Į šiaurės vakarus nuo Eišiškių, prie
Bartautų kaimo, yra nedidelis gražius miškelis, o prie jo iš rytų
pusės kalnelis, žmonių vadinamas Baltos raganos kalneliu......
Southwest of Eišiškiai, near the
Long, long years ago, a
large house stood on the hill, with a lean-to smithy. The buildings and the woods belonged to
Juozas Balčius, a resident of
Bartautai, whose grandfather had given up farming, allowed his fields to turn
to forest, and moving a little further from the village, built a house and
smithy on the hilltop. As a young man,
he had learned the trade from the master smith Vrackas, who had relo
Balčius’ house and smithy were notable because there
were two chimneys, and the roof was covered by shingles, unusual at that time,
when most people’s roofs were thatched.
The smith’s trade survived in the Balčius family for a long time and descended from
father to son for many generations. The
last smith of the Balčius family
of Bartautai village was Petras Balčius,
and with him the dynasty ended in 1863.
The legend of the White
Witch had its origin in 1830, when a poor but popular fellow named Darūnas often visited the village. Though he had nothing and lived on charity,
everyone liked him, because he could read and write, told tales about what he
had seen and experienced in his travels from one village to another, and
brought news from the wider world. He
found an especially attentive audience in the youth of the village, telling
them about
He functioned as a
messenger between villages, and through him, people often would communi
Petras Balčius, the smith, was unmarried and lived alone in
his spacious home. His parents had been
dead for some years, and his elder sister, his only sibling, had married a wealthy
farmer, living near Aukštadvaris, far
from Bartautai. Petras kept no animals,
except for a few chickens that ran loose around his yard and to which he paid
no mind. From earliest morning he would
be working at his trade, and the clang of his hammer on the anvil was often the
first sound heard as the village woke from its nightly slumber.
He managed at home alone,
but a few women from the village would often help him with housekeeping
chores. This was mostly because of the
well on his property, whose water was so delicious that the ladies couldn’t
resist the temptation to draw some for a fine meal. There was even a saying in the village, “A
meal so tasty, as if cooked with water from Balčius’ well.”
The well was in the middle
of his yard, on a little mound, deep enough, and even during times of drought,
its water did not diminish, but maintained the same level.
Though he wasn’t
particularly close to any of his neighbors, Petras maintained friendly
relations with all of them. Farmers who
brought their work to the smithy often lingered for a while, discussing
business or exchanging bits of village news.
Petras was a talented smith, and did a good job in a timely manner at a
very reasonable cost, and the farmers usually repaid him in barter, with their
own products. And apparently, Petras was
the only person in the village able to read and write, having been taught by
Darūnas, who sometimes left him one or two books.
In the spring of 1831,
Lithuanians rose in rebellion against the Russian oppressors. One day, a couple of villagers came to the
smithy with a few farm tools that required attention, and were surprised to
find the house and lean-to closed, large padlocks hanging from both doors. No one had any idea where Petras Balčius had gone, nor when he might return. At the same time, many of the village youth
began to disappear. The villagers had no
way of knowing what was going on in the rest of
Much later, in the autumn
of the same year, more rumors spread, this time that the Russians had beaten
the Lithuanians, consolidated their position, and again taken over the
country. Darūnas returned, weary, older-looking, and depressed,
reluctantly describing the rebellion and its defeats. A few of the missing village youth came home,
saying that the rest had retreated to
One morning much later
during that same autumn, the seniūnas (village
elder),
Račius, stepped out of his house and, glancing toward Balčius’s home, saw a narrow stream of smoke rising from the chimney. – Good, he thought, Balčius had returned, and we won’t have to travel to
another town’s smithy anymore.
After the unsuccessful
rebellion of 1831, the Russians greatly strengthened their security
measures. They sent in many more
soldiers and police, visited the villages more often, and strictly instructed
all village elders and headmen that it was their duty to inform the authorities
immediately, should a stranger appear
amongst them. There would be grave consequences
if this directive were ignored. But Balčius was no stranger, having been born in that same
village, and so seniūnas Račius felt no need to tell anyone about his
arrival. Račius reasoned, the gendarmes could start asking
questions, like where he had been until now, and they could even arrest him,
and then the village would again be without a smith.
During the following days,
many people noticed the smoke from Balčius’s
chimney, but no sound at all was heard from the smithy. About a week later, some of the village
children told the others that they had sneaked around to Balčius’s house and
peered through a window, when they heard a stern voice:
“What do you want here?”
Startled, they looked back and saw a woman cloaked in black, her head
covered by a hood of the same color.
