Norbertas Vėlius (1 January 1938 in Gulbės, near

Šilalė Šilalė (; Samogitian dialect, Samogitian: ''Šėlalė'', ) is a city in western Lithuania, Samogitia, Tauragė County. It is located north of Tauragė. The River Lokysta flows through the town and there is a pond in the centre of the town. H ...

– 23 June 1996 in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, buried in the Antakalnis Cemetery) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n folklorist specializing in

Lithuanian mythology Lithuanian mythology () is the mythology of Lithuanians, Lithuanian polytheism, the religion of pre-Christian Lithuanians. Like other Indo-European studies, Indo-Europeans, Lithuanians (tribe), ancient Lithuanians maintained a polytheistic myth ...

Major works

*''Mitinės lietuvių sakmių būtybės'' (1977) *''Laumių dovanos'' (1979) (translated into Russian as ''Цветок папоротника: литовские мифологические сказания'' in 1989, into English as ''Lithuanian mythological tales'' in 1998) *''Senovės baltų pasaulėžiūra'' (1983) (translated into English as ''The World Outlook of the Ancient Balts'' in 1989) *''Chtoniškasis lietuvių mitologijos pasaulis'' (1987) *''Baltų religijos ir mitologijos šaltiniai'', 4 volumes (1996–2005). 1938 births 1996 deaths Lithuanian mythology researchers 20th-century Lithuanian historians People from Tauragė County Burials at Antakalnis Cemetery {{Lithuania-historian-stub