The blue-fire money of Kirgjärv

Kirgjärv, a small lake at Mäeküla below the old Sangaste hillfort, is said to cover a town that sank in a sudden cloudburst while a herd boy shouted his warning in vain. The drowned town still keeps its treasure. A man who tried to drain the lake went blind. A woman once found a heap of money on the hillside burning with blue fire and carried it home, but at once her nose began to bleed and would not stop. An old woman told her to take the money back and leave one of her own coins in its place; she did, and the bleeding ceased. On Midsummer night church bells and music rise from the water. The lake lies among quiet farmland.