Būtingė Oak

Identification code: 0310505010192. Name of the natural heritage site: Būtingė Oak. Significance of the natural heritage object: Protected by the municipality. Type of botanical heritage object: Trees and shrubs. Tree or shrub genus: Oak. Cultural heritage object code: 0. Volume at 1.3 m height, m: 3.90 Height, m: 19.00. Location: Klaip?da County, Palanga Parish, Palanga m. Is the object a natural monument? Date of cadastral registration: 09.12.2010. G. Mikalauskas, V. Jacunskas, 2012- 05-30 “The last old man in the huge Tyrlauki, where there is not a single tree for shade or a bird to land. And he, withered as he is, stands alone, like a monument. The famous Būtingė oak. It grew on the now defunct farmstead of a Chimpa who no one remembers. And a few steps towards the sea, a special spring gushed from the farmstead. It too has disappeared. Where there are springs, where there are oaks, there are direct references to the old white niches. At the beginning of the 20th century, on Easter mornings, people came here to bathe and girls ran barefoot to fetch water, calling the spring Čimpos avots. In Latvian, “avots” means “spring”. If rituals related to springs or oaks have been preserved in people’s memories over the centuries, they usually date back to the time of the Baltic tribes. The true meaning of these rituals was lost from generation to generation. And there must have been a Curonian niche here, because the very name of Būtingė is a Curonian linguistic heritage. Moreover, this place is located in the intertribal desert between the Iron Age lands of Mėguva and Duvzarė, a place of the dead and a place of worship. The oak tree is like a magnet as you walk along the great coastal plains. It stands like a living and beckoning allusion to what was, but has been irretrievably lost” (Denis Nikitenko, 2015)

Palanga, (Būtingė)