KREGŽDUTIES IR VANAGAS
“Senovėje gyveno labai žiaurus karalius, ...............”
Long ago, there
lived a very cruel king, who wanted to be the most powerful, and the most
wealthy of all, and he preyed upon foreigners as well as his own people. The people barely had time to bring in their
crops, before the king‘s soldiers arrived and confis
Thus this king
mistreated his people for many years; many died of hunger and sickness.
Eventually, one
year, a drought descended on the land, and the people were barely able to
realize one small measure of grain upon threshing.
But the king
ordered his soldiers to collect all the grain that had been threshed, thus
leaving not even the smallest bit for the people.
The people began
to call on God for help.
Women, leading
their children, approached the castle gates and with tears, begged the king to
have mercy, not to take their bread, not to condemn their children to
starvation. The king felt pestered by the women‘s cries and lamentations, but
his heart was not softened.
Then, the kings
of other lands, discovering that their cruel neighbor was subjecting his own
people to hunger, taking away from them their last speck of grain, forbade
their merchants from buying the grain or exchanging it for gold.
The king, angry
now as a wolf, decided to rid himself of the hungry women and children. He
decreed that during the winter he would undertake to feed all the starving
people in his castle. All were invited and women with their children began to
arrive from every direction. The guards opened wide the gates, and the palace
courtyard filled with people. The courtyard contained several tower halls built
of timber, where tables had been set up, laden with bread and meat. People‘s
tired eyes brightened at the sight of all the food, and all quickly sat at the
tables, happy that they would, at least this once, be able to eat their fill.
While everyone
ate, suspecting nothing amiss, the soldiers closed and locked the towers‘
doors. And then they set fire to all sides of the towers.
Seeing the flames
and feeling the heat, the women and children began screaming, but the king,
observing events from his palace tower, just laughed: “You have eaten my good food, now get warm!“
But the Lord,
Dievas, heard the people‘s cries, and their calls for Heaven‘s vengeance. A
strike of thunder from Perkūnas, and the castle sank into the depths of
the earth, and in that place a large lake appeared.
But no one perished
in the flames - not the women, nor the children, nor the cruel king. The Lord
changed them to beautiful birds -- swallows -- and the merciless king, into a
predatory hawk.
That‘s why
swallows, even to this day, hate hawks. Though they are small and powerless, as
soon as they spy a hawk, they fall upon him in a group, screeching, chasing
him, until, tired and unable to do anything else, the hawk hides himself from
them. So the cruel king still has no
peace, always hearing complaints and ill wishes.
Source:
From “Lietuviu Sakmes” -
“Lithuanian Tales”
Compiled by Pranas Sasnauskas
and published
by “Vaiga” in
© English Translation -
Gloria O’Brien April 2009
This article was printed in Bridges May 2009