The deep antiquity of Salanti is reminiscent of the hill rising above the town in the winding Salanto Valley, called Gaidys Hill. According to legend, it got its name because in ancient times, passers-by were frightened by the piercing cry of a rooster coming from the hill in the evenings. It only stopped after a chapel was built on the hill. According to other stories, an old church called Skiland (Salanta) stood on the site of the chapel. After the chapel was destroyed, the owner of a nearby brick factory, Juozas Pabrezas, built a beautiful neo-Gothic chapel in the interwar period. During the Soviet era, the chapel was destroyed. In 1988, it was restored by sculptor Vilius Orvidas (brother of Gabrielius OFS), who installed an altar inside with a sculptural composition entitled ‘Ave Marija’. Another legend says that in ancient times, priestesses lived here who raised snakes for the temple of the god of the mountain Alka Pilvitis (Pilnytis). This god loved chicken legs, so the locals brought them to the priestesses. It is said that this is why the area came to be called Skilandžiai. This name was first mentioned in 1556, and the town that grew up in this area around 1640 began to be called Salantai. Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric burial site in the southwestern part of the hill, evidenced by three preserved burial mounds. Research of the large burial mound showed that it consists of two concentric ramparts with a diameter of 5 and 10 metres, over which a mound of sand and stones has been piled. Between the ramparts, four small oval ridges were discovered in the burial mound, in which the burials of cremated people and small clay jugs were found. The burial mounds were used to bury the dead in the 4th–1st centuries BC. It is believed that in the northern part of the hill, a significant part of which has been excavated, there was a later cemetery – a burial ground dating back to the 1st millennium. On the eastern slope of Gaizhsky Hill lies a stone with a levelled surface associated with ancient religious rituals. Another ritual stone, with its flat side facing downwards, lies in a nearby pile of stones. It is also said that there is a large stone on Gaidi Mountain that the devil carried to block the door of the church in Salanta, but early in the morning, when the cock crowed, he lost it here.