Geography¶

The realm in 1382: terrain, climate and nature, a gazetteer of places, and travel distances.

Labels. [Historical record] is attested in the sources or standard scholarship; [The saga’s invention] was made for this series.

Naming convention. Lithuanian name first, then the German or Polish form (and Belarusian or Ukrainian where it helps) in parentheses. Prose in Lithuanian uses the Lithuanian form. Order characters may think in German forms, which is a cheap and effective way to mark point of view.

Part A. The realm in 1382¶

A.1 The shape of power¶

In 1382 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė) is the largest state in Europe and the last pagan one. It is less a state than a pagan Baltic core holding a far larger Orthodox Ruthenian empire by kinship, tribute and fear. The core is small, perhaps the size of modern Lithuania with a strip of north-western Belarus. The Ruthenian lands are vast, Christian and literate, and are ruled by Gediminid princes who are often Orthodox themselves. [Historical record]

Since 1345 the core has been run as a diarchy [Historical record]. The senior grand duke (Algirdas, and after 1377 his son Jogaila) rules from Vilnius and looks east. The junior (Kęstutis) rules from Trakai and looks west, at the Order. In 1381–82 that diarchy breaks: Kęstutis seizes Vilnius in autumn 1381, Jogaila retakes it in spring–June 1382, and in August 1382 Kęstutis dies at Krėva. Book I opens in the last weeks of the diarchy.

A.2 Status table, 1382¶

Land	Status in 1382	Ruler / holder	Notes
Vilnius duchy (Aukštaitija east; Vilnius, Kernavė, Krėva, Ašmena, Medininkai)	Directly held: the grand-ducal domain	Jogaila (Krėva is his patrimony)	The heart of Book I’s betrayal
Trakai duchy (Trakai, Kaunas, Grodno, Brest, Podlasie, and overlordship of Samogitia)	Directly held, Kęstutis’s half	Kęstutis until Aug 1382; then seized by Jogaila; Trakai to Skirgaila in 1384	Vytautas’s grievance
Žemaitija (Samogitia; Germ. Samaiten, Pol. Żmudź)	Lithuanian, self-governing and contested. Ruled by its own elders under the Trakai duke. Promised to the Order on paper (Dovydiškės 1380 to the Dubysa; Dubysa treaty 31 Oct 1382; Königsberg 1384 to the Nevėžis)	Samogitian elders; loyal to Kęstutis	The land bridge between Prussia and Livonia that the Order wants above all [Historical record]
Black Ruthenia (Naugardukas/Navahrudak, Lida, Slonim)	Directly held, an old Lithuanian possession since the 13th c.	Gediminid appanages	Orthodox and Lithuanian mixed
Polotsk (Pol. Połock)	Vassal, contested	Contested between Andrius (Andrei) Algirdaitis and Skirgaila	Rich Daugava trade with Riga
Vitebsk	Vassal	Algirdas’s widow Julijona (Uliana) of Tver, Jogaila’s mother	Jogaila was released “to Krėva and Vitebsk” in 1381
Kyiv	Vassal, since c. 1362 (after Blue Waters)	Vladimiras (Volodymyr) Algirdaitis	Still partly tributary to the Horde
Chernihiv–Siveria (Novhorod-Siverskyi, Bryansk)	Vassal, unstable	Kaributas (Dmitry Koribut); Bryansk’s Dmitry Algirdaitis defected to Moscow in 1379 and fought at Kulikovo	Kęstutis is campaigning against Kaributas in spring 1382 (chronology)
Volhynia (Lutsk, Volodymyr)	Vassal, contested with Poland–Hungary	Liubartas (Lubart), Gediminas’s son, died c. 1383–85	Galicia (Lviv) held by Hungarian garrisons until 1387 [Historical record]
Podolia (Kamianets)	Vassal	The Karijotaičiai (Koriatovichi) brothers	Frontier with the steppe
Smolensk	Independent Rurikid principality in the Lithuanian orbit	Sviatoslav Ivanovich, killed fighting Skirgaila in 1386	Annexed by Vytautas in 1395, and again in 1404 [Historical record]

A.3 The neighbours in 1382¶

The Teutonic Order in Prussia (Deutscher Orden, Lith. Kryžiuočių ordinas). Its capital is Marienburg. Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode died on 24 June 1382; Konrad Zöllner von Rotenstein is elected that autumn [Historical record]. It is the richest, best-administered power on the Baltic: brick castles, a cash economy, an amber monopoly, Hanseatic towns (Danzig, Elbing, Thorn, Königsberg) and an annual flow of Western crusader-guests for the Reise. Hostile; at war with Lithuania since 1283.
The Livonian Order (Livländischer Orden), the Order’s autonomous northern branch, holds Courland and Livonia. Its Landmeister is Wilhelm von Friemersheim. It is in chronic feud with the Archbishop and city of Riga. Its raids come down into Samogitia from the north. Hostile.
Masovia (Pol. Mazowsze, Lith. Mazovija). A cluster of Piast duchies on the middle Vistula, Narew and Bug, formally within the Polish orbit. Janusz I (Warsaw and Czersk) is married to Vytautas’s sister Danutė (Anna). Siemowit IV (Płock) is a candidate for the Polish throne in 1382–83 and later marries Jogaila’s sister Aleksandra (1387). Kin, wary, neutral. It is Vytautas’s first refuge after Krėva [Historical record: the chronology; see D.3].
The Kingdom of Poland (Korona Królestwa Polskiego). Ruled until 10–11 September 1382 by Louis of Hungary, who rarely visits; then an interregnum and a civil war in Greater Poland until Jadwiga is crowned on 16 October 1384 [Historical record]. In 1382 Poland is not yet courting Jogaila.
The Golden Horde (Aukso Orda). Tokhtamysh has just reunited it after Mamai’s defeat at Kulikovo (1380). He sacks Moscow in late August 1382 [Historical record], in the same fortnight as Kęstutis’s death, which makes a useful “meanwhile in the east” beat. Distant overlord of the steppe; tribute-taker from Ruthenian borderlands.
Muscovy (Maskvos kunigaikštystė). Dmitry Donskoy, victor of Kulikovo, humbled by Tokhtamysh in 1382. A rival for the “gathering of the Rus’ lands”, and a magnet for Gediminid defectors. Rival.
Novgorod the Great (Didysis Naugardas). A merchant republic with a Hanseatic Kontor (the Peterhof) [Historical record]. It sometimes hires Lithuanian princes to defend its frontier. Trading partner, occasional client.
Pskov (Pskovas). Novgorod’s junior sister-republic facing the Livonian Order, with a tradition of Lithuanian princes. Wary friend.
The Hanseatic towns (Riga, Danzig, Lübeck, Visby). Not a state but a web of merchant law, they reach Lithuania through Riga (Daugava–Polotsk), through Königsberg and Kaunas (Nemunas), and through Novgorod. A Riga merchant, Hanulas, opens Vilnius to Jogaila in 1382 [Historical record]; in the saga he is Henė’s first mask.

