Legends

LEGEND ABOUT THE COAT OF ARMS

“Do not desire treasures of strangers. Who wishes to get rich in one night, that will lose his head in three or thirty three nights.”
…The old noblewoman of Molėtai had no piece for several nights. Just as she closed her eyes, three birds with long beaks started looming in front of her. They were flying one after another trying to catch a golden key.
Once they spoke to the noblewoman half bird half human language: “In the swamp there is a cursed chest hidden. Next month it will rise to the surface and the one who will know how, will be able to take the gold and the silver”.
The woman went crazy about these promises. She told her man to go to the swamp with a long long stick to stir the quagmire: maybe he will discover the cursed chest. The noblewoman herself was exhausted from jumping from hump to hump searching for treasure in the depths of the quagmire…She hears the sound of long-winged birds above her head. This time it’s not a dream. The birds talk to her again: “You will see the chest, but you won’t get it for nothing…We eat heads. Delicious heads. Give your head and the treasure is yours!”
“But I have only one head,” the woman reacted.
“Well we only have one chest!”
The noblewoman decided to trick the birds. She bought a herring from a Jewish merchant in Molėtai and brought the head of the fish to the birds.
“This head is not tasty. Give us yours!” the birds hissed angrily.
The noblewoman came back home feeling all blue. Since then, she spent the nights rolling around in her bed not being able to close her eyes. She got older, skinnier and vanished slowly, wandering around the swamp for nothing.
But one night the birds called her and she jumped out of bed to follow them. The nobleman didn’t stop her.
“I’ll let her to give that stupid head to the birds. The chest with silver will belong to me and then I could get any girl I want!”
The noblewoman indeed bowed her head to the three birds, reaching for the chest: “I agree…”
Once at night the birds started haunting the nobleman.
“Your wife’s head was delicious! The chest is still there. Come and take it…”
The old man feared the destiny of his wife and unconsciously shouted: “I wish all the treasures vanished forever!”
At that moment whirlwinds appeared, the whole Manor of Molėtai clanged and pealed, roadside trees exploded into splinters. A pit filled with soil occurred next to the swamp. Here, as people told, the chest actually disappeared in the ground…

LEGEND ABOUT SIESARTIS

It happened in summer of that unfortunate year. One day a servant of the God poured water on the saint fire of Molėtai village, which was protected and looked after by priestess Siesartis and her friends. The girls creamed in fear and anger and quickly started to plaster the ashes with hope that fire will occur again. Maybe the saint fire will revive and Molėtai will be back in place? Sadly, the fire was dead and the ashes were cold. The grief that the girl felt was breaking her: she had promised to never let the saint fire die. She ran through the meadows crying, her father Pastovis tried to hold her close to his heart, brother Pastovėlis tried to deter her, too, but the girl ran away. By the lake of Molėtai, Siesartis shouted: “Take me, our saint waters! Wash away my guilt and hide me from violent newcomers’ God who put out our ancestors’ saint fire. The waves of the lake separated and hugged the priestess.

The path she ran, the valleys where her father Pastovis and brother Pastovėlis tried to hold the girl flooded with her tears. And today our Siesartėlė is flowing, that sore legend of Molėtai, while Pastovis and Pastovėlis are dispersing the waves. That river now is called after the name of the priestess: the beautiful Siesartis.