Как обещала - несколько легенд (нашла-таки свой доклад, так что можете совершенствовать свой английский!).
Об основании Вильнюса:
According to the legend, Grand Duke Gediminas is held to be the founder of the city.
It is said that in the 14th century on the place of the present Cathedral and around there were forests. Once Gediminas went hunting to those forests and stayed for night in the camp near the pagan shrine of Perkūnas. He had a dream of a giant wolf wearing iron armour and howling as loudly as the hundred of wolves. In those times Lithuanians believed into the magical power of dreams, so Gediminas invited the priest Lizdeika, who told him that the dream meant that he should build a castle on the hill and a town around it.
Gediminas started building the castle at once and moved the capital from Trakai to Vilnius. There’s another legend, about the building of the castle.
Grand Duke Gediminas wanted to build a castle which would never be taken over by the Crusaders and which would become famous and glorify Lithuania all over the world. He asked his priests for advice and one of them said that it would only happen if the woman loving her homeland so much that she would agree to sacrifice her own son, pushing him into a pit and throwing a stone over him herself would be found. Soon, such a woman was really found. She came with her son, and was already going to push the stone, when the young man asked the Grand Duke the permission to ask his priests three questions. He said that if the priests would answer his questions, he would accept death without complains. Gediminas agreed. The young man asked what is the lightest, the sweetest and the hardest in the world. The priests answered that the fuzz is the lightest, the honey is the sweetest and the steel is the hardest. However, the man said the answers were wrong. He claimed that the lightest is the baby on mother’s arms, the sweetest is mother’s milk for the baby and the hardest is his mother’s, who decided to sacrifice him, heart. Grand Duke said that the young man’s sacrifice would not be accepted by Gods and that the man should be allowed to go home. And then he again asked his priests for advice. This time the priests said that a girl who would sacrifice herself should be found. Soon a girl was found. She came and jumped into the pit without regrets. The priests threw the stone, but it fell down without touching the girl. It only touched the flowers she was holding in her hands. Everybody was so touched that begged the Grand Duke to let the girl live. And then the Grand Duke said, that Gods do not want the human’s lives as a sacrifice, they are quite satisfied with flowers. He released the girl immediately and said that now he was sure that his castle would be exactly as he would like it to be and would glorify his homeland. So the Upper castle was built on the top of the hill.