Part B. Terrain, climate and nature¶

B.1 The lie of the land¶

The Baltic lands are young glacial country: low rolling moraines, thousands of lakes (the Trakai and Švenčionys lake districts), eskers, boulder fields, raised bogs and river valleys cut through sand. Nothing is high. The tallest hills in Lithuania barely reach 300 m. Every hill that matters has been shaped by people: piliakalniai (hillforts), terraced and palisaded, crown the river bends [Historical record]. In the saga a hillfort is always a place where the living and the dead share a roof.

Three landscape belts matter for the books:

The lake-and-forest core (Aukštaitija around Vilnius, Trakai and Kernavė). Pine on the sands, oak and linden in the valleys, cleared fields around hillforts, rye and flax. Settled, but the forest is never more than an hour’s walk away.
Samogitia (Žemaitija). Higher, wetter, more heavily wooded uplands west of the Nevėžis, cut by the Dubysa, Venta, Jūra and Minija, with sacred groves (alkai) and very few roads. People live in scattered homesteads under elders. This is the Order’s Samaiten and the saga’s last pagan heartland (the Hidden Groves, Cosmology §4.2).
The great wilderness (the Wildnis, the saga’s Dykra). See B.2.

To the south-east the Ruthenian lands open into the Pripet marshes (Polesė), then the forest-steppe and finally the open steppe (the Dykra of the Tatars, the “Wild Fields”). Book II’s horizon.

B.2 The Wildnis and the Dykra¶

[Historical record] The Wildnis (Old German Wiltnis; Lithuanian historiography calls it dykra) was a deliberately depopulated border belt between the Order’s Prussia and Livonia on one side and settled Lithuania on the other. It formed after the Order’s conquest of Prussia (completed 1283) and Sudovia (1277–83), and through a century of raid and counter-raid. It ran:

south of the Nemunas, over old Sudovia–Yotvingia (modern Suvalkija and north-east Poland), where it was up to c. 150 km deep;
along the western and northern edge of Samogitia (towards Memel and Courland), c. 60 km deep; and
in patches along the Livonian border north of Aukštaitija [Historical record, per the Lithuanian encyclopedia VLE, “Dykra”].

It was not empty. Some old Baltic population survived in it, paying tribute to both sides or to neither. Historians still argue how many. It was forest and bog, crossed by known trails that both sides’ guides kept in their heads. The Order wrote them down in the Wegeberichte (Die Littauischen Wegeberichte), about 100 route reports compiled between 1384 and 1402 by scouts (Lithuanian and Prussian guides) for winter and summer raids. They list fords, night camps, villages and sometimes sacred groves [Historical record]. They are the best ground-truth source the saga has for “how long from A to B in 1390”.

Both hold, because the saga’s Dykra is larger than the historical Wildnis:

The western Dykra = the historical Wildnis. Sudovia south of the Nemunas, the Prussian border forests, the Samogitian marches. Order raiders and Lithuanian Wegeleute (guides) cross it.
The eastern Dykra = the swamp-forests of the upper Nemunas. The Naliboki forest (Lith. Nalibokų giria, Bel. Nalibockaja pušča) and the Nemunas floodplain bogs that lie south and south-west of Krėva, then westward past Lida to the Grodno forests and the Biebrza marshes on the Masovian border. This belt really exists and really is “between Krėva and the Neman” [Historical record for the terrain]. Calling it part of one wilderness is [The saga’s invention].
Mythic logic: wherever war has emptied the land, the Root-Mother has taken it back. The Dykra is the map of what the crusade cost, and it grows as the books go on. It is the one country the Pact still fully protects after 1384 (the Hidden Groves, Cosmology §4.2). Inside it, distances are unreliable: Eglė’s paths are shorter than they should be for those she favours and endless for those she does not. The rule is that it never lies about where you end up, only about how long it takes.

For Vytautas’s escape (ch. 15–17) this means the Dykra starts within a day’s ride of Krėva. That fits the two days of riding in ch. 15 (see D.3).

B.3 Rivers: the real roads¶

There are no paved roads [Historical record]. Rivers are highways in summer and, frozen, even better ones in winter.

