Baltic mythology is the body of
mythology of the
Baltic people stemming from Baltic paganism and continuing after
Christianization and into Baltic folklore. Baltic mythology ultimately stems from
Proto-Indo-European mythology. The Baltic region was one of the last regions of Europe to be Christianized, a process that began in the 15th century and continued for at least a century afterward. While no native texts survive detailing the mythology of the Baltic peoples during the pagan period, knowledge of such beliefs may be gained from Russian and German chronicles, from later folklore, from
etymology and from the reconstructions of
comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics.Littleton, p. 32 Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used ...
.
[Puhvel (1989:222-229).]
While the early chronicles (14th and 15th century) were largely the product of missionaries who sought to eradicate the native paganism of the Baltic peoples, rich material survives into Baltic folklore. This material has been of particular value in
Indo-European studies as, like the
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. Together with the Slavic lang ...
, it is considered by scholars to be notably conservative, reflecting elements of
Proto-Indo-European religion. The Indo-European
Divine Twins are particularly well represented as the ''
Dieva dēli'' (Latvian 'sons of god') and ''Dievo sūneliai'' (Lithuanian 'sons of god'). According to folklore, they are the children of ''Dievas'' (Lithuanian and Latvian - see Proto-Indo-European *
Dyeus). Associated with the brothers and their father are two goddesses; the personified
Sun, ''
Saule'' (Latvian 'sun') and ''Saules meita'' (Latvian 'Sun's daughter').
[Mallory & Adams (1997:163).]
See also
*
Latvian mythology
*
Lithuanian mythology
*
Prussian mythology
*
Baltic neopaganism
**
Romuva (religion)
Romuva is a neo-pagan movement derived from the traditional mythology of the Lithuanians, attempting to reconstruct the religious rituals of the Lithuanians before their forced Christianization in 1387. Practitioners of Romuva claim to cont ...
Notes
References
*
Puhvel, Jaan (1989
987
Year 987 ( CMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* February 7 – Bardas Phokas (the Younger) and Bardas Skleros, two membe ...
. ''Comparative Mythology''.
Johns Hopkins University Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...
.
*
Mallory, J. P. Adams, Douglas Q. (Editors) (1997). ''
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
''.
Taylor & Francis.
Further reading
* Balode-Anelauskaitė, Laimutė. "Baltic names of deities in the hydronyms of Latvia and Lithuania". In: ''Perspectives of Baltic philology''. 1 / ed. by Jowita Niewulis-Grablunas, Justyna Prusinowska, Ewa Stryczyńska-Hodyl. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Rys, 2008. pp. 21-40. .
* Běťáková, Marta Eva;
Blažek, Václav. ''Encyklopedie baltské mytologie''. Praha: Libri. 2012. .
*
*
* Calin, Didier.
Indo-European Poetics and the Latvian Folk Songs'. Riga: 1996. Thesis (expanded version).
* Dini P. U., Mikhailov N.
Materiali preliminari per una bibliografia della Mitologia baltica In: ''Res Balticae'', Nr. 03, 1997. pp. 165-213.
* Dini P. U., Mikhailov N.
Materiali preliminari per una bibliografia della Mitologia Baltica. II In: ''Res Balticae'', Nr. 7, 2001. pp. 101–116.
*
*
Vėlius, Norbertas. ''Senovės baltų pasaulėžiūra: struktūros bruožai''
he World Outlook of the Ancient Balts
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
Vilnius: Mintis, 1983.
* Young, Francis. ''Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic: Sixteenth-Century Ethnographic Accounts of Baltic Paganism''. Arc Humanities Press, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781802700213.
* Zaroff, Roman. "Some aspects of pre-Christian Baltic religion". In: ''New researches on the religion and mythology of the Pagan Slavs''. Edited by Patrice Lajoye. Paris: Lingva, 2019. pp. 183–219.
* ''Lietuvių mitologija''. T. 3. Sudarė N. Vėlius ir Gintaras Beresnevičius, G. Beresnevičius. Vilnius: Mintis, 2004.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baltic Mythology
Baltic mythology,
Baltic religion, Mythology
Indo-European mythology