Vytautas secretly lights the Last Flame¶

What the chronicles say [Historical record]¶

Nothing in the record. Długosz reports that when Jogaila came to Vilnius in 1387 he put out the sacred fire, felled the sacred groves and had the sacred snakes killed (the details are of disputed accuracy). Whether any ember survived the extinguishing is not asked in the sources; that is the gap the saga fills.

Vytautas secretly lights the Last Flame


Tipas	įvykis
Metai	1387
Status	Sagos išmonė
Knyga	I · Vilko Tremtis
Skyriai	29
Pastaba	Night of the 1387 baptism: Vytautas secretly rekindles the Last Flame in the ruins.

What really happened [The saga’s invention]¶

That night Vytautas rides out alone to the wet black ashes of the Šventaragis hearth, kneels where the fire burned the day before, and finds in the ashes one red grain, no larger than a pea, that never went out. He carries it in a clay cup under his cloak to Kęstutis’s old hunting lodge beyond the Neris, a windowless hut that no one in Jogaila’s service knows of. He lights it with birch bark. „Kol aš gyvas, paskutinė ugnis neužges.“ The scar over his heart warms. If it dies while he lives, the debt of the Sutartis falls on him. The wolves answer from the forest, from several sides.

The flame moves later: to the half-flooded foundations of the Trakai island castle (Book II ch. 2), and after Ostrów to a dry vault (ch. 11); it goes out at his death in 1430 (the Last Flame ember).

Consequences¶

Caused by the baptism of Lithuania. It creates the ember and makes Vytautas the keeper of the only flame the vilkatai can still serve. The event takes place at Kęstutis’s hunting lodge beyond the Neris, not at Trakai; the moves to Trakai come in Book II. Kalvis guards the lodge flame; later keepers are Spyglys and the Flame-Keeper Žiežirba.

Dramatisation¶

Book I ch. 29 „Krikštas“ (Vytautas; the night after the baptism in the Neris, February 1387) and Book II ch. 2 „Salos Pamatai“ (Vytautas; the following spring, the flame moved to the island foundations).

Ryšiai

Caused by: Baptism of Lithuania; Šventaragis flame put out

Causes: Paskutinė žarija (Šventaragis ember)

Location: Kęstutis’s hunting lodge beyond the Neris

Participants: Vytautas

Sąsajos¶

graph LR
  ember["Paskutinė žarija (Šventaragis ember)"]
  ev_flame_lit["Vytautas secretly lights the Last Flame"]
  ev_lithuania_baptism["Baptism of Lithuania; Šventaragis flame put out"]
  kestutis_lodge["Kęstutis's hunting lodge beyond the Neris"]
  vytautas["Vytautas"]
  ev_flame_lit -->|Causes| ember
  ev_flame_lit -->|Location| kestutis_lodge
  ev_lithuania_baptism -->|Causes| ev_flame_lit
  vytautas -->|Took part in| ev_flame_lit
  style ev_flame_lit stroke-width:3px