ALBUM INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time, like today, evil and injustice ruled the world. The worst murderers and villains were highly honored and written with golden letters in history books as the makers of the greatest deeds!

But those who were oppressed and humiliated patiently waited for their own heroes to come and put an end to all malignity and injustice.

It’s almost impossible to find the names of those heroes in history books, though their images and deeds have grown into folktales and legends made by common people, possibly the tale of Kurbads as well.

The legend of Kurbads, son of the mare, was written down in the late of 19th century by local folk enthusiasts, when they started to collect all the heritage of the nation such as folksongs, tales, legends, riddles, and magic incantations.

Kurbads is one part of an entire set of folktales mostly represented by the tale of the son of the bear or Lāčausis (Bear-ear). It’s a story about a young lad who was born from a bear and a human, became very strong, and went out into the world to fight evil and monsters.

In my opinion, the core of this folktale came from very ancient times, possibly from the Stone Age, when the progenitor of kin can be some mythical animal or god. All in all, these stories show us an initiation ritual for a young boy as he encounters various challenges, even traveling to the realm of the Underworld and back, to finally return as a mature man and also a warrior. There can be also felt a nation’s fight against invaders and oppressors, who are shown here as devils, witches, and other monsters.

It is understandable that, as these folktales were passed down from generation to generation, a lot was forgotten, changed, or made anew. Some things may possibly have been adopted from folktales of neighboring nations as well as created by storytellers or those who recorded theses tales themselves.

Of course, even I changed some things when I wrote the lyrics, because of song itself and given time, but in the end that is just a little matter – the main story left unchanged.

Baltic cultural heritage is mostly unknown throughout the rest of the Europe - even though it is part of it - and the world, so here we want to reveal a bit of it for you…

PETER