Nemunas (Germ. Memel; Pol. Niemen; Bel. Nioman). The great river. It rises in Belarus south-west of Minsk, flows west past the Naliboki forest and Grodno, then turns north to Kaunas, then west again past Jurbarkas, Ragnit and Tilsit into the Curonian Lagoon through a delta. The Order’s road into Lithuania. Its lower course is Order-held: Memel, Tilsit, Ragnit. Its middle course (Jurbarkas to Kaunas) is a castle-studded no man’s land, the most fought-over water in the saga.
Neris (Pol. Wilia; Germ. Wilia). Rises in Belarus, flows past Vilnius and Kernavė, and meets the Nemunas at Kaunas. The road from the capital to the war, and, frozen, the road the Order uses to strike Vilnius.
Vilnia (Pol. Wilejka). The small river that joins the Neris under Vilnius’s castle hill. Šventaragis valley lies at the confluence.
Dubysa. A Samogitian tributary joining the Nemunas from the north. The treaty line: Dovydiškės (1380) and the Dubysa treaty (31 Oct 1382) both promise the Order Samogitia up to it [Historical record]. In the saga the Dubysa is a “lying border”, drawn in ink on a river that never agreed to it.
Nevėžis. Flows south through central Lithuania to the Nemunas below Kaunas. The 1384 Königsberg line: Vytautas promises the Order everything west of it [Historical record]. It is the real boundary between Aukštaitija and Samogitia.
Pregel (Lith. Prieglius; Pol. Pregoła). Prussia’s main river: Insterburg, Tapiau, Königsberg. At Tapiau the Deime (Lith. Deimena) branches north to the Curonian Lagoon, so a boat can go Kaunas → Nemunas delta → lagoon → Deime → Tapiau → Pregel → Königsberg without touching land. This matters for Vytautas’s 1383 movements [Historical record for the hydrography].
Daugava (Germ. Düna; Rus. Zapadnaya Dvina). Polotsk and Vitebsk to Riga: the Ruthenian–Hanseatic trade artery.
Vistula and Nogat (Pol. Wisła, Germ. Weichsel). Masovia (Warsaw) down to Thorn, Marienburg (on the Nogat arm) and Danzig. Dnieper (Kyiv), Bug (Brest), Narew (Masovia) and Vorskla (the steppe) for Books II–V.

B.4 Seasons and the war calendar¶

[Historical record] The climate is continental-maritime. Winters are long, with lake and river ice usually solid from December to March. Summers are short, warm and wet. The two muddy seasons (spring thaw March–April, autumn rains October–November) make the land nearly impassable to armies and miserable for travellers. The 14th century sits at the onset of the Little Ice Age.

Hence the two Reise seasons of the Order [Historical record]: the winter Reise (roughly Candlemas, 2 Feb, on frozen rivers and bogs, sleighs and fast cavalry) and the summer Reise (around the Assumption, 15 Aug, after the harvest, when the ground is driest). Lithuanian raids into Prussia and Livonia follow the same logic in reverse. Autumn and spring are seasons of diplomacy, intrigue and murder, which is exactly where Book I’s betrayal falls.

Season	Lithuanian life	War and travel	Saga resonance
Deep winter (Dec–Feb)	Threshing in the jauja, weaving, Kūčios and Kalėdos (solstice)	Best travel: ice roads, sledges, 40–60 km/day on rivers; winter Reise	The White Silence’s season; Praurimė’s zenith (solstice)
Thaw (Mar–Apr)	Sowing preparations	Worst travel: floods, rotten ice	The unbound dead walk at break-up
Early summer (May–Jun)	Sowing, grazing, Rasos (midsummer)	Good riding; rivers navigable	Laumės at the water’s edge
High summer (Jul–Aug)	Rye harvest; Žolinė (mid-August, later fused with the Assumption)	Summer Reise; Kęstutis seized early Aug and dies 15 Aug 1382	The Iron Saint’s summer heat
Autumn (Sep–Nov)	Threshing, slaughter, Dagotuvės (harvest end), Vėlinės (feeding the dead)	Rains and mud; travel slows to half; Vytautas’s escape	Veil thinnest; vėlės at table

B.5 Wildlife¶

Wisent (stumbras, Germ. Wisent, Pol. żubr). Common in the great forests [Historical record]. A royal hunt animal; horns on Kęstutis’s walls (ch. 1) are right.
Aurochs (tauras, Pol. tur). Already rare in Lithuanian lands; one study puts the last Lithuanian traces in the 14th century. The last herd survived in Masovia’s Jaktorów forest until 1627 [Historical record]. [The saga’s invention] In 1382 a tauras is half rumour, a beast of the deep Dykra. To see one is an omen; the Gediminas founding legend involves one. Use sparingly.
Elk (briedis), red deer (elnias), roe deer, wild boar (šernas, Kęstutis’s own epithet “Senasis Šernas”). Plentiful.
Brown bear (lokys; meška is the taboo name). Bear claws go on the pyre so the dead can climb the Glass Mountain (Cosmology §1; Długosz on Kęstutis’s cremation [Historical record]).
Wolf (vilkas). Everywhere. Wolf packs follow armies. The Iron Wolf of Vilnius’s founding legend [Historical record: the legend is in the 16th-c. chronicles].
Lynx (lūšis). Claws, like the bear’s, burned with the dead [Historical record, Długosz].
Beaver (bebras). A protected resource: beaver-rights and beaver-keepers appear in later GDL law. The fur is a luxury export.
Wild honey bees. Not an animal for hunting, but central: forest tree-hive keeping (drevininkystė) produced the wax that was one of Lithuania’s great exports [Historical record]. A drevė (hollow hive-tree) is property, marked and inherited.
Marten, squirrel, sable, fox, otter. The fur economy. Sable comes mainly from the far north-east via Novgorod and the Ruthenian lands.
Tarpan (forest wild horse). Present in the wider region in the period.
Birds: white storks (luck; nesting on the roof is a blessing), cranes, black grouse, ravens and crows (followers of armies; signs of Perkūnas or the Root-Mother, Cosmology §5), falcons and goshawks (hunting birds, burned with the dead [Historical record]).
Žaltys (grass snake, Natrix natrix). Kept in houses and at shrines as a sacred guardian [Historical record: Długosz on the killing of the sacred snakes, 1387]. [The saga’s invention] Eglė’s companion; a žaltys at the door means the house still keeps the old courtesy.

Part C. Gazetteer¶

Order: the Lithuanian core first, then Samogitia and the coast, the Order’s lands, the Ruthenian and southern lands, and the later-book sites. “In the saga” gives the mythic overlay, book appearances and scene potential.

