The Five Elements and Their Zeniths

Lore of the Craft: Stars, Fire, Water, Earth and Wind

“The sky keeps a better calendar than the Church. Ask the stars at Kūčios and they answer for half the price. Ask them at noon and they send you the bill twice.”

[The saga’s invention] From a copyist’s marginal note in a Vilnius Franciscan psalter.

Five elements, five patrons

Senovės Kalba draws on five elements, each with a patron deity, a spoken line and a zenith: the hour at which the element listens best. This page follows Magic rules, §3.3 and §4.1, and the calendar, §3.3. For each element’s own page see Stars, Fire, Water, Earth and Wind.

[Historical record] Gabija (hearth fire), Žemyna (earth) and Saulė (the sun) are well attested. Praurimė, Bangpūtys and Vėjopatis rest on late or doubtful sources, and no Baltic source describes a five-element craft. The zeniths are [The saga’s invention].

The zenith table

Zeniths are astronomical, because the elements watch the sky, not the Church calendar. In the 1380s the pagan solstice night falls about 13 December, eleven days before Christian Kūčios.

Element	Patron	Line	Zenith	At zenith	Off zenith
Stars	Praurimė	Žvaigždės tau švytės	Winter-solstice midnight (Kūčios)	Cost halved	Doubled in daylight; impossible under overcast
Fire	Gabija	Ugnis tau degs	Summer-solstice noon (Rasos)	Halved	Doubled in rain or floods
Water	Bangpūtys	Vanduo tau teks	Full moon or high tide; strongest at the spring ice-break	Halved	Doubled away from living water
Earth	Žemyna	Žemė tau laikys	Autumn-equinox dusk (Dagotuvės)	Halved	Impossible at sea or in the air
Wind	Vėjopatis	Vėjas tau neš	Storms; Vėlinės	Halved	Doubled in caves or still air

A calendar of the zeniths

Season	Julian date, 1380s	Festival	Element that listens
Spring	Equinox about 12 March; the first full moon after the ice goes out	Equinox feast	Water
Summer	About 13 to 14 June, at noon	Rasos	Fire
Autumn	About 14 to 15 September, at dusk	Dagotuvės	Earth
Autumn	Late October to 2 November, and any great storm	Vėlinės	Wind
Winter	About 13 December, at midnight	Kūčios	Stars

Two accounts differ: Water is tied to the spring equinox in one and to the full moon and the ice-break in Magic rules. The calendar reconciles them by a recommended rule, the first full moon after the ice-break, which this page follows.

Minor and major workings

A minor working is one candle-length. A major working is a night, an army or a life.

Element	Minor price	Major price
Stars (clear sight)	Hours of blindness	Blind for days, or one beloved face lost from memory for good
Fire (soul armour, strength)	Exhaustion	Soul-chill: empathy gone for days; the caster can kill without feeling
Water (healing, life spring)	Raging thirst	The caster takes part of the patient’s wound
Earth (unmovable will)	Stiffness	Petrification for the length of the effect; permanent loss of grace
Wind (shadow speed, far-speech)	Vertigo	Loss of voice, with only whistling for days, permanent with repeated use

The prices as the books pay them

Stars. Birutė’s vision in Book I ch. 3 falls at Dagotuvės, off zenith, so it costs double: blindness for “two days, maybe three”. In Book II ch. 27 Vytautas, with no surety, speaks the Five-Voice, and the Stars price is a face: Elena’s, who lay in his bed at Krėva, becomes “a smooth, worn emptiness”.

Fire. In Book II ch. 2 Vytautas holds his palm to the failing flame, and the soul-chill rises through wrist and elbow until looking at the kneeling smith “was like looking at a stone”. The spring damp doubled the price. In Book II ch. 11 a one-candle working over the ash-pot costs his legs, because rain and lake doubled it.

Water. At the ice-break in Book VI ch. 10 Birutė notes that the price is smaller. In Book II ch. 9 the Lagoon witch states the rule: whoever heals takes the wound into herself. See The Price.

Earth. In Book II ch. 19 the žynys Kantaudas speaks Žemė man laikys after Dagotuvės has passed: “the earth hears only half today; the price will be double”. He turns to stone against his oak.

Wind. The Krėva fog of Book I ch. 14 is cast at Vėlinės, “when the wind is strongest, and the price was half”: even so Birutė loses her voice. Her voice already comes out as a whistle in Book I ch. 11; after the fog “there was nothing left of that sound”.

Why timing matters to the plot

A zenith turns a hopeless working into a possible one. Book I ch. 14 and the Krėva escape date are set on the eve of Vėlinės for exactly this reason: Wind’s zenith halves the fog’s price. A writer who needs a working off zenith must show the doubled bill.