The Child’s Pine

There is a forest in the Rauna lands and in that forest, a pine tree can be found, and that pine tree is known by the name of the Bērns Pine (the Child’s Pine). An image of a child has been carved in the bark of that pine tree. In the times of plague, all

The Plague Embodied

In the times of the plague, the affliction was often thought to have been charmed within a yarnball or a ribbon, or any other such trifle. Whoever seized it or touched it – they caught the disease and they died. There was a woman who walked down to the well to bring back water and

The Two Strongmen

There once lived two Latvian strongmen and they were known by the names of Lielkāja and Tutenis*. Those twain fretted over no lords. Were they thrown in any dungeons, with their own bare hands they shattered the chains and tore off the fetters and they made their way out to freedom. Any poor folk were

The Hand-Kissing

There was a high lady who paid a visit to the threshing shed every morning in order to have her hand kissed by the workers there. Seeking to become dismissed of such ‘pledge of honours’, the thresher boys crawled in the cold furnace where they smutted themselves all over with soot. When the lady appeared

The Brave Mushroom Gatherer

The high lady Strandzija of the Mārciena manor was walking in her lands one day and she saw a woman gathering mushrooms in the manor forest. The lady reproached the woman over stealing the manor’s mushrooms and the lady asked if the woman wished, indeed, to be flogged. But the mushroom gatherer was not easily

Threshing the Manor Labour Overseer

There once was a manor and its servants were being worked to death by a ruthless vagars*. One day, the vagars wished to punish the threshers over their idle ways and over the ‘poorly’ flailed crops. In order to gather evidence for his accusation, the vagars crawled under the piles of the harvested stalks and

The Lord Riding the Deer

There once lived a mighty wretched lord who was forever having his folk flogged and whipped. One time, the lord’s people gathered for a hunt and they captured a giant deer. The lord set his minds on riding the deer back into the manor. The people held the deer bound and half-harnessed from both sides

Setting Fire to Maids’ Hands

The former Vijciems manor used to lie where the graveyard is found nowadays. The manor was ruled by baron Volfs. The baron ordered all maids to spin a certain share of fine yarn before any festivities. The maids who failed to fulfil his request were brought to the manor on the day of celebration and

Of the Raising of Castles

The old folk cannot pass any castle ruins without paying their sighs to commemorate the dreadful deeds brought about to build them. Many wives were given nought more than three days after child-birth to rest before returning to raise the castle. And the mares were spared no longer than three hours after their foals first

The Afterplague Settlements

After the plague, the lords of the manor drove around in their carts capturing the people to force them to work on the manor lands. The captive folk were shoved an apple in their mouths to prevent them from shouting out and they were not settled in any of the old households but rather they