Legends about Prusian Cities

Abstract

The Prussian settlements contain archaeological information that can be enriched with data from folk legends about these fortified settlements. In the proposed article, several legends of Sambia (the Kaliningrad peninsula of the Kaliningrad region) are selected, the analysis of which allowed us to draw the following conclusions: in the names of the settlements there are rudiments of the Prussian language, which disappeared from local use in the beginning of the 18th century . In the array of legends about the Prussian settlements, some of which arose already in the 17th century, there are several sorts / types of texts. They have both local, Prussian, and external, Germanic origin. Some of the legends of Sambia are an echo of finds made not earlier than the time of the order on the sites of settlements or near them (treasures, individual valuable artifacts, sacrificial stones, etc.). Indirectly, this indicates that the authors of the legends and their narrators reported that the settlements were once the habitats of the local population. All of the above allows us to consider the legends about the Prussian settlements of Sambia as a special, but, nevertheless, interesting and important source of the settlement history of the center of the Prussian tribal area.