Baltaragis's Mill (, "Baltaragis's Mill, or What Once Happened in the PaudruvÃÂs Land") is a 1945 fantasy novel by Lithuanian writer Kazys Boruta.The story is about a pact of a miller with a devil, which includes a rash promise. It is based on Lithuanian folklore. Unlike most stories of the type, there was no happy end to anybody: the miller and most of main characters suffer or die and even the devil is killed by the pagan god Perkunas. In 1962 a revised version was published.
The story was translated in several languages.
The plot includes the following rash promise motif.
The closest neighbor of Baltaragis PinÃÂiukas (PinÃÂukas), who is in fact the local devil and lives in the swamp, comes to Baltaragis and makes an offer to help Baltragis to marry a beautiful girl MarcelÃÂ, demanding in return something for himself that Baltaragis does not have today, but will have when he gets married. Baltragis and Marcelàhave a beautiful daughter Jurga. Some time later Marcelàdies. PinÃÂiukas comes to demand his bounty: to marry Jurga. Baltragis deceives PinÃÂiukas: instead of Jurga he gives him Urà ¡ulÃÂ, his long-time demonstratively pious and superstitious servant, but Urà ¡ulàeventually manages to avoid this. Still, after this event, she is nicknamed "the devil's bride". Urà ¡ulÃÂ, taking revenge, tells the worst things about Baltaragis and his daughter Jurga in the village. After some time PinÃÂiukas sees beautiful Jurga and realizes he was deceived. After that he starts chasing off Jurga's suitors, so she cannot get married... There is no happy end to anybody in the end.
In 1973 Vyacheslav Ganelin wrote an opera based on it. The composer called the genre "rhythm-opera", a hint to the term "rock opera", bearing in mind Jesus Christ Superstar. The verse for it was written by the Lithuanian poet Sigitas Geda. In 1974 in Lithuania the first Soviet musical film Devil's Bride was produced which used Ganelin's music and which had become immensely popular. The plot of the musical was simplified compared to the original and less tragic.
In 1979 staged a ballet in the Lithuanian SSR State Opera and Ballet Theatre based on Ganelin's rhythm-opera. In 2011 Brazdylis recreated his ballet to a minute detail including decorations, to be performed by the students of the National M. K. ÃÂiurlionis School of Art.