Baltic Tales - Page 2 - Myths, legends and folk stories from the Baltic Lands

A Lord’s Promises

A Lithuanian fairy tale, this version is from Tales of The Amber Sea, compiled and translated by Irina Zheleznova in 1974.

In a certain land there lived a lord who was a cheat and a swindler. He was always tricking his workmen and robbing them, and to one of them, a cheerful, highspirited youth, he had not paid his wages for three years on end.

Now, this young workman was walking along the river bank one day when he met a man coming toward him.

“Where are you coming from?” asked the workman.

“From where the road takes its beginning.”

The Dragon of the North

Fairy Tale | Estonia | 20 minute read

An Estonian fairy tale, this version was published in the Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, in 1894.

Very long ago, as old people have told me, there lived a terrible monster, who came out of the North, and laid waste whole tracts of country, devouring both men and beasts; and this monster was so destructive that it was feared that unless help came no living creature would be left on the face of the earth. It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, two short fore-legs, and two long ones behind, and besides that it had a tail like a serpent, ten fathoms in length. When it moved it jumped like a frog, and with every spring it covered half a mile of ground.

Little White Horse

Fairy Tale | Lithuania | 3 minute read

A Lithuanian tale, this version is taken from the 1938 anthology Wonder Tales from Baltic Wizards by Frances Jenkins Olcott.

There was once a man who had three sons, two were clever, but the youngest was simple. The Father bought each of them two horses.

One day they heard that something was eating up their barley. The first night, the Father sent the eldest son to the field to watch the barley. But he fell asleep and saw nothing.

And the next day, when he came home and his Father asked, “Now what have you seen?” he said, “Nothing.”

The Duckling with Golden Feathers

Fairy Tale | Latvia | 5 minute read

A Latvian tale, this version is taken from the 1938 anthology Wonder Tales from Baltic Wizards by Frances Jenkins Olcott.

Once on a time two King’s children, a brother and a sister, lived with a hateful woman. She ill-treated the two children, though she loved her own daughter who was both dirty and ugly.

One day the two children said to each other, “Let us go away.”

So they went and went, till they reached a crossroad, and there they parted with many tears. The brother took with him a portrait of his sister to remember her by, and started on his way.

How a Woodpecker Chopped a Spruce-tree

Fairy Tale | Lithuania | 5 minute read

A Lithuanian fairy tale, this version is from Tales of The Amber Sea, compiled and translated by Irina Zheleznova in 1974.

A woodpecker once flew up to a spruce-tree, lighted on its very top, and, rocking back and forth, sang:“I will chop this spruce-tree down

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