VOLUME VI

Jonas Basanavičius Folklore Library, Vol. 6

Lithuanian Tales, book 2. Collected by Jonas Basanavičius.
Vilnius: Vaga Publishers, 2003

This book is a completion to the first great work by Jonas Basanavičius in publishing folk narratives related to folk beliefs and containing mythical images. The majority of texts that it is comprised of are folk belief legends, i.e. 183 pieces. Folktales make up to the half of that number, i.e. 96 texts, but being significantly longer they seem to prevail. Also, 27 pieces of information on folk beliefs, 4 place legends, 1 religious legend and a few other folklore texts are published, making the total number of 320 texts. Most numerous chapters are those about man and the devil, about goddesses and laumės (fairies), and the new chapters about kaukai and barzdukai (gnomes). One third of texts come from Suvalkija, while others have been recorded in various other places, particularly in the Lithuania Minor. Narrators of most of the texts are indicated in this book. The grouping of texts is deliberate, eventually making the basis for classification of Lithuanian folk belief legends. Being aware of the importance of authentic folklore publication, the editor preserved the dialectological features of the published folklore items.
The sixth volume of Jonas Basanavičius Folklore Library was edited, the textual principles of editing discussed and the vocabulary compiled by Kostas Aleksynas. The author of the foreword “Striding across the Turn of the Century in a Giant’s Step” Leonardas Sauka discussed the character of the published material and its importance to the Lithuanian folklore research. Leonardas Sauka also wrote commentaries and compiled indices.