Stone legend
Dzūkija cycle of local legends
devil, dropped stone, underground city, treasure, Raigardas
Švendubrė Stone, Devil's Stone, Raigardas Devil's Stone
The Legend of Švendubrė Devil's Stone
It is told that the devil was carrying a huge stone across the Nemunas. In some versions he wanted to dam the river; in others, to finish building Liškiava Castle or to smash the church of Raigardas. But when the roosters crowed, the stone fell and remained by Švendubrė.
Another legend says there is a cave beneath the stone. Once, on St. John's night, two brave men dug under it in search of treasure. After breaking through into a cave, they entered a wide field and realized they had reached the sunken city of Raigardas.
Švendubrė Stone is therefore not only an object dropped by the devil. It is a gate that closes the way to the memory of a city left beneath the earth.
Interpretation of the Švendubrė Devil's Stone Legend
This legend joins two very powerful motifs: the devil carrying a stone and the sunken city. The stone becomes not only the remnant of failed work but also a barrier between worlds.
The rooster's crow again interrupts the devil's action. This is the same principle of dawn found in the Puntukas legend, but at Švendubrė the stone is tied to the underground Raigardas.
The search for treasure on St. John's night shows that liminal time allows a hidden world to be seen. Yet the treasure is dangerous here: it leads not simply to wealth, but to a sunken city.
History of the Švendubrė Devil's Stone Legend
A local-memory page gives several legends of Švendubrė Stone, including the cave, treasure seekers, and entry into the city of Raigardas. Pamatyk Lietuvoje mentions the historical reverence for the stone and attempts to split it.
Atrask Dzūkiją gives the motif of the stone dropped by the devil. These variants show that Švendubrė Stone is not the object of one plot only, but part of the whole network of Raigardas legends.
This page should therefore connect naturally with the legend of Raigardas Valley without repeating it: here the stone is the center, as gate and barrier.
Švendubrė, or Devil's, Stone is a protected natural monument in the Raigardas Valley area. The motif of a devil-borne stone dropped when the rooster crows intertwines here with the legend of the underground city of Raigardas. Lithuanian place legends are collected in Žemės atmintis: Lietuvių liaudies padavimai (1999) and classified in Bronislava Kerbelytė's catalogue, vol. 3 (2002).