Deeply hidden inside the hood they could see a somewhat young-looking
face, and a few strands of long, wavy hair that seemed as white as snow. The children took fright and ran back towards
the village, while a large raven, black as pitch, shot out of an old linden
tree, crowing loudly, beat his heavy wings and escorted them from the
property. Soon, word had traveled
through the entire village, that Balčius’s
property had been taken over by a white-haired witch with a young person’s
face. The villagers began to refer to
her as the “White Witch”.
After a couple of weeks
had passed, the seniūnas began to worry about
the witch’s continuing occupation of Balčius’s
property. She didn’t cause any trouble,
didn’t bother anyone, but he remembered the gendarme’s warning that there would
be serious consequences if the authorities were not informed about strangers in
the area. The Russians didn’t need a
serious crime to excite their interest, and it sometimes happened that
completely innocent persons were arrested and imprisoned, to be released only
after much effort and repeated petition.
Wanting to be safe, the seniūnas decided
to walk over to the property himself, and find out just exactly who had taken
up residence there.
That time of year, autumn,
there were no big jobs to be done, the fields had been seeded, the potatoes
harvested, and so, after the
He had often visited the
smith, and was familiar with the house, but now it looked very different. Darkness prevailed, all windows having been
covered with some dark heavy material.
He immediately noted an unaccustomed neatness: the table and benches had
been washed and polished, the floors had been swept, and everything tidily
arranged. But no one was there. Perhaps in the small ante-room? He was about to call out, when he saw two
shining eyes watching him from a corner of the hearth. In the darkness he could see nothing more
than those brightly shining eyes, which followed his every move, and as he took
one step backward, a large black
His courage gone, he
rushed out the door, through the yard and out the gate. The raven rose from the linden and, beating
his wide wings, made as if to land on Račius’s
head! This was entirely too much! Swinging his stick in defense, he ran toward
the village as fast as his legs could carry him. The bird flew several rings around him as he
ran, then finally returned to his perch in the tree. Račius, his
fear receding, stopped running and returned to the village at a more dignified
pace. This episode convinced him that a
witch had truly made herself at home on the smith’s sodyba (homestead).
What to do? A witch is not a person, but all the same,
this was a stranger, an outsider, so wasn’t it his duty to inform the
authorities about her presence? After
discussing the situation with one of his neighbors, he decided to go to the
police station in Eišiškes the very next day.
The police superintendent,
a Russian, didn’t understand Lithuanian, and the seniūnas Račius didn’t speak Russian, so they conversed through an
interpreter, a Jewish man who spoke a little of each language.
“A
white witch has taken up residence in our village smithy”, said the seniūnas in one quick uneasy breath.
The
interpreter repeated this information in Russian.
“I
have enough work to worry about with you rebellious people, and I am not
concerned about your so-called witches!
If there is one living in your smithy,
then
let be, that must be the place for her”,
answered the superintendent.
The
interpreter repeated the superintendent’s answer in Lithuanian.
“So, let be …..
well, may I leave, then?”
“Get going, take yourself off! …… and don’t trouble me with your
superstitious nonsense!”
The seniūnas went home with a clear conscience, knowing that
he had done his duty and need fear no consequences. His neighbor, hearing about this later on
that day, shook his head in disagreement.
“The Russians go hand-in-hand with the evil one”,
he said, “but for us, good people, there could be problems. What if this witch conjures up some kind of
illness for the people, or our animals?
Then it will be too late.
Something must be done now. The
pastor must be informed, and he will resolve the situation.”
“Well,
then, why don’t you go ahead and tell him?
I myself would rather not visit the rectory” answered the seniūnas.
“Oh, you don’t have to go to
the rectory if you’d rather not. Just
tell the pastor, the next time you go to confession, that a witch has moved
into the smithy, and he’ll know what to do.”
The seniūnas thought this
over, and decided that next Sunday he would walk over to the church and go to
confession.
At that time, the pastor
of the Eišiškes church was a Pole, who did
not know the Lithuanian language, but understood several individual words, and
had learned a few sentences which he found useful in meting out penances. The few words he understood helped him to
know what sort of transgressions the penitents were talking about, and he
answered them in his own way. He wasn’t
much bothered that the people didn’t understand him. He was very energetic, however, in battling
superstition and sorcery, still left over in the villages from the old days,
severely scolding and punishing those who believed in it.
Having found the old
pastor hearing confessions in the church on Sunday morning, Račius waited his turn, then knelt at the grated window
and whispered,
“A white witch is living in our village
smithy.”
Having said this, he
waited for the pastor’s reaction.
“That’s all?” asked the pastor, having understood only two
words, “smithy” and “witch”.
