Birutė binds Vytautas (Sutartis, surety, flame promise)¶
What the chronicles say [Historical record]¶
Not in the record. The chronicles say nothing of a binding at Trakai in 1382; they note only that Vytautas was with Kęstutis in Trakai that summer and that Birutė later vanishes from them (see her sacrifice).
Birutė binds Vytautas (Sutartis, surety, flame promise)
Birutė binds Vytautas (Sutartis, surety, flame promise) · event¶
Type |
event |
Years |
1382 |
Status |
The saga’s invention |
Book |
|
Chapters |
3 |
Note |
Birutė binds Vytautas with a Senovės Sutartis and passes him the flame promise (1382). |
Where: Trakai (on the map)
What really happened [The saga’s invention]¶
On the night after the Dagotuvės harvest songs, in a tower shrine at Trakai, Birutė hears the Amber Queen and sees in Praurimė’s fire a black Ship. She gives Vytautas an uncut amber pebble, charmed before sunrise, “warm, pulsing”, and binds him with five lines of the Five-Voice. The cost falls on him: a scar on his chest, nothing on the caster. She cuts her palm over the amber (ch. 27 recalls it): “Jo skola yra mano skola”, making herself his surety. Vytautas answers with a promise of his own, a flame he must keep. The five-voice working tonight is both a vow and a debt, which the book tracks through the pebble’s warm, cold and dead states.
Consequences¶
Creates Birutė’s Senovės Sutartis and the Last Flame promise. Its surety is paid in full at Palanga; its promise is fulfilled and then ended at Vytautas’s death.
Dramatisation¶
Book I ch. 3 “Gintaro Sapnas” (Birutė; the same night as ch. 1 and 2, Trakai, late summer 1382; the book still reads as autumn).
Connections¶
graph LR
birute["Birutė"]
ev_sutartis["Birutė binds Vytautas (Sutartis, surety, flame promise)"]
flame_promise["The Last Flame promise"]
sutartis_birute["Birutė's Senovės Sutartis over Vytautas"]
trakai["Trakai"]
vytautas["Vytautas"]
ev_sutartis -->|Causes| sutartis_birute
ev_sutartis -->|Causes| flame_promise
ev_sutartis -->|Location| trakai
birute -->|Took part in| ev_sutartis
vytautas -->|Took part in| ev_sutartis
style ev_sutartis stroke-width:3px