Case file · Folklore / legend
Gediminas' dream of the iron wolf
Lithuanian tradition holds that Grand Duke Gediminas, camping after a hunt, dreamed of an iron wolf howling on a hill, and that the pagan priest Lizdeika told him to found a city there: Vilnius.
1322 CE · 54.69, 25.29 · status: legend
The account
The fortress was built where the Vilnia meets the Neris, and Gediminas' letters of 1323 are the first to name Vilnius as his capital. The legend inspired Adam Mickiewicz and other Romantic writers and is still the city's founding myth.
The sceptical view
The year is traditional; the legend is known from later chronicles, not from Gediminas' time.