Summary

Local realities in the sagas and stories of Ramygala people

Povilas Krikščiūnas

The paper deals with the stories and sagas of Ramygala land. The plots of creations of this folklore genre are discussed. Nearly all stories and sagas contain names of local settlement and other place names, which are explained about their origin, formation of water bodies, origin of nature sites, local relief and great variety of personal impressions looking at the miraculous phenomena of nature and other things. There are very mysterious stories about bells, which fell from the carts and drowned in the rivers and lakes or had sunken together with the churches. Beside rich fantasies in such plots, there are also echoes of some real historic events. Of course, there are specific texts typical of a certain site. These are couplets about people of villages and their personality traits, but they are not widespread. As any literature creation, it is created, accepted and unforgotten in the place, where it is actual. All the plots of stories and sagas of the Ramygala land show close relationships between various folklore traditions, local and general for Lithuania.