storm: Perkūnas’s enemy may be hiding there.
Reading the story
The quarrel begins with an ordinary building problem: one missing stone. This account gives the pursuit a specific cause. Its ending presents the belief about hiding places expressed in this particular legend.
Told by twenty-year-old Kazė Pankevičiūtė in Pagrunda; recorded by A. Mažiulis in 1935, LTR 1032(143).
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 503, p. 525: „Perkūno ir velnio pyktis“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.