“No, answered the seniūnas, “also a black
“That’s all?” asked the priest, having reached the
conclusion that the villager was a believer in witches and black
“Yes, that’s all” said Račius,
greatly relieved.
“For your penance you will say five
prayers, and give five kopeks toward the repair of the church’s roof”, said the
pastor.
The seniūnas left the confessional very disappointed and
irritated. It would be easy enough for him to say five prayers, but
five kopeks weren’t so easy to come by, and would leave a big hole in his
budget. He would have to sell a
chicken. All the way home, he considered
why the pastor had given him this penance, and came to the conclusion that he
must have been offended by his mentioning a witch. This made him angry with his neighbor, who
had sent him to the priest in the first place.
This neighbor visited him
that evening, and they walked outside, to discuss the situation without
witnesses.
“Did you tell the pastor about the witch?”
“I suppose I didn’t tell him in the right
way, and he didn’t say anything about the witch”, complained the seniūnas.
“So what kind of seniūnas are you, then, if you don’t know how to inform the
priest about what has happened here? If
you can’t do the job yourself, you should ask someone else to do it, someone
who knows how. If I had gone, I would
have told the pastor everything he needed to know, and the next day, the pastor
would have come and driven out the witch and her familiars”.
“Well, then, why don’t you go and do
that?”
“Alright, I will, and you’ll see, the next
day, the pastor will come”.
The following day, the
neighbor took himself to the church. But it wasn’t as easy as he had imagined,
to impart his news. In his own village,
amongst his own people, he was bold and able to say whatever he wanted, but
now, finding himself amid the church’s tall columns he began to hesitate. He thought, he would with pleasure turn
around and go home, but then he would be ashamed. What would the seniūnas say, what would the people say, when they found out
that he hadn’t even approached the pastor?
In that same instant, the pastor came to the confessional and seated
himself, ready to hear confessions. The
villager found himself kneeling at the grate, just then opening.
“A witch with a black
“That’s all?” he heard he pastor’s calm voice.
“That’s all.” he replied.
“Then for your penance you will say five
prayers and donate five kopeks toward the repair of the church’s roof.”
The villager having
returned early from his church visit, the seniūnas hurried to ask him if he had informed the priest
about the witch.
“Yes, I certainly did, but the pastor
forbade anyone to speak about it. He
said she was there as a punishment, and no one is permitted to speak about it. Evidently, he knows all about it.”
And in this way, the white
witch became a recognized resident of the Bartautai village smithy, though the
people never spoke of her. Only after a
year had gone by, did Račius’s
neighbor admit to him, that the pastor had given him a penance, ordering him to
say five prayers and donate five kopeks towards the repair of the church’s
roof.
“Well, that’s the same thing that happened
to me, said Račius, “and I had to take a
hen to Eišiškes market, so I could sell it
to get the five kopeks for the roof”.
The tramp Darūnas again appeared, and began to visit the village
more frequently, not so much, it seemed, as to beg charity, but to keep company
with the inhabitants. He would always
visit the smithy, and one boy told of having seen him seated on a bench against
the lean-to, feeding bits of bread to the raven, which had flown down from his
tree to sit companionably on Darūnas’s
shoulder.
One day a child in the
village became suddenly very ill, and Darūnas
advised the mother to seek aid from the witch, saying he was certain she could
and would help. Though fearful, the
mother carried the child to the smithy, where the witch examined him and gave
them medicine; after three days the child was well. From that time, whenever one of the villagers
happened to get sick, they would turn for help to the white witch, and she
healed them. And even when one of the
teenagers suffered a severe injury to his leg, which bled profusely, she
stopped the bleeding, bathed the wound with some sort of liquid, and bandaged
the leg. After three weeks, the wound
had healed and only a small scar remained.
When Račius’s son broke his arm,
the witch surrounded it with thin boards, tied that with bandages, and so that
it couldn’t move, fastened it all with a scarf around his neck. When six weeks had passed, the arm was
straight, strong and well again.
In thanks for her help,
the villagers brought cheese, butter, milk and other foodstuffs, though the
white witch never ever asked them for anything.
No one knew how she was able to live, or what resources she may have
had.
The witch always wore the
same big black hooded cloak, avoided people, and no one from the outside world
ever visited her, except for Darūnas,
who sometimes even remained on the property for longer periods of time. No one wondered about that, as everyone knew
him, and recognized his willingness to help and advise anyone who needed
him. He was often seen cutting or chopping
wood or fixing a garden fence. But most
chores around the property were carried out by the villagers, in thanks for
medical treatment or advice, or for the water they drew from Balčius’s well.