Core: Vilnius, Trakai and the east¶

1. Vilnius (Pol. Wilno; Germ. Wilna; Lat. Vilna)

[Historical record] The capital since at least 1323 (Gediminas’s letters). It sits at the Neris–Vilnia confluence among wooded hills. In the 1380s it is a fortified ducal centre with three castles (below) and a mixed town: a Lithuanian pagan population, a Ruthenian quarter with Orthodox churches (Algirdas’s Orthodox wives endowed some; individual foundation dates are traditional), and a German/Catholic merchant colony with Franciscans (invited by Gediminas in the 1320s; the tradition of Franciscan martyrs under Algirdas). Mostly timber, with brick only in the castles. Magdeburg rights come on 22 March 1387 and the bishopric in 1387.
In the saga: The city of the Šventaragis flame until 1387; then the city of the White Silence. Book I ch. 4–7 (the trap; note the record places the seizure at Jogaila’s camp near Trakai: chronology), ch. 29 (the Neris baptism). Book II: the 1390 siege. Ch. 4’s “city on seven hills” is a Rome echo with no period basis; use “hills” or name them (Gediminas hill, Bald hill, Table hill).

2. The Upper Castle (Aukštutinė pilis) on Gediminas hill

[Historical record] A brick castle on the steep hill above the confluence, first built in the 14th century. The present ruins are mostly Vytautas’s rebuilding after a fire in 1419. Towers, a palace, and a sheer drop to the Neris.
In the saga: The keep where Jogaila broods. The place the Iron Wolf howled in the founding dream. A good vantage for watching the 1387 pyre of the grove.

3. The Lower Castle (Žemutinė pilis)

[Historical record] The walled ducal residence at the foot of Gediminas hill, on the flat between the hill and the Neris, enclosing the residence, workshops and the site of the later cathedral. Beneath the cathedral are remains of earlier brick buildings, including what some archaeologists interpret as Mindaugas’s 13th-c. cathedral and possibly a pagan sanctuary phase (the Kitkauskas hypothesis; contested).
In the saga: The court, the feast hall of ch. 7. The building site of 1387, with a church raised on the flame’s ashes.

4. The Crooked Castle (Kreivoji pilis; Lat. castrum curvum)

[Historical record] A wooden castle on the Bald Hill (Plikasis kalnas, today’s Hill of Three Crosses) across the Vilnia. It is known chiefly because the Order and Vytautas burned it during the 1390 siege, when Jogaila’s brother Karigaila died in its defence [Historical record; details]. It was never rebuilt.
In the saga: In Book I it is just “the third castle”, wooden and old, where the poorer garrison drinks. In Book II it is the fire Vytautas lit against his own city. Plant it in Book I so it can burn in Book II.

5. Šventaragis valley (Šventaragio slėnis)

[Historical record] The flat by the Neris–Vilnia confluence below the castle hill (around today’s cathedral). The legend in the 16th-c. Lithuanian chronicles says the pagan prince Šventaragis was cremated here, the eternal flame burned here, and later dukes were burned here too. Długosz records Jogaila in 1387 extinguishing the eternal fire, felling the sacred grove and killing the sacred snakes in Vilnius [Historical record, with the usual Długosz caveats].
In the saga: The holiest place in the realm. The Silent Pact was sworn here in 1345, Eglė tended the flame here (prologue, moved from Romuva), and Kęstutis’s pyre burned here in August 1382 (chronology: cremated in Vilnius). Its extinguishing in 1387 ends the Pact. Reuse it in every book: the grove (1382), the stump field (1387), the cathedral (1390s), the cathedral crypt (Book V).

6. Trakai: the Peninsula Castle (Pusiasalio pilis; Pol. Troki; Germ. Traken)

[Historical record] “New” Trakai, Kęstutis’s capital. The Peninsula Castle stands on the neck of land between Lake Galvė and Lake Luka, built by Kęstutis around the mid-14th century as a brick-and-stone enclosure castle with towers. It is the castle Kęstutis actually lived in in 1382. The Order besieged Trakai in July–August 1382 in support of Jogaila (chronology), and Order campaigns in 1383 took it. In 1384 Trakai went to Skirgaila, not Vytautas [Historical record].
In the saga: Book I ch. 1–3 (ch. 1’s fog on Galvė is fine: the Peninsula Castle looks onto it). Birutė’s tower shrine (ch. 3). Ch. 28’s rebuilding by Vytautas in 1384 must change: in 1384 Trakai is Skirgaila’s, and Vytautas would see it only as a guest or an enemy.

7. Trakai: the Island Castle (Salos pilis)

[Historical record, contested] On an island in Lake Galvė. Most sources say construction began under Kęstutis in the second half of the 14th century, was interrupted by the wars of 1377–84, and was completed by Vytautas c. 1407–09. Some historians argue it is essentially Vytautas’s castle and push the start earlier or later. It is not “the only water castle in Eastern Europe”.
In the saga: In 1382 the island holds foundations and an abandoned building site, half-flooded, where the masons stopped when the war came. That is a strong image: the castle Kęstutis began and never saw finished. From Book II–III it rises; by Book IV it is Vytautas’s great residence. The secret flame burns in its deepest vault (Magic rules §6) until 27 Oct 1430. Žygimantas is murdered in Trakai’s Peninsula Castle in 1440 (Book V ch. 22 follows the official heritage identification); the supernatural lake response surrounds the separate Island Castle.

8. Senieji Trakai (Old Trakai; Pol. Stare Troki)

[Historical record] Kęstutis’s earlier seat, a few km east of new Trakai; the traditional birthplace of Vytautas (c. 1350). It was later granted to the Benedictines.
In the saga: The house where Birutė first lived as a wife, a hillfort of memory. A short ride from Trakai: a place for Birutė and Vytautas to talk unheard (ch. 3 could move here).