Without being asked, they ploughed the garden, weeded the
flower beds, and even
planted and harvested the vegetables. A
close bond developed between the villagers and the witch, though the name
remained unchanged. The people always
called her the white witch, as no one knew her real name.
She treated her patients
using herbs, roots and berries, supplies of which she always gathered from
fields and forest during summertime. She
also drew from a stock of other medicines, but where they came from, no one
knew.
An influenza epidemic ran
through
She lived on the Balčius homestead
for ten years, then disappeared in the same way she had arrived – unseen by the
villagers. By pure chance, however, one
person observed her departure, as he led his horses at the edge of the woods. He told everyone later, that about four in
the morning, just as the sky began to lighten, he saw a handsome carriage drawn
by fine black horses, with coachman and servant, approaching by the road from
Valkininkai. The carriage followed a round-about
path, avoiding Bartautai, and drove directly into Balčius’s yard. He
had never before seen such a fine carriage, and continued to watch with great
curiosity.
A dignified, well-dressed
gentleman with gray hair descended from the carriage and entered the house,
where a light already burned. He soon
came back out, and with him, a fine young lady with long white hair, carrying a
bag with a black
When word spread through
the village, many didn’t want to believe that the white witch was gone, and
went to the Balčius homestead to see for
themselves. All was quiet, the doors
locked, the windows covered, and neither
The white witch had truly
gone.
Three days later,
residents woke to sounds long unheard. A
hammer striking an anvil reminded the villagers that, ten years ago, there had
been a smithy in that place. Clearly the
smith had returned. The seniūnas hurried over, and found Petras Balčius hard at work.
Balčius seemed much changed,
looking stronger, with heavier arms, but one leg
up to the knee, was of
wood. Many questions were asked, but
Petras maintained a strict reserve and answered all questions vaguely or with a
deliberate joke. The seniūnas asked where he had been all that time, and Petras
answered, “out in the world”. Asked
where in the world, he answered, “everywhere”.
When asked how he had lost his leg, he replied that bad things
happen. He was asked about the white
witch, and said he knew no witches and had no knowledge of anyone’s living in
his house.
The villagers discussed,
considered, made a few guesses and eventually calmed down. Petras resumed work at his smithy, but now
with a more experienced hand, and was more contemplative. Darūnas came to visit the smith, staying with him
for three days, which was unusual, but when he left, he didn’t return to the
village for a very long time.
Talk about the white witch never quieted down. People would often remember her, and as time
went by, they heard that, in truth, she was not a witch, but the daughter of a
Lithuanian nobleman. She had studied
medicine in France, and at the start of the rebellion, she had returned to
Lithuania and joined the rebels as their doctor. Balčius also joined the rebels, and when a cannonball shattered his leg, she
treated him and hid him at her father’s estate, where he passed ten years
working as their blacksmith. She had
been in great danger when the Russians beat down the insurrection, and at Balčius’s suggestion, hid herself at his own
homestead. Only when
Twenty-one years after Balčius returned to his home, in 1863, a Bartautai farmer
stopped at Balčius’s smithy, and found
it again empty and closed, padlocked just like the house.
A second insurrection
against Russian rule in
Petras Balčius was a rebel messenger, and, disguised as a tramp,
gathered whatever information he could about Russian troop movements. As he escorted a Franciscan monk with important
information from Gardinas to
but the smith was
overpowered and hacked to death. The
Cossacks dragged his corpse to Valkinikai, where one resident recognized and
identified the smith from Bartautai.
The following day, a group
of ten Cossack police rode out to search the Bartautai smithy. They did no harm to the people of the
village, but looted and ruined the smith’s property, finally burning everything
down to the ground. The well collapsed,
leaving no more than a small mound, to be known by later generations as the
white witch’s hill.
The Cossacks, riding back
to Valkininkai, were ambushed by a group of rebels near the village of Čebatoriai, and all shot to death. It was said that this had been an act of
revenge for the destruction of Balčius’s property, and had been carried
out by a rebel group called “The White Witch’s Unit”.
The fate of the “white
witch” was unknown for a long time afterward, but eventually, people learned
that she had escaped to
“Here
rests a daughter of
her
enslaved homeland and here found peace.
1870”.
There is no name inscribed
on the monument, but judging from the date of death, this is believed to be the
last resting place of
Source:
“Vilniaus
Krašto Legendos” by
Genrikas
Songinas, printed in
1988,
Draugo Spaustuve
Publisher
Linas Raslavičius
© English translation - Gloria O’Brien 2005
This article was published in
Bridges, April & May, 2005