9. Krėva (Pol. Krewo; Bel. Kreva)

[Historical record] About 75–80 km east-south-east of Vilnius (straight line), in present-day Belarus. Algirdas’s patrimony, then Jogaila’s. A stone-and-brick enclosure castle of irregular plan on low marshy ground between two streams, with a large corner tower (the “Prince’s tower”) and a smaller tower. One of the oldest masonry castles in the GDL: dated to the first half of the 14th century (Gediminas) by some, to Algirdas’s time by others. Kęstutis died here on 15 Aug 1382. The Union of Krėva was signed here on 14 Aug 1385 [Historical record]. Badly damaged in the First World War.
In the saga: The wound in the map. Book I ch. 8–14, 30. The cell has residue: seers feel it for a century, and Žygimantas sees it in Book V. The Union scene (H10) should be staged in the room above the death cell. Krėva sits on the edge of the eastern Dykra, and the forest to the south is the first thing Vytautas reaches.

10. Medininkai castle (Pol. Miedniki; not to be confused with Samogitian Medininkai, no. 19)

[Historical record] About 30 km south-east of Vilnius on the Vilnius–Ašmena–Krėva road. The largest enclosure castle in Lithuania (a walled courtyard of several hectares with a corner tower), built in the first half of the 14th century. It is first mentioned in Order sources of the 1380s (1385 or the 1387 Wegeberichte), and burned by the Order in 1402.
In the saga: The last stop before Krėva. A prisoner convoy from Vilnius to Krėva would night here (D.2). An empty courtyard big enough to hold a herd or an army, where Kęstutis, under guard, may see the stars for the last time.

11. Ašmena (Bel. Ašmiany; Pol. Oszmiana)

[Historical record] A town between Vilnius and Krėva, on the same road, about 25 km from Krėva. In Book V’s era it is the site of Žygimantas’s coup against Švitrigaila (night of 31 Aug – 1 Sep 1432) and of a second battle in December 1433.
In the saga: Ašmena is where the 1382 road and the 1432 road cross. The same inn, the same ford, fifty years apart. Note: the word ašmenys (blade) in ch. 2 and the prologue is not this town.

12. Kernavė (Pol. Kiernów)

[Historical record] The old ducal centre on the Neris about 35 km north-west of Vilnius: five fortified hillforts in a row above a floodplain town. Probably Traidenis’s seat in the 13th c. Its wooden town was destroyed by the Order in 1390 and never recovered. Now a UNESCO site.
In the saga: The older holiness, pre-Vilnius. A place for the žyniai to retreat to after 1387. Its hills are graves.

13. Kaunas (Pol. Kowno; Germ. Kauen)

[Historical record] At the Neris–Nemunas confluence. The first brick castle was destroyed by the Order at Easter 1362 after a siege with mining and possibly gunpowder. In the following decades the site was refortified in wood and earth (c. 1396–1401?) and in masonry (c. 1404–09). In 1382 Kaunas is a ruin with a settlement and a ferry, not a functioning stone castle. The Order built Gotteswerder on Virgalė island downriver in 1369 (taken by Kęstutis); Kaunas becomes a Hanseatic Kontor town in 1441.
In the saga: The broken gate of Lithuania. Vaidotas, Kęstutis’s son, was captured here in 1362. The Order’s castles of 1384 rise around its ruins (no. 26).

14. Lida (Pol. Lida)

[Historical record] A brick enclosure castle built by Gediminas c. 1323–30s, about 100 km south-west of Krėva on the road to Grodno.
In the saga: The castle Vytautas must avoid. It stands squarely on the obvious escape route (Krėva–Lida–Grodno–Masovia), so Skirgaila’s riders would watch it. That is why he goes into the Dykra instead.

15. Naugardukas (Navahrudak; Pol. Nowogródek)

[Historical record] The old centre of Black Ruthenia, traditionally linked to Mindaugas. Later an Orthodox metropolitan seat for the GDL (1415, Gregory Tsamblak).
In the saga: Where pagan Lithuania and Orthodox Ruthenia first married. A good Book II setting for the Ruthenian clergy.

16. The Naliboki forest (Nalibokų giria; Bel. Nalibockaja pušča)

[Historical record] A vast swamp-forest between the upper Nemunas and the Berezina, south and south-west of Krėva. Today still one of the largest forests in Belarus.
In the saga: The eastern Dykra, and Pelkių Eglė’s country (ch. 15–16). The swamp that eats Skirgaila’s trackers. The stone rising from the water (ch. 16) is here. In Book V this is where the Root-Mother “reclaims the groves” nearest the capital.

Samogitia and the coast¶

17. Palanga and Birutė’s hill (Pol. Połąga; Germ. Polangen)

[Historical record] A coastal settlement in the Curonian–Samogitian borderland, about 25 km north of the Order’s Memel and close to the Livonian border to the north (the Šventoji river). Birutė’s hill (Birutės kalnas) is a dune hill with a 10th–13th c. hillfort and settlement, a defensive wall of the late 14th–early 15th c., and a pagan sanctuary/observatory (late 14th–15th c.) found by excavation in 1989 [Historical record; dates vary by source]. A St George chapel was built on the summit in 1506 to discourage the cult of Birutė’s grave [Historical record]. Lithuanian tradition holds that Birutė was a vaidilutė here, taken by Kęstutis, and later buried on this hill [Historical record as tradition].
In the saga: The Amber Queen’s shore. Book I ch. 3 (in memory), 11, 27; Book V ch. 25. The Šventasis akmuo (ch. 11) and the kneeling amber woman (ch. 27) stand here. Correction: ch. 11 has Birutė walk “back to the castle”. There is no castle at Palanga. Use “the hill”, “the palisade on the hill” or “the priestesses’ house”.
Scene potential: The Order’s Memel is visible on a clear day as smoke down the coast. The enemy is half a day’s ride away, and Birutė’s refuge is a front line.

18. The Samogitian groves (alkai)

[Historical record] Samogitian sacred places (hills, groves, springs, stones) are attested in later records and place-names (many hills called Alka or Alkos kalnas). Samogitia was baptised in 1413–17 [Historical record].
In the saga: The Hidden Groves bought by Birutė’s sacrifice (Cosmology §4.2). Each is a real-feeling place with a guardian and a rule. They fall one by one in Books III–IV. Keep a separate list as they are invented; each fall should cost something on the page.

19. Medininkai of Samogitia (later Varniai; Pol. Worniany/Miedniki Żmudzkie; Germ. Medenicken)

[Historical record] The central Samogitian district and later (1417) the seat of the Samogitian bishopric.
In the saga: Book III–IV’s baptism of Samogitia happens here. Galminas’s resistance has a grove within a night’s ride of it (Book V).

20. The Dubysa crossing

[Historical record] The Dubysa meets the Nemunas below Kaunas. On 31 Oct 1382 Jogaila and the Order agreed the Treaty of Dubysa (never ratified), promising baptism within four years and Samogitia to the Dubysa [Historical record].
In the saga: A meeting on a river island, both sides on boats, nobody wanting to stand on the other’s ground. The Iron Saint and the Shadow-Seller in one scene. Optional Book I interlude (Jogaila’s point of view, autumn 1382, while Vytautas is in the swamp).

21. Rambynas (Germ. Rombinus)

[Historical record as folklore] A hill on the right bank of the Nemunas in Lithuania Minor, remembered in 19th-c. tradition as a sacred hill with an altar stone (destroyed in the 19th c.).
In the saga: A sacred hill facing the Order’s Ragnit across the river: a pagan altar in the enemy’s sight. Use it for Book III’s pre-Grunwald omens.

22. Dovydiškės (Lat./Germ. forms vary)

[Historical record] Where Jogaila and the Order concluded the secret treaty of 31 May 1380. Its location is not securely identified.
In the saga: The uncertainty is useful. Dovydiškės can be a manor in the Dykra that no map shows twice in the same place, which makes it a Shadow-Seller place. Vytautas’s scouts “were there” (ch. 2); have one scout unable to find it again.

The Order’s lands: Prussia¶

23. Marienburg (Pol. Malbork; Lith. Marienburgas)

[Historical record] Seat of the Grand Master from 1309, on the Nogat arm of the Vistula. A complex of High Castle (convent, St Mary’s church) and Middle Castle. The Grand Master’s Palace was being built in the later 14th century. Among the largest brick buildings in Europe.
In the saga: Book I ch. 18–19 (“a mountain of red brick” is exactly right). Consecrated stone dampens Kalba, so the amber dies here. The baptism belongs at Tapiau (H6); Marienburg is where Vytautas negotiates and is received. Book III ch. 22: the failed siege of 1410.

24. Königsberg (Lith. Karaliaučius; Pol. Królewiec)

[Historical record] Founded 1255 on the Pregel. Seat of the Order’s Marshal (who led the Reise), and the mustering point for crusader guests: English, French, German and Bohemian knights on the summer and winter Reise. Three towns (Altstadt, Löbenicht, Kneiphof); the cathedral on the Kneiphof was being built c. 1330s–1380. Site of the Treaty of Königsberg, 30 Jan 1384 [Historical record].
In the saga: The Iron Saint’s barracks. Heraldry, drinking, pious brutality, the Table of Honour (Ehrentisch) for the most distinguished guests. Vytautas meets the Western knighthood here.

25. Tepliava (Germ. Tapiau; Rus. Gvardeysk)

[Historical record] An Order castle about 38 km east of Königsberg on the Pregel, where the Deime branches north to the Curonian Lagoon. Vytautas was baptised Catholic here on 21 Oct 1383, as “Wigand” [Historical record; officiant].
In the saga: The lying baptism (magic §5.4: the amber dies). A river-junction castle is a good image: the water that runs two ways. Vytautas arrives by boat from the Nemunas through the lagoon.

26. Naujapilis/Marienwerder by Kaunas, Jurgenburg (Jurbarkas) and Bayernburg: the 1384 castles

[Historical record] In 1384 the Order fortified the Nemunas line for its vassal Vytautas: a castle at Kaunas called Marienwerder (also given as Marienburg or Naujasis Marienburgas; the Lithuanian Naujapilis), on the right bank or an island at Kaunas; Jurgenburg/Georgenburg, on Bišpiliukai (Kalnėnai) hill about 3 km west of Jurbarkas (an Order castle of 1343–1403; dating disputed against “1259”); and Bayernburg (site uncertain). In July 1384 Vytautas reconciled secretly with Jogaila and took and burned them (Jurgenburg reportedly on 9 July, “by deception”) [Historical record]. Jurgenburg was rebuilt in 1387 and destroyed again in 1403.
Warning: Do not confuse these with Marienwerder (Kwidzyn), the bishop of Pomesania’s seat in Prussia proper, or with Georgenburg near Insterburg, another Order castle.
In the saga: The “Išdavikų išdavikas” set piece (chronology: recast ch. 22–25 as these burnings, H7). Better staged than a siege: castles opened from inside by their own lord at a feast. Guests become captives, a traitor’s hospitality mirrors Krėva, and the Iron Saint’s men burn as Kęstutis did not.

27. Ragainė (Germ. Ragnit; Rus. Neman)

[Historical record] An Order castle on the high left bank of the lower Nemunas, the seat of a commandery and a launch point for Reisen into Samogitia. The surviving brick castle was built 1397–1409, so in 1382 there is an older fortress on the site.
In the saga: The Iron Saint’s forward altar. Across the river stands Rambynas (no. 21).

28. Įsrūtis (Germ. Insterburg; Rus. Chernyakhovsk)

[Historical record] An Order castle (1336) at the edge of the Wildnis on the Pregel’s upper waters; a base for raids across Sudovia.
In the saga: The last brick wall before the Dykra. Where Order scouts and Lithuanian turncoat guides (Wegeleute) are paid.

29. Klaipėda (Germ. Memel; Pol. Kłajpeda)

[Historical record] An Order castle and town (1252) at the mouth of the Curonian Lagoon. Livonian at first, under the Teutonic Order from 1328. It controls the Nemunas’s exit to the sea.
In the saga: Palanga’s dark twin, 25 km away. The Order’s sails off Palanga are “the Black Ship” Birutė dreams of (ch. 3).

30. Romuva (Germ./Lat. Romow, Romowe)

[Historical record] A Prussian sanctuary in Nadruvia described by Peter von Dusburg (1326) as the seat of the high priest Kriwe. Its existence and location are disputed, and the area was under the Order from the 1270s–80s.
In the saga: By 1382 a lost place, a grove of stumps inside Order territory, remembered as the flame that moved to Vilnius (chronology, 1283). Not a setting for 1382. Book V’s 1345 flashback should use Šventaragis, as Cosmology §4.1 and the chronology do (Book V outline ch. 5 still says Romuva: see contradictions).

31. Danzig (Pol. Gdańsk; Lith. Gdanskas)

[Historical record] Taken by the Order in 1308; a booming Hanseatic port for grain, timber, wax, furs and amber trade.
In the saga: The Gold-Glutton’s counting-house. Book IV.

32. Grunwald / Žalgiris (Germ. Tannenberg; Pol. Grunwald)

[Historical record] The battlefield of 15 July 1410, between the villages of Grunwald, Stębark (Tannenberg) and Łodwigowo (Ludwigsdorf) in the Order’s Prussia (Osterode district), roughly 95 km south-east of Marienburg. The approach included the pontoon bridge over the Vistula at Czerwińsk [Historical record].
In the saga: Book III’s climax. Open fields between woods and lakes: the one day the Root-Mother’s forest and the Iron Saint’s open ground meet on equal terms.

Masovia, Poland and Livonia¶

33. Masovia: Czersk and Warsaw (Pol. Czersk, Warszawa)

[Historical record] Janusz I rules from Czersk (his capital until 1406, when he moved it to the growing town of Warsaw: en.wikipedia Janusz I the Old), with Danutė as his wife. Vytautas went to them first after escaping (chronology; sources say he sought Danutė and Janusz’s help and received none, then turned to the Order).
In the saga: Danutė’s hall: the first warm room after Krėva, and the first refusal. A sister who weeps and a brother-in-law who calculates. Masovia borders the Order directly, so the ch. 17 “border post” can be the Masovian–Prussian border (Soldau/Działdowo or Neidenburg sector), with the Order’s stone behind it.

34. Kraków (Lith. Krokuva)

[Historical record] Poland’s royal city (Wawel). Jogaila is baptised here on 15 Feb 1386, marries Jadwiga on the 18th and is crowned on 4 March [Historical record].
In the saga: The White Silence’s cathedral. Book I ch. 29 (offstage), Books III–V.

35. Riga (Lith. Ryga)

[Historical record] A Hanseatic city and archbishopric at the Daugava mouth, feuding with the Livonian Order. The home city of Hanulas.
In the saga: Where Henė’s first mask learned to count. The Gold-Glutton’s northern market.

Ruthenia and the south¶

36. Gardinas (Pol. Grodno; Bel. Hrodna)

[Historical record] An old Ruthenian town on a high bank of the Nemunas. Part of Kęstutis’s domain, and Vytautas’s seat from 1384 (with Brest and Podlasie) [Historical record]. Vytautas later built a brick castle. Jewish privilege 1389 [Historical record].
In the saga: Vytautas’s consolation prize and his first court in exile-at-home. The Nemunas here is the same river that runs past Ragnit: the river ties his small domain to his enemy.

37. Brasta (Pol. Brześć; Bel. Brest)

[Historical record] A Ruthenian town on the Bug, on the Polish–Masovian frontier. Given to Vytautas in 1384. Its Jewish privilege of 1 July 1388 is usually cited as the earliest known GDL Jewish charter (authenticity debated, and a 1388 Trakai charter is also claimed). The Order chronicler Wigand of Marburg reports that Birutė was moved to Brest “for safety” and drowned there in 1382. Vytautas’s 1390 complaint calls Jogaila the murderer of his father and mother, and the 1416 Samogitian delegation at Constance said she lived long and died naturally [Historical record]. attributes the drowning to Długosz; the Brest drowning is Wigand’s.
In the saga: This is where Jogaila’s men tried to drown her and failed. The Bug, a river that runs to the Vistula and so to the sea, would not keep her. It is a strong inland echo of the ring-thrice motif. If used, she was taken here from Trakai in August and escaped to Palanga, about 550 km, which fits a mid-September ch. 11.

38. Luckas (Ukr. Lutsk; Pol. Łuck)

[Historical record] The capital of Volhynia: Liubartas’s brick castle on the Styr. Vytautas held it from 1387–88. Host of the Congress of Lutsk, 1429 [Historical record].
In the saga: Book IV, not V. Henė’s crown bargain.

39. Kijevas (Ukr. Kyiv; Pol. Kijów)

[Historical record] The former mother city of the Rus’, still scarred by 1240. Under Lithuanian suzerainty from c. 1362, ruled by Vladimiras Algirdaitis until 1394, then Skirgaila (1395–Jan 1397, died there; poison rumoured) [Historical record]. The Caves Monastery and St Sophia.
In the saga: Book II, “Kijevo Šešėliai”. The Steppe-Hunger’s door. Skirgaila’s death place.

40. The Vorskla (Ukr. Vorskla)

[Historical record] A left tributary of the Dnieper near Poltava. Battle on 12 Aug 1399: Vytautas and Tokhtamysh are crushed by Edigu and Temür Qutlugh [Historical record]. Open steppe.
In the saga: Book II’s atrocity. The land is “alien, endless”: no forest, so the Root-Mother cannot follow. That is the point of the battle.

41. Polockas (Bel. Polatsk; Pol. Połock)

[Historical record] An ancient Rus’ principality on the Daugava, with St Sophia cathedral and close trade with Riga.
In the saga: The Orthodox north, a contested appanage. Švitrigaila flees here in 1432.

42. Vitebskas (Bel. Viciebsk)

[Historical record] Julijona of Tver’s dower land. Jogaila’s refuge in 1381–82.
In the saga: Jogaila’s mother’s court: Orthodox, shrewd, and the hand behind more than the chronicles say (the saga’s invention, flagged).

43. Smolenskas (Smolensk)

[Historical record] An independent principality until 1395 (and again 1401–04). Book II.

44. Pabaiskas (near Ukmergė/Vilkmergė; Pol. Wiłkomierz)

[Historical record] Battle on 1 Sep 1435: Žygimantas Kęstutaitis’s army defeats Švitrigaila and the Livonian Order [Historical record].
In the saga: Book V’s kin-slaughter, “worse than the crusades”. A field where the dead stay unburned, the Unbinding at its height (chronology).

45. The Black Sea forts (Dashiv/Ochakiv, Kachibey (Odesa), etc.)

[Historical record] Vytautas’s southern outposts are attested in the early 15th century. The Book II outline puts “stone castles on the Black Sea” in 1387–95, which is probably too early (see contradictions).

Part D. Travel and distance¶

D.1 Speeds used¶

Mode	Normal	Hard / best	Notes
Foot (healthy adult, track)	25–30 km/day	40 km/day	Halve in mud season or trackless forest; a starving fugitive in bog manages 10–15
Mounted party, one horse each	35–50 km/day	70 km/day for 2–3 days, then the horse breaks	Ch. 15’s dead horse after two days of hard riding is realistic
Courier with remounts (relay)	80–100 km/day	120–150 km/day	Needs prepared stations; Lithuania’s are ducal manors and hillforts
Army (summer)	15–25 km/day	30	The Wegeberichte’s night camps imply such stages
Sledge on river ice (winter)	40–60 km/day	80	The winter Reise’s secret
Boat downstream (Neris/Nemunas)	40–60 km/day	80 with rowing	Drifting barges are slower
Boat upstream	10–20 km/day	—	Towed or poled; rarely worth it
Rumour (market and road talk)	30–40 km/day	—	Moves at the speed of traders, faster at feasts

Route factor: ×1.2–1.3 over the straight line in settled country, ×1.4–1.6 through forest and bog.

D.2 Distance and time table¶

Route	Straight line	By route	Horse (normal / hard)	Foot	River	Notes
Trakai–Vilnius	~25 km	28–32 km	½ day / 3 h	1 day	—	A ducal retinue leaving at dawn arrives early afternoon. Ch. 4’s “late evening” arrival after a noon halt implies a slow procession
Vilnius–Krėva	~77 km	90–105 km via Medininkai and Ašmena	2 days / 1 long day	3–4 days	—	A prisoner convoy takes 2–3 days with nights at Medininkai and Ašmena
Trakai–Krėva	~90 km	110–125 km	2½ days / 1½	4–5 days	—	Seized near Trakai (record), Kęstutis reaches Krėva within ~3 days
Krėva–Palanga	~380 km	470–520 km (via Vilnius, Kaunas, central Samogitia)	10–13 days / 5–6 days with relays	3–4 weeks	—	The key news route; see D.3
Trakai–Palanga	~285 km	340–380 km	8–10 days / 4 with relays	2½–3 weeks	Partly by Neris–Nemunas, but the lower Nemunas is Order water	Birutė’s own journey after the arrest
Palanga–Vilnius	~300 km	350–400 km	8–10 days / 4	2½–3 weeks	—	Samogitian envoys’ road
Krėva–the Dykra (Naliboki edge)	30–60 km	—	½–1 day	1–2 days	—	Why ch. 15 works
Krėva–Prussian border	280–320 km	330–400 km (via Lida–Grodno across the Wildnis towards Lyck/Johannisburg, or via Vilnius–Kaunas to Ragnit)	8–10 days / 4–5 with remounts	3–5 weeks through bog	—	The direct route is watched
Krėva–Masovia	~300 km to the Narew/Biebrza frontier; ~420 km to Warsaw/Czersk	360 / 480–520 km	10–12 days to Czersk	4–5 weeks	—	Vytautas’s historical first leg
Masovia (Czersk)–Marienburg	~230 km	280–320 km	7–8 days	2 weeks	Down the Vistula: 5–6 days	His second leg
Vilnius–Marienburg	~410 km	550–650 km (via Kaunas, Insterburg, Königsberg, Elbing)	13–16 days; envoys ~2 weeks	4–5 weeks	Part by Nemunas–lagoon–Pregel	Jogaila’s envoys to the Order
Kaunas–Königsberg	~220 km	~250 km overland across the Wildnis; ~300–320 km by water (Nemunas to the delta, lagoon, Deime to Tapiau, Pregel)	6–8 days	2 weeks	Downstream 6–9 days; upstream 2–4 weeks	Tapiau is on this route
Vilnius–Kaunas	~95 km	~100 km road; Neris ~180–200 km of river	2½ days	4 days	Downstream 4–5 days	The Order’s winter road in reverse
Jurbarkas–Kaunas	~75 km	~85 km by Nemunas	2 days	3 days	2 days downstream	Vytautas burns both in days (July 1384)
Vilnius–Kraków	~630 km	750–850 km	3–4 weeks	6 weeks	—	1385–87 embassies; Jogaila’s winter journey to Vilnius, 1387
Vilnius–Kyiv	~590 km	750–800 km	3–4 weeks	6 weeks	Dnieper for the last leg	Book II
Marienburg–Grunwald	~95 km	~110 km	3 days	4–5 days	—